Zaccaria 7:5

5 "Parla a tutto il popolo del paese e ai sacerdoti, e di’: Quando avete digiunato e fatto cordoglio il quinto e il settimo mese durante questi settant’anni, avete voi digiunato per me, proprio per 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 parlare ai sacerdoti della casa dell’Eterno degli eserciti e ai profeti, in questo modo: "Dobbiam noi continuare a piangere il quinto mese e a fare astinenza come abbiam fatto per tanti anni?"

4 E la parola dell’Eterno mi fu rivolta in questi termini:

5 "Parla a tutto il popolo del paese e ai sacerdoti, e di’: Quando avete digiunato e fatto cordoglio il quinto e il settimo mese durante questi settant’anni, avete voi digiunato per me, proprio per me?

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

7 Non dovreste voi dare ascolto alle parole che l’Eterno degli eserciti ha proclamate per mezzo dei profeti di prima, quando Gerusalemme era abitata e tranquilla, con le sue città all’intorno, ed eran pure abitati il mezzogiorno e la pianura?"