Zechariahchapter 7
14 verses · Zechariah · 520 to 518 BC · The Twelve
Key verse
And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
It stands in Execute true judgment: hearts made hard as adamant, verses 8 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Two years later a delegation arrives from Beth-el with a practical question: should we keep the fast for the temple's destruction now that the temple is being rebuilt? God answers a deeper question than the one asked. 'When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month these seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?' Their fasting and their feasting alike were for themselves. The former prophets said it when Jerusalem was still prosperous: 'show kindness and compassion every man to his brother; and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the sojourner, nor the poor.' They stopped their ears and made their hearts as an adamant stone. So the whirlwind scattered them.
Context
Prophecy · Zechariah · Zechariah overview
The world behind this chapter
Zechariah 7The history
Men come from Bethel with a practical question: should we keep weeping and fasting in the fifth month, as we have done these many years?
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The fifth-month fast marked the burning of the temple in 586 BC. The chapter also mentions the seventh-month fast, which commemorated the murder of Gedaliah, the governor Babylon left in charge, after which the last remnant fled to Egypt. Neither fast was commanded in the Law of Moses. They were invented by the exiles to mark national catastrophes.
The question is reasonable. The temple was more than half rebuilt. If the reason for the fast was going away, was the fast?
The answer does not address the calendar at all. "When ye fasted and mourned… did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?" Seventy years of religious observance, and God asks whether any of it was aimed at Him.
Then He restates what the earlier prophets had asked for and what had gotten the city burned in the first place: execute true judgment, show mercy and compassion, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the stranger, or the poor, and do not plot evil against each other.
The description of the refusal is vivid, they pulled away the shoulder, like an ox shrugging off a yoke, and stopped their ears, and made their hearts like an adamant stone.
What it meant to them
The delegation asked about liturgy and got asked about justice. That was the whole lesson of the exile compressed into one exchange.
It also warned a young community about the exact mistake their grandparents made. They were rebuilding the house where sacrifices would be offered. The generation that burned had also offered sacrifices there.
Sources cited
- Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Zechariah 7 falls in Fasts and future (chapters 7–8). Should the fasts continue? The ten promises of Zion's restoration.
Before it: Eight night visions and the crown, chapters 1–6. After it: Two burdens, chapters 9–14.
The whole shape of Zechariah→The structure of this chapter
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. When you fasted, was it really for me?
1. (vv. 1-3)
Zechariah 7:1
“In the fourth year of Darius - Two years after the series of visions, shown to him, and two years before the completion of the temple. Chisleu being December, it was the end of 518 b.c.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Zechariah 7:1
“Darius--two years after the previous prophecies (Zec 1:1, &c.). Chisleu--meaning "torpidity," the state in which nature is in November, answering to this month.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Zechariah 7:2
“When they had sent - Sherezer and Regem-melech - To inquire whether the fasts should be continued, which they had hitherto observed on account of their ruined temple; and the reason why they inquired was, that they were rebuilding that temple, and were likely to bring it to a joyful issue.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Zechariah 7:3
“Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself? - “In the fifth month,” from the seventh to the tenth day, Jerusalem was in flames, fired by Nebuchadnezzar. “He burnt the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem and every great man’s house he burnt with fire” .”
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 7:3
“The tenth day of the fifth month was kept a fast, being the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer 52:12-14). They ask, Should the fast be continued, now that the temple and city are being restored? separating myself--sanctifying myself by separation, not only from food, but from all defilements (compare Joe 2:16) as was usual in a solemn fast.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the fourth year of king Darius: The date sets the question two full years after the night visions of chapters 1 through 6, in the fourth year of Darius, when men from Bethel send Sherezer and Regemmelech to ask the priests and prophets whether the fast of the fifth month should continue. That fast marked Jerusalem's burning in the summer of 586 BC, and with the temple's rebuilding now underway the question is whether the old grief still fits the changed hour. Keil and Pusey read the very asking as significant, since the delegation puts the matter to both priest and prophet, law and living word, and the answer that follows addresses the heart behind the ritual rather than the ritual itself.
2. (vv. 4-7)
Zechariah 7:4
“Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying. Upon the sending of this embassy, and upon putting this question.”
Zechariah 7:5
“AFTER the Jewish people had been thoroughly cured of their idolatrous tendencies by their seventy years of captivity, they fell into another evil—they became superstitiously regardful of ceremonies but they lost the life and spirit of devotion and neglected the weightier matters of the Law. Phariseeism, in the spirit of it, had commenced, in the time of Zechariah. Great attention was paid to the formalities and externals of worship, but the vitality of godliness was unknown. The mint, the anise, the cummin of religion—these were all strictly tithed. But truth, mercy, charity, justice, were trod under foot.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 7:5
“Unto all the people - By their messengers. And seventh - For the murder of Gedaliah, slain by Ishmael. Even to me - You pleased yourselves in it, not me; you wept more for the inconveniences of the thing than the sinfulness of it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Zechariah 7:6
“And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink,.... Either at common meals, or at their festivals: did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? merely and only for their own refreshment and pleasure, and not for the glory of God; though that ought to be the principal end in eating and drinking, 1Co 10:31.”
