Zechariah 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Chapter 7 begins on quite a different tack. This is just under two years after the previous prophecy, and we can assume that progress has been made with the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem (the building work was finished in the third day of Adar in the sixth year of Darius (Ezra 6:15). Enquirers have come from the territories of Babylon where the people of Judah were held in captivity. The remnant has returned but some are still there in Babylon, and they have a query, which is this: ‘Should we be keeping the feasts now? Can prophet or priest tell us what we should do?’ This gives us a little bit of interesting information. There were evidently people of Judah back in the land of captivity – they were not in captivity any more, but they had remained in Babylonian territory – who were keeping the feasts, and praying to God. What a strange thing! They didn't have the commitment to heed the call to return to Jerusalem, but they had enough faith to carry on worshipping as Jews in the lands in which they had been held captive. So there are worshipping Jews back in the lands of captivity. Now they want to ask the priests and prophets in Jerusalem, ‘Do we go on keeping these feasts?’ The feasts that they refer to are obviously feasts that were inaugurated during the captivity after the destruction of Jerusalem, because interestingly, it is the feast of the fifth month in the Jewish calendar. The only feast in the fifth month of the Jewish calendar is a feast that was inaugurated to mourn – it wasn't a feast actually, it was a fast – to mourn for the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in the fifth month (Jeremiah 52:12). So there they were for 70 years in captivity in Babylon, in the fifth month every year, fasting and mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem. But now the remnant has returned to Jerusalem, and they are laying the foundations of a new temple, and Jerusalem is to be built up again, and many of the houses have already been rebuilt. So the people still in the lands of their captivity send this question: ‘Should we stop mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, now that you are rebuilding it?’ It is a very reasonable question. Zechariah does not actually say, you should never have started these feasts, but he virtually says it. God wanted you to repent, he tells them, and be satisfied. Now the interesting thing is, they never get an answer. An answer is given to those in the land (verse 5) but not to those in Babylon. Those messengers who have come from Babylon are ignored by the Lord, or so it would seem. The question is elaborately recorded, but there is no reply given. Zechariah is silent; the Lord does not speak. Why? Presumably, because they are still in the lands of their captivity. They have not had sufficient commitment or consecration to heed the call to return to Jerusalem, so the Lord will ignore them. He is not answering them; he is not dealing with them.