#54 On the nature of God: learning from the prophets: Zechariah: chapters 7-8

What kind of questions would these Jewish people—just migrated from Babylon to bleak, burned Jerusalem—have? ‘Is God with us?’ ‘Can we build the city back?’ ‘Is God really responsible for us coming home?’ Of all the myriad of questions that they may have asked, we know one for certain that they did ask, Zechariah 7:3:

“Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

This fast was to remember the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians. (The Jews also had two other feasts—both to remember events in the destruction of Jerusalem.)

However, God had commanded only one time of fasting (afflicting themselves)—the day of atonement, Leviticus 23:27:

“Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the LORD.”

Now that the temple was being rebuilt, they asked if they should continue this fast.

This question may seem trivial. However, the answer underlies a fundamental principle that should be part of this new era that God is establishing, Zechariah 7:5:

“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?”

What God is saying is that these unauthorized feasts were set up for the benefit of the people, not God. They should not have added unauthorized fasts to their religious services. Instead, they should have worshipped God exactly according to His commands and neither added to or taken away from them.

Then God gave a list of the actions He had desired of the people before they were taken into captivity, Zechariah 7:9-10:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

Before captivity, the people would not listen to the voice of God via the prophets. Then, when they were attacked by the Babylonians, they had cried to God. But He would not listen to a people that had not listened to Him.

Now God is initiating and restoring correct worship. This would mean that God once again would dwell in Jerusalem and be jealous for the nation. As a reassurance, God promised that older citizens and young children would again grace the streets.

God reminds them that before the captivity, He had only sent disaster. Now He would bring about good.

Then God reminds them as to how they should act, Zachariah 8:16-17:

“These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD.”

These commands and promises look to the future when all people would be welcome to be a part of God’s people, Zechariah 8:22-23:

“Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

These times would come during New Testament days after Jesus set up His spiritual kingdom, the church.

God is correcting their thinking about obedience. They should keep fasts only when God had authorized them by His word. This is also true of God’s spiritual kingdom, the church. Only those items authorized in the New Testament should be practiced.

This restoration of the kingdom in the days of Zechariah was meant to last until the Messiah came.

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