ZECHARIAH
7
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2002 James Melough
7:1. “And it came to pass in the fourth year of
king Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah in the fourth day
of the ninth month, even in Chisleu (November);”
This was approximately two and a half years after Haggai had been sent to
rebuke the people for having abandoned the building of the Temple, see Hag
1:1; and two years after God had first spoken to Zechariah, see Zech 1:1.
As is recorded in Ezra 6:15, the building of the Temple was completed “on the
third day of the (twelfth) month, Adar (Feb-March), which was in the sixth
year of the reign of Darius the king.”
7:2. “When they had sent unto the house of God
Sherezer, meaning he beheld treasure, and Regem-melech stoning of
the king, and their men, to pray before the Lord,”
These are Chaldean names indicating that these men had been born quite some
time after the captivity had begun and the use of Chaldean names was being
adopted by the exiles, so that they were probably relatively young men. Some
translations indicate that they may have come from Bethel (house of God).
7:3. “And to speak unto the priests which were
in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep
in the fifth month (August), separating myself as I have done these so many
years?”
The seventh day of the fifth month was the day on which the Temple and
Jerusalem had been burnt to the ground, see 2 Ki 25:8-9, and it was in the
seventh month that Ishmael slew Gedaliah a good man who had been set over the
Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar had left in the land, that murder impelling the
flight of the Jews into Egypt, see 2 Ki 25:22-26. It was these two tragic
events that were solemnly remembered each year, the propriety of continuing
the remembrance being that about which there was now a question. Accordingly
a company of men led by Sherezer and Regem-melech (about whom nothing is
known), and sent by a group designated as “they” and about whom also no
further identification is given, came to inquire of the priests and prophets
in the partially completed Temple. (Some have taken the fast of the seventh
month to be that of the day of Atonement, but obviously there would be no
question about that which God Himself had appointed).
7:4. “Then came the word of the Lord of hosts
unto me, saying,”
7:5. “Speak unto all the people of the land, and
to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh
month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?”
It seems that neither the prophets nor the priests knew the answer, but God
spoke to Zechariah, and very obviously Jehovah’s primary concern was less with
whether they should continue the practice, but with the reality of it.
Clearly it had been a mere empty ritual divorced from the genuine repentance
that would have given it value in God’s sight; and only the spiritually blind
will fail to see that this is largely the character of what passes for worship
in Christendom today, and to see also that God is as much displeased with the
so-called worship of the latter as with the former, the attitude of both being
correctly expressed by the hymnist who wrote, “The pleasures lost, I sadly
mourned; but never wept for Thee.”
7:6. “And when ye did eat, and when ye did
drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?”
It was the same with their feasts as with their fasts: God’s name was a mere
shibboleth on their lips. They were far more concerned with the food and
drink and social merry-making than with God; and again, Christendom is largely
guilty of the same
sin.
7:7. “Should ye not hear the words which the
Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in
prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the
south and the plain?”
Taylor’s rendering of this verse furnishes adequate comment, “Long years ago,
when Jerusalem was prosperous and her southern suburbs out along the plain
were filled with people, the prophets warned them that this attitude would
surely lead to ruin, as it has.” That earlier generation, however, had not
only ignored the prophets’ warnings: they had mocked and persecuted some of
God’s messengers, and killed others: hence God’s having delivered them into
the hand of the Babylonians. The remnant just returned from that captivity
were in danger of also incurring God’s wrath by reverting to the same cold
empty ritualistic worship of their fathers. Their descendants, in fact,
produced the generation whose loveless ritualistic empty forms provoked the
Lord’s scathing denunciation, which resulted in their crucifying Him, and that
culminated in the Diaspora of AD 70, which has left them still scattered
amongst the Gentiles, except for the few who have begun returning to Palestine
since 1948.
The remnant returned from Babylon in the days of Zechariah is but a type of
that which has been returning to Palestine since 1948; and as that earlier
return culminated in the terrible judgment that overtook their descendants in
AD 70, so will this present returning remnant also inherit the still more
terrible judgments of the impending Tribulation era. Neither generation has
learned the lesson God tried to teach them by His use of the Assyrians,
Babylonians, and Romans as His instruments of chastisement. Nor has
Christendom read the lesson that those chastisements are but the
foreshadowings of those which are about to engulf her, for she has aped
Israel’s evil ways in her own insincere ritualistic so-called worship. The
Tribulation judgments will destroy both apostate Israel and equally apostate
Christendom; but they will also produce a believing remnant of Israel and of
the Gentiles, those of them who physically survive the Tribulation judgments
remaining on the earth to inherit millennial blessings.
It can’t be repeated too often or too emphatically: Israel is God’s mirror in
which he bids every man see his own reflection. I am either duplicating the
sin of the apostate mass of the nation Israel, or the sincere striving after
righteousness which marked the small godly remnant.
