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More Zechariah commentaries
Zechariah 4:1-14
The Golden Lampstand and the Two Olive Trees
Zechariah 5:1-11
The Woman in the Measuring Basket
Zechariah 6:1-8
The Four Chariots
Zechariah 6:9-15
The Ultimate King-Priest
Zechariah 7:1-14
Hearts Like Flint
Zechariah 8:1-13
God’s Favor Extended to Both Jews and Gentiles
Zechariah 8:14-23
God Expects His People to be Truthful
Zechariah 9:1-10
Rejoice in the Coming King
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Hearts Like Flint
Zechariah 7:1–14
» View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway)
A brand new lawyer in his brand new office on his first day in practice sees a prospective client walk in the door. He decides he should look busy, so he picks up the phone and starts talking: “Look, Harry, about that amalgamation deal. I think I better run down to the f … More
In this chapter it now seems that two years have passed since the visions occurred in the first six chapters. A delegation had been sent to Jerusalem from the exiled Hebrews in Babylon to seek a definite solution to an apparently troublesome problem (vv. 1-3). For the previous 70 years, the people had been holding a fast in August to remember the destruction of Jerusalem (II Kings 25:8,9). These visitors were to ask the priests and prophets whether it was necessary to continue to fast during the month of August in commemoration of the temple’s destruction. Now that the temple and Jerusalem are prospering, why should they continue to weep annually and officially.
In this second half of this seventh chapter we find Zechariah’s prophecy:
- Showing what God desired (vv. 4-10).
- Telling what the people actually did (vv. 11-12).
- Indicating what Jehovah had to do (vv. 13-14).
The Israelites had lost their sincere desire for a loving relationship with God. Zechariah told them that they had been fasting without a proper attitude of repentance or worship. The Lord denounces the disobedience of the people who sent them and the hypocrisy of the hosts. Fasting had been carried out as a mere formality and not by an act of true repentance. Their eating and drinking had been for their own benefit (v. 6).Application
It is not because I go through various formalities of religion that all is well between me and God? Outward formalities are worthless if my heart is not right with God.
Zechariah 7:1-14 (English Standard Version)
In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, "Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?" Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: "Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?" And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart." But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. "As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear," says the LORD of hosts, "and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate."
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