Zechariah 7

A Call to Justice and Mercy

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. ²Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before Yahweh ³by asking the priests of the house of Yahweh of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”

• ZECH 7:1[NOTE]THE FOURTH YEAR OF DARIUS. December 7, 518 BC, almost two years after the night visions.
• ZECH 7:3[NOTE]THE FIFTH MONTH. The month the temple burned, 2 Kings 25:8 to 9. With the new temple going up, did they still need to mourn the old one?

⁴Then the word of Yahweh of Hosts came to me, saying, ⁵“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? ⁶And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves? ⁷Are these not the words that Yahweh proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were populous and prosperous, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’”

• ZECH 7:5[NOTE]THE SEVENTH MONTH. Most think the fast for Gedaliah, the governor murdered after Jerusalem fell, 2 Kings 25:25.

⁸Then the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah, saying, ⁹“This is what Yahweh of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another. ¹⁰Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

¹¹But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing. ¹²They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that Yahweh of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from Yahweh of Hosts.

• ZECH 7:12[HEART]They made their hearts as hard as flint so they would not hear the law.
• ZECH 7:12[NOTE]HEARTS LIKE FLINT. Flint is one of the hardest stones. Ezekiel 36:26 promises a heart of flesh instead.

¹³And just as I had called and they would not listen, so when they called I would not listen, says Yahweh of Hosts. ¹⁴But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”