Context No. 3093 of 4322 · Zechariah
Context · Reflection
Zechariah 7:1-7: in context
1In the fourth year of King Darius, the LORD’s word came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. 2The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat the LORD’s favor, 3and to speak to the priests of the house of the LORD of Armies and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?” 4Then the word of the LORD of Armies came to me, saying, 5“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me? 6When you eat and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7Aren’t these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”
The people send messengers to ask the priests and prophets a question: should we keep mourning and fasting in the fifth month, as we have done for so many years now? But God, through Zechariah, does not answer the ritual question directly. Instead he probes the heart behind it: when you fasted and mourned for these seventy years, was it really for me, for me? And when you eat and drink, do you not do it for yourselves?
God pierces through the outward act to ask about its inner aim. Seventy years of fasting, and his question is simply, was it for me? Religious observance can quietly become self-focused, a habit performed out of duty or grief, without real reference to God at all. He asks whether their fasting is truly directed to him, or whether it is, like their ordinary eating and drinking, something they do for themselves. The question exposes how easily even worship curves back around onto the self.
When I perform my religious duties, fasting, worship, giving, are they truly directed to God, or have they quietly become things I do for myself?
Sources
- Zechariah 7:5: "When you fasted and mourned... did you at all fast to me, really to me?"
- Isaiah 58:6: "Isn't this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke?"
- Matthew 6:16: "When you fast, don't be like the hypocrites, with sad faces."