7:8. “And the word of the Lord came unto
Zechariah, saying,”
7:9. “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying,
Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his
brother:”
The repeated use of the term “the Lord of hosts” is to remind us that He Who
speaks is Omnipotent, having the power to punish rebellion and reward
obedience. Nor should we forget that He is also omniscient, having the power
to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart, and to distinguish between
true worship and the empty forms by which we may deceive ourselves, but can’t
deceive Him.
It is not by what we say or do at the Lord’s table that we disclose the true
state of our hearts: it is by how we act toward others, not only on the Lord’s
day, but throughout the other days of the week as well.
“Execute true judgment,” is literally to be honest and aboveboard in all our
dealings with others; and “to shew mercy and compassions to our brethren”
means to be kind, compassionate, pitying the needs of those less fortunate
than we. The same exhortation is given by Paul in Eph 4:31-32, “Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away
from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
It is by this kind of living, not by outward hypocritical piety, or ability
with words, that we merit God’s favor, and make ourselves channels of blessing
to others.
7:10. “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.”
“Oppress” has many shades of meaning, e.g., persecute, burden, crush, afflict,
overtax, overburden, etc. One of God’s most serious charges against the rich
in Israel was that they oppressed the poor. By bribing unscrupulous judges
they secured unjust judgments against their poor brethren and widows, robbing
them of their lands and homes, and of their freedom by making them their
slaves when unable to repay even a trifling debt. All of this was abhorrent
to the God of immeasurable mercy, provoking His anger, and calling down His
judgment.
To “imagine evil against his brother in your heart” was to plot or contrive
evil against another. It was, in fact, for these very sins that the earlier
generation of those addressed by the prophet had been carried captive into
Babylon, and for which the generation of Christ’s day was either slain,
enslaved, or scattered amongst the Gentiles in AD 70. They had failed to
learn the lesson God had sought to teach their fathers through the Assyrian
and Babylon captivities.
7:11. “But they refused to hearken, and pulled
away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.”
In stubborn rebellion they refused to listen to God’s word brought to them by
the former prophets. “... and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their
ears” means that they turned their backs and covered their ears in deliberate
rejection of God and His messengers.
Their blatant rebellion is duplicated today by Christendom, and will bring
down God’s now imminent Tribulation judgment just as surely as did the
rebellion of the Jews who were carried away by Assyria, Babylon, and Rome, the
terrible nature of those coming judgments being adumbrated in those of the
past, and described in vivid detail in the book of Revelation.
7:12. “Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant
stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts
hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath
from the Lord of hosts.”
God’s words are addressed to the heart and conscience as well as to the mind,
but with the exception of the small godly remnant, the apostate nation had
hardened their hearts, the degree of that hardening being revealed in its
being likened to the hardness of a diamond. But hardening of the heart
doesn’t happen overnight: it is a gradual repeated process, and God is
emphatic in His warnings against it, see Ps 95:8 and Heb 3:8,15, the context
of the latter two verses indicating that such hardening is a symptom which is
indicative of an unsaved state. An evidence of a true conversion, on the
other hand, is a tender heart, as already discussed in our study of verse 9.
The coming of “a great wrath from the Lord of hosts” continues to emphasize
the seriousness of this condition, for there is every indication that the
majority of those Israelites who died in the wilderness were unbelievers, as
were the majority of those carried captive into Assyria and Babylon, and the
majority of those slain, enslaved, or scattered by Rome in AD 70. The fact
that there were also true believers in all three groups, is the reminder that
believers often have to share the effects of God’s judgments upon the ungodly,
but with a difference: their departure from this life is the beginning of true
life in heaven; that of the unbeliever, the beginning of eternal torment,
first in hell, and then for ever in the lake of fire.
7:13. “Therefore it is come to pass, that as he
cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the
Lord of hosts:”
As has been noted many times in these studies, God demonstrates a unique
ability to match the punishment to the crime. He had cried to Israel, but to
no avail. They would not listen; but when His great patience had finally come
to an end, and He executed judgment, causing them then to cry to Him, He
refused to listen. It is a dreadful thing when a man’s rebellion exhausts
God’s patience, and provokes His wrath, hence the twice repeated warning, “My
Spirit shall not always strive with man,” Ge 6:3, and, “He, that being often
reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without
remedy,” Pr 29:1. Esau is an example of such a man, and of him it is written
that “he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry,” Ge 27:34, and again in
Heb 12:17, “he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully
with tears.” As it is written, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God,” Heb 10:31.
7:14. “But I scattered them with a whirlwind
among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after
them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land
desolate.”
The destructive power of the instruments God used to punish rebel Israel -
Assyria and Babylon - is presented under the figure of a whirlwind, which
leaves devastation in its wake. Nor was the power of His later third
instrument, Rome, any less. In all three instances the land was left a
desolation. The still more terrible Tribulation judgments now about to break
upon the head, not just of Israel, but all the nations, will leave the whole
world in ruins.
Believers of this present Church age, however, look not for that coming
judgment, but for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to the air, to catch
them up and rapture them to heaven before that terrible day of judgment
breaks, see 1 Th 4:13-18, “But I would not have you ignorant, brethren ....
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise
first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with
the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
[Zechariah
8]