Zechariah 7:7
“Should ye “not hear” the words, or, Know ye “not the words?” The verb is presupposed in the emphatic question, as in, “Shall I, the blood of these men?” 2Sa 23:17. David omits the word “drink” for abhorrence. By the former prophets - Isaiah and Jeremiah , “when Jerusalem was dwelling abidingly,” at ease, as the whole world then was, except herself, “and the south and the low-country,” both belonging to Judah, were inhabited.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 7:7
“Should ye not hear the words--rather, "Should ye not do the words," as their question naturally was as to what they should do (Zec 7:3); "hearing" is not mentioned till Zec 7:12. The sense is, It is not fasts that Jehovah requires of you, but that ye should keep His precepts given to you at the time when Jerusalem was in its integrity.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the word of the Lord of hosts unto me: The Lord answers the fasting question with four questions of his own: when you fasted and mourned these seventy years, was it truly for me, and when you ate and drank, was it not for yourselves? Matthew Henry reads this as the standing test of any religious observance, that self can hide inside piety as easily as inside indulgence, and a fast kept from habit rather than from the heart never reached the God it was aimed at. The Lord then reaches back before the exile to the former prophets, when Jerusalem sat in prosperity and the message was the same one already preached and already unheeded.
B. Execute true judgment: hearts made hard as adamant
1. (vv. 8-10)
Zechariah 7:8
“And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying. Giving him orders to repeat what the former prophets had said, and to urge the same things on the people which they had before rejected, the rejection of which had issued in their ruin.”
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 7:8
“Instead of quoting the former prophets, Zechariah gives the substance of their exhortations, as renewed to himself.”
Zechariah 7:9
“Thus spake the Lord - that is, through the former prophets, for he goes on to speak of their rejection in the past. “Execute true judgment.” He retains the words of Ezekiel. The injunction itself runs throughout the prophets. “Shew mercy” (as Isa 1:17, Isa 1:23; Isa 58:6-7; Jer 7:5; Eze 18:8; Hos 12:6, etc.), that is, tender love, to all; compassion, to the unhappy. Omit no act of love, God so loves the loving. Lap.: “Like Paul to the Romans Rom 13:9, he names only the duties to the neighbor, but understands what relates to God.”
Zechariah 7:10
“And Zechariah also, among the twelve prophets, pointing out to the people the will of God, says: "These things does the Lord Omnipotent declare: Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion each one to his brother. And oppress not the widow, and the orphan, and the proselyte, and the poor; and let none imagine evil against your brother in his heart." And again, he says: "These are the words which ye shall utter.”
Irenaeus· written before 202· Against Heresies Book IVpatristic
the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah: A second word follows the first, and it turns from questioning the fast to naming what true religion actually asks: execute true judgment, show mercy and compassion to one another, and do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, or the poor. Gill and Clarke note that this is the same ethical center found elsewhere in the prophets, so the fast's failure was never a failure of ritual precision but of the justice and mercy it was meant to express. Even the final clause, let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart, reaches past outward conduct into the intention behind it.
2. (vv. 11-12)
Zechariah 7:11
“Such an implacable enmity to the gospel as this was to the law and the prophets was that which brought wrath to the uttermost upon the last generation of the Jewish church, 1 Thess. ii. Great sins against the Lord of hosts, whose authority is incontestable, bring great wrath from the Lord of hosts, whose power is irresistible.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Zechariah 7:12
“Made their hearts as an adamant stone - שמיר shamir may mean the granite. This is the hardest stone with which the common people could be acquainted. Perhaps the corundum, of which emery is a species, may be intended. Bochart thinks it means a stone used in polishing others. The same name, in Hebrew, applies to different stones.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder: Three pictures of refusal stack on one another: they pulled away the shoulder like a beast that will not bear the yoke, stopped their ears, and made their hearts like an adamant stone, harder than flint and unmoved by the words the Spirit sent through the former prophets. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that adamant was the hardest stone known to the ancient world, so the image says the resistance was not weakness but a settled refusal maintained on purpose. Because of that hardened will, the text says, a great wrath came from the Lord of hosts, the judgment following the resistance rather than arriving without cause.
3. (vv. 13-14)
Zechariah 7:13
“Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried,.... The Lord by the former prophets called them to repentance and obedience: and they would not hear; his words, nor obey his voice: so they cried: when they were besieged in Jerusalem, and were carried captive into Babylon: and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts; so as to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies; see Pro 1:24.”
Zechariah 7:14
“It was ordered remarkably by God's providence, that no occupants took possession of it, but that during the Jews' absence it was reserved for them against their return after seventy years. they laid . . . desolate--The Jews did so by their sins.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Zechariah 7:14
“I scattered them with a whirlwind - This refers to the swift victories and cruel conduct of the Chaldeans towards the Jews; they came upon them like a whirlwind; they were tossed to and fro, and up and down, everywhere scattered and confounded.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
it is come to pass, that as he cried: The Lord's response mirrors their own refusal back at them: as he cried and they would not hear, so they cried and he would not hear. Pusey reads this as the exile's own logic laid bare, a nation that stopped its ears to correction was in turn met with silence when it later cried for help, the measure it gave becoming the measure it received. The chapter closes on the scattering itself, a whirlwind driving them among nations they did not know and a pleasant land left desolate behind them, the fast's original occasion explained rather than merely dated.
This page carries no textual note on Zechariah 7. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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