Read & explore together
A Call to Justice and Mercy
People asked whether they should keep mourning and fasting as they had done for years. In reply, Zechariah 7 shows that Yahweh cared about more than religious habits. He called for justice, kindness and compassion, and warned about refusing his word.
Understanding the passage
The setting of this message
This passage begins when Yahweh’s word comes to Zechariah in the fourth year of King Darius. People from Bethel ask the priests and prophets whether they should continue weeping in the fifth month. Yahweh answers through Zechariah by addressing both the people and the priests about fasting, obedience and past refusal to listen.
Zechariah 7:1–14Main takeaway
This passage teaches that outward religious practice means little if people refuse Yahweh’s call to true justice, kindness and compassion.
Explore the message
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01A question about fastingThe passage opens with a dated message from Yahweh to Zechariah. Men from Bethel come to seek Yahweh’s favour and ask whether they should keep weeping in the fifth month, setting themselves apart as they had done for many years.
Explanation
The passage opens with a dated message from Yahweh to Zechariah. Men from Bethel come to seek Yahweh’s favour and ask whether they should keep weeping in the fifth month, setting themselves apart as they had done for many years. Their question is about a repeated religious practice.
02Yahweh asks what their fasting was really forYahweh tells Zechariah to speak to the people and the priests. He asks whether their fasting and mourning were truly for him.
Explanation
Yahweh tells Zechariah to speak to the people and the priests. He asks whether their fasting and mourning were truly for him. He also asks about their eating and drinking, pointing out that these actions were for themselves. The issue is not simply the act, but the heart and purpose behind it.
03The earlier message was already clearYahweh says these were the same words proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding places were inhabited and prosperous.
Explanation
Yahweh says these were the same words proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding places were inhabited and prosperous. Then the message is stated plainly: execute true judgment, show kindness and compassion, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor, and do not plan evil in the heart.
04Refusing to listen brought judgementThe passage explains why wrath came. The people refused to listen, turned their backs, stopped their ears, and hardened their hearts like flint against the law and the words sent by Yahweh’s Spirit through the former prophets.
Explanation
The passage explains why wrath came. The people refused to listen, turned their backs, stopped their ears, and hardened their hearts like flint against the law and the words sent by Yahweh’s Spirit through the former prophets. Because they would not listen when he called, he says he would not listen when they called, and the land became desolate.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What does Yahweh ask about the people’s fasting and mourning?
Look at the repeated question in Zechariah 7:5 and notice that Yahweh asks whether their fasting was truly directed to him.
02Which people does Yahweh especially say must not be oppressed?
Read Zechariah 7:10 carefully and list each group named there, along with the command about devising evil in the heart.
03How does the passage describe the people’s refusal to listen?
Zechariah 7:11-12 uses several pictures for resistance, including turning their backs, stopping their ears and making their hearts hard as flint.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Zechariah 7:1–14
1In the fourth year of King Darius, Yahweh’s word came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev.
2The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat Yahweh’s favor,
3and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”
4Then the word of Yahweh of Armies came to me, saying,
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?
6When you eat and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
7Aren’t these the words which Yahweh 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?’ ”
8Yahweh’s word came to Zechariah, saying,
9“Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.
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.’
11But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.
12Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies.
13It has come to pass that, as he called and they refused to listen, so they will call and I will not listen,” said Yahweh of Armies;
14“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among 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.”