Zaccaria 7:5

5 Parla a tutto il popolo del paese, ed ai sacerdoti, dicendo: Quando voi avete digiunato, e pianto, nel quinto, e nel settimo mese, lo spazio di settant’anni, avete voi pur digiunato a me?

Zaccaria 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.

Zaccaria 7:5 In-Context

3 e per dire a’ sacerdoti della Casa del Signor degli eserciti, ed a’ profeti, in questa maniera: Piangerò io nel quinto mese, separandomi, come ho fatto già per tanti anni?

4 E la parola del Signore mi fu indirizzata, dicendo:

5 Parla a tutto il popolo del paese, ed ai sacerdoti, dicendo: Quando voi avete digiunato, e pianto, nel quinto, e nel settimo mese, lo spazio di settant’anni, avete voi pur digiunato a me?

6 E quando voi mangiate, e quando bevete, non siete voi quelli che mangiate, e che bevete?

7 Non son queste le parole che il Signore ha fatte predicare per li profeti de’ tempi passati, mentre Gerusalemme era abitata, e tranquilla, insieme con le sue città d’intorno; ed era parimente abitata la parte meridionale, e la pianura?