Zacharia 7:5

5 Spreek tot het ganse volk dezes lands, en tot de priesters, zeggende: Toen gij vasttet en rouwklaagdet, in de vijfde en in de zevende maand, namelijk nu zeventig jaren, hebt gijlieden Mij, Mij enigszins gevast?

Zacharia 7:5 Meaning and Commentary

Zechariah 7:5

Speak unto all the people of the land
Of Judea, who had sent these men on this errand, and whom they represented, and in whose name they spake: and to the priests;
who were consulted on this occasion: saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth;
on the seventh or tenth day of the fifth month Ab, on account of the temple being burnt by Nebuchadnezzar: and seventh [month];
the month Tisri, which answers to September; on the third day of this month a fast was kept on account of the murder of Gedaliah, ( Jeremiah 41:1 ) though Kimchi says he was slain on the first day of the month; but, because that was a feast day, keeping a day for a fast on this occasion was fixed on the day following: even those seventy years;
of their captivity, during which they kept the above fasts. The Jews say ^F23 there was no fast of the congregation, or public fast, kept in Babylon, but on the ninth of Ab, or the fifth month only; and if so, other fasts here, and in ( Zechariah 8:19 ) , must be private ones. These seventy years are to be reckoned from the nineteenth of Nebuchadnezzar, when the city was destroyed, to the second or fourth of Darius: did ye at all fast unto me, [even] to me?
the fast they kept was not according to the command of God, but an appointment of theirs; nor was it directed to his glory; nor was it any profit or advantage to him; and therefore it was nothing to him whether they fasted or not; see ( Isaiah 58:3-7 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 54. 2.

Zacharia 7:5 In-Context

3 Zeggende tot de priesters, die in het huis des HEEREN der heirscharen waren, en tot de profeten, zeggende: Moet ik wenen in de vijfde maand, mij afzonderende, gelijk als ik gedaan heb nu zo vele jaren?

4 Toen geschiedde het woord des HEEREN der heirscharen tot mij, zeggende:

5 Spreek tot het ganse volk dezes lands, en tot de priesters, zeggende: Toen gij vasttet en rouwklaagdet, in de vijfde en in de zevende maand, namelijk nu zeventig jaren, hebt gijlieden Mij, Mij enigszins gevast?

6 Of als gij at, en als gij dronkt, waart gij het niet, die daar at, en gij, die daar dronkt?

7 Zijn het niet de woorden, welke de HEERE uitriep door den dienst der vorige profeten, toen Jeruzalem bewoond en gerust was, en haar steden rondom haar; en het zuiden en de laagte bewoond was?