NOTES for Zec 7:1-14

Not only particular individuals, but the whole era of the Temple's restoration becomes, in a certain sense, a foreshadowing of the time of the Messiah's coming. Much changes with the advent of a new era, in both cases. Yet much also remains unchanged, as an eternal ordinance of the Almighty. What the prophet Zechariah tells the reader in chapter 7 marks the distinction between what is changeable and what is constant, a distinction radically at odds with conventional notions both in antiquity and in our own time.

The Jews who remained in Babylon, governed by the Persian king Darius, who was favourably disposed towards them, send envoys to Jerusalem asking whether they should observe the now traditional fasts of the fifth and seventh months. The first was established after 587 BC as a sign of mourning for Jerusalem's destruction; the second arose at about the same time in memory of the Jews' last uprising and the murder of Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had left to govern conquered Judaea. Now the Temple in Jerusalem is being rebuilt: must they continue to mourn the destruction of the former one? As far as we can tell, the Babylonian Jews' envoys expect one of two answers. Perhaps the priests and prophets will rule that the fast should be abolished, since the cause of mourning has ceased to exist. Or perhaps they will decide to retain it as a traditional observance marking an important turning point in the people's history…

But the answer the Lord gives through Zechariah lies in an entirely different dimension and is striking in its bitterness. At almost the same time the Lord speaks of the same thing through Second Isaiah; it is even possible that the two prophets, Second Isaiah and Zechariah, are answering the very same question. In both cases the Lord rejects the traditional fasts as something people do not for His sake but for their own. ‘Was it for Me that you fasted?’ Zechariah exclaims in the Lord's name. ‘Look, on your fast day you do your own will and demand hard labour from others,’ He says through Second Isaiah (Isa 58:3). A traditional ritual observance proves empty and meaningless because the Lord is not its purpose. What else, one might ask, could be the purpose of such a religious practice as fasting? No, says the Lord: the Jews fasted not for Him but for themselves, to console themselves in their grief, to express their sorrow, ‘to appear to people to be fasting’, as the Lord Jesus Christ will formulate this thought. A deeply personal experience of grief and repentance took on a public character among the Babylonian Jews and became ostentatious and insincere.

And through Zechariah and Second Isaiah the Lord says what the Jews really needed, what should have expressed their repentance and sorrow. ‘Thus spoke the Lord of hosts then [before the captivity]: administer fair judgement and show mercy and compassion, each to his brother,’ Zechariah reminds them. Second Isaiah says, ‘This is the fast I have chosen: loose the fetters of injustice, undo the bonds of the yoke, set the oppressed free and break every yoke; share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house…’ (Isa 58:6–7). What matters to God is not the outward expression of remorse but, in John the Baptist's words, ‘fruit worthy of repentance’. With bitterness, the prophet Zechariah exclaims that it is precisely to mercy, compassion and active love of one's neighbour that the Lord calls people, and that this could have protected Jerusalem from destruction, because this is precisely what God's righteousness consists in. But the Jews ‘would not listen… and so the Lord's great anger came upon them’: the prophet reminds them of what his predecessors announced long before.

Clearly, as historical conditions change, the requirement of mercy and compassion remains unchanged; mercy is precisely the fruit of repentance and purification that the Lord awaits. Traditional observances, by contrast, do not even merit discussion, so closely are they tied to particular historical circumstances and the spiritual tasks of their time. We cannot fail to notice that Christ will say exactly the same thing to the Jews when He reminds them of the prophet Hosea's words: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings’ (Hos 6:6, Mt 9:13). Yet then, too, as in the days of Second Isaiah and Zechariah, the Jews will refuse to listen to Him. Replacing the fruit of repentance with its outward expression is all too convenient for people, and this problem is not peculiar to the Jews.