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Hypocritical Fasting Condemned

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the L ord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. ²Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favor of the L ord, ³and to ask the priests of the house of the L ord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” ⁴Then the word of the L ord of hosts came to me: ⁵Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? ⁶And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink only for yourselves? ⁷Were not these the words that the L ord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, along with the towns around it, and when the Negeb and the Shephelah were inhabited?

Punishment for Rejecting God’s Demands

⁸ The word of the L ord came to Zechariah, saying: ⁹Thus says the L ord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; ¹⁰do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. ¹¹But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. ¹²They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the L ord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the L ord of hosts. ¹³Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the L ord of hosts, ¹⁴and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet sets forth more fully the dreadfulness of this punishment — that they in vain groaned and complained, for God was deaf to their complaints and cryings. When God in some measure fulminates and becomes soon reconciled, he does not seem to be greatly incensed, but when the miserable whom he afflicts by his hand, avail nothing by their entreaties and prayers, it then appears evident that God is in no common degree offended. This then is what the Prophet meant by saying, that they were not heard by God when they cried.

But we must notice what is said of their perverseness; for he says, that God had called, and that he was not heard by them. Now it cannot be deemed an unjust reward, that God should punish the contempt of his word; for how great is the honor by which he favors miserable wretches, when he invites them to himself, and most expressly invites them? When, therefore, the calling of God is thus rejected and despised, do not they who are so refractory deserve what the Prophet declares here — that they would have to cry in vain, as God would be deaf to their groanings?

As to the words, the change of person may embarrass the unlettered, but it is a mode of speaking common to the Prophets, for they assume the person of God in order to gain more authority to their doctrine; and they spoke sometimes in the third and sometimes in the first person: when in the first God himself speaks, and when in the third it is in the character of ministers, who declare and deliver, as it were from hand to hand, what had been committed to them by God. Hence the Prophet in the first clause speaks as God’s minister; he afterwards assumes his person, as though he were God himself. But this, as it has been said, was done with regard to the word delivered. It was, that as he called and they heard not, etc. Who called? It is not right to apply this, as some do, to the Prophet; he, therefore, charges here the Jews, no doubt, with the sin of turning a deaf ear to God’s word. So, he says, they shall call, and I will not hear. It might have been said, “so they shall call, and the Lord will not hear.” There is in the meaning, as we see, nothing obscure or ambiguous. ⁷⁷⁷⁷     The verse may be thus literally rendered —

   13. And it was, as he had called, and they heard not, So “call shall they do, and I will not hear,” Said Jehovah of hosts.
   The Prophet relates what Jehovah had said when the Jews refused to hear him. The verb [אמר] here, as in a former instance, is to be rendered in the past tense. It is improperly rendered “saith” in our version, and also by Newcome and Henderson. The past tense is observed by Marckius. Then the beginning of the following verse is a continuation of what Jehovah had said—

   14. “And I will drive them as by a whirlwind Among all the nations whom they know not;” And the land became desolate after them, Without a passenger and without an inhabitant; Yea, they made the land of delight a desolation.
   The first two lines are literally thus—
   “And I will whirlwind them
Over all the nations whom they know not.”
   In the three last lines the Prophet states what the effect had been.
   Newcome says, that [ם], “them,” after “know,” is redundant. It is an instance of two pronouns, relative and personal, “whom they knew them not.” It is the same in Welsh, “Y rhai nad adwaenant hwynt.” — Ed.

The import of the whole then is, that God had not threatened in vain by his ancient Prophets; but that as he had denounced vengeance by the mouth of Isaiah, so it had been executed on the Jews, for they had without effect cried, and found God a severe judge, whose voice they had previously despised. We indeed know, that it is a truth often repeated, that the ungodly are not heard by God; nay, that their prayers are abominable; for they profane God’s name by an impure heart and mouth whenever they flee to him, as they approach him without faith and repentance. We then learn from these words, that those who perversely despise God’s word deservedly rot in their own calamities; for it is by no means right or reasonable that the Lord should be ready to hear the crying of those who turn a deaf ear to his voice. It follows —

⁷⁷ The verse may be thus literally rendered — 13. And it was, as he had called, and they heard not, So “call shall they do, and I will not hear,” Said Jehovah of hosts. The Prophet relates what Jehovah had said when the Jews refused to hear him. The verb [אמר] here, as in a former instance, is to be rendered in the past tense. It is improperly rendered “saith” in our version, and also by Newcome and Henderson. The past tense is observed by Marckius. Then the beginning of the following verse is a continuation of what Jehovah had said— 14. “And I will drive them as by a whirlwind Among all the nations whom they know not;” And the land became desolate after them, Without a passenger and without an inhabitant; Yea, they made the land of delight a desolation. The first two lines are literally thus— “And I will whirlwind them Over all the nations whom they know not.” In the three last lines the Prophet states what the effect had been. Newcome says, that [ם], “them,” after “know,” is redundant. It is an instance of two pronouns, relative and personal, “whom they knew them not.” It is the same in Welsh, “Y rhai nad adwaenant hwynt.” — Ed.