Ch 7 / 14~2 min
Zecharyah

Chapter 7

True Fasting Is Justice and Mercy

The challenge to true fasting — 'did you at all fast to me, really to me?' — foreshadow Yeshua calling His disciples to sincere rather than performative devotion to the Father.

  1. The Question About Fasting

    The people ask about fasting, but Elohim asks about justice. Religious practices without compassion are meaningless.

  2. 1In the fourth year of King Darius, YHWH’s word came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev.
  3. 2The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat YHWH’s favour,
  4. 3and to speak to the priests of the house of YHWH Tzeva'ot and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”
  5. 4Then the word of YHWH Tzeva'ot came to me, saying,
  6. 5“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
  7. 6When you eat and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
  8. 7Aren’t these the words which YHWH proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”
  9. True Religion: Justice and Mercy

    True religion is justice, mercy, and compassion. Sound familiar? Yeshua taught the same priorities.

  10. 8YHWH’s word came to Zechariah, saying,
  11. 9“Thus has YHWH Tzeva'ot spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgement, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.
  12. 10Don’t oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’
  13. 11But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.
  14. 12Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law and the words which YHWH Tzeva'ot had sent by his Ruach by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from YHWH Tzeva'ot.
  15. 13It has come to pass that, as he called and they refused to listen, so they will call and I will not listen,” said YHWH Tzeva'ot;
  16. 14“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind amongst all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”
KWS v4.1.1CC0 · Public Domainkodeshway.org