Zechariah 7:4-9 Then came the word of the LORD of hosts to me, saying,… A question about the propriety of continuing the stated fasts under the altered circumstances of the people brings a delegation to the prophet to solve this doubt. The date of this transaction was two years after the symbolic visions of the preceding portion. But the Jewish people needed something more than information in regard to the continuance of this fast. The whole doctrine of fasting had become overlaid with an incrustation of formalism and superstition that needed to be broken up. Fasting had become not a means but an end, a mere form, as it is in Mohammedan and papal countries at this day, and had attached to it an opus operatum that wholly destroyed its real value. They thought that God must bless them, indeed was bound to bless them, if they rigidly observed these outward rites, whatever was their inward character. Thus formalism acted in the time of the restoration, precisely as it acted in every subsequent period of the Church; and before a mere question of ritual observance could be settled, it was important that their minds should be set right on the deeper questions of their spiritual relations with God. The prophet, instead of answering the question about the fast of the fifth month, proceeds to rebuke them for their selfish and stupid will worship, and their ignorance in regard to the whole subject of fasting, not only as to this, but as to all the stated fasts that they had been observing. (T. V. Moore, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying, |
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