A Call for Justice and Mercy. Zechariah 7:1-14
INTRODUCTION TO ZECHARIAH
The prophet Zechariah lived at the same time as Haggai and was interested in the same effort to induce the Jews to carry on the rebuilding of their neglected Temple. The prophecies are dated a few years later than those of Haggai. In contrast to the direct and simple language of Haggai, Zechariah employs many figures and symbols to enforce his message. He especially wished to give encouragement and help to the leader and governor of the people, Zerubbabel, and the priest Joshua.
In the latter part of the book there are many pictures of the glorious and happy future, which God had in store for His people and of the Deliverer, who was to come to rule over them. There will come a great day “when the Lord shall be King over all the earth.”
The Oracle of the Lord of Hosts
II. REPLY TO DEPUTATION FROM BETHEL, Zechariah 7-8
1. God Demands Obedience, Not Fasting, Zec_7:1-7
2. Warnings from the Past, Zec_7:8-14
A CALL FOR JUSTICE AND MERCY
In the fourth year of [the reign of] King Darius [of Persia], the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev (Dec 7, 518 B.C.).
Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD,
speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts and to the prophets, saying, “[Now that I am returned from exile] shall I weep in the fifth month [mourning the destruction of the temple], and fast as I have done these many years [in Babylon]?”
Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me (Zechariah), saying,
“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years [that you were in exile], was it actually for Me that you fasted?
When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves [to satisfy your own needs]?
Should you not hear the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with her cities around her, and the South (the Negev) and the foothills were inhabited?'”
Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,
“Thus has the LORD of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion, to each other;
and do not oppress or exploit the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise or even imagine evil in your hearts against one another.’
But they refused to listen and pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder [stiffening themselves in resistance] and stopped up their ears.
They made their hearts [hard] like flint, so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts;
“but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted.'”
THE PENALTY OF INJUSTICE AND CRUELTY
During their captivity the Jews observed four feasts. That of the 10th month recalled the first enclosure of Jerusalem by the enemies’ lines; of the 4th the capture of the city; of the 5th the destruction by fire of the Temple; of the 7th the murder of Gedaliah. The national life was depressed by this constant memory of disaster. It seemed incongruous to act thus, when the Holy City was rising from the dust. Surely the lamentations which were befitting in Babylon, were out of place now. A deputation was therefore sent to inquire the views of the leaders. Zechariah gave four separate answers to the request. In Zec_7:4-7 he suggests that as these fasts had been set up by themselves, they were at liberty to discontinue them, and the main question was whether they were pondering the teachings and warnings of the older prophets. In Zec_7:8-14 he implored them not to yield to the obtuseness and disobedience of their fathers, in order that no second catastrophe should cast them back to the disasters they had suffered.
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