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Chapter 7

A Question About Fasting. In the fourth year of Darius the king, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Kislev.[a] Bethelsarezer sent Regem-melech and his men to implore the favor of the Lord and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, “Must I weep and abstain in the fifth month[b] as I have been doing these many years?”

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Footnotes

  1. 7:1 The fourth year of Darius…the ninth month, Kislev: December 7, 518 B.C., the last chronological heading in Zechariah.
  2. 7:3 Weep…fifth month: a mourning ritual commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple on the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (ca. 587/586 B.C.; see 2 Kgs 25:8).

Justice and Mercy, Not Fasting

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah(A) on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev.(B) The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat(C) the Lord(D) by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn(E) and fast in the fifth(F) month, as I have done for so many years?”

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