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Hypocritical Fasting Condemned

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the L ord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. ²Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favor of the L ord, ³and to ask the priests of the house of the L ord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” ⁴Then the word of the L ord of hosts came to me: ⁵Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? ⁶And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink only for yourselves? ⁷Were not these the words that the L ord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, along with the towns around it, and when the Negeb and the Shephelah were inhabited?

Punishment for Rejecting God’s Demands

⁸ The word of the L ord came to Zechariah, saying: ⁹Thus says the L ord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; ¹⁰do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. ¹¹But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. ¹²They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the L ord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the L ord of hosts. ¹³Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the L ord of hosts, ¹⁴and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

He mentions here some other duties, but for the same purpose of showing, that the fear of God is not proved by ceremonies, but by acting justly towards our brethren, and not by abstaining only from doing wrong, but by being ready to help the miserable. As widows, and orphans, and strangers are exposed as it were to plunder, Moses often in the law recommends them to favor, and shows that God cares for them, and will be their defender, when by one injured. So also the Prophet speaks here expressly of widows, and orphans, and strangers, that the Jews might understand, not only that they were to take heed, lest any one, being wronged, should complain, or lest any one should retaliate an injury, but that they were to observe integrity before God; for the ungodly are often terrified by fear, and refrain from doing mischief, because they know that there will be an avenger. Hence it comes that the rich and the opulent are safe from all injuries, because they are surrounded and fortified by strong defences; but the widows and the orphans are not thus able to repel wrongs. This is the reason why the Prophet prefers here to mention widows, and orphans, and strangers, rather than to speak indiscriminately of all the people. For the import of the whole is, as I have reminded you, that the fear of God is not really proved, except when a person cleaves to what is just and right, and is not restrained by fear or shame, but discharges his duty as it were in the presence of God and of his angels, so that he shows favor to the poor and miserable, who are without any to help them. But as I have elsewhere explained this subject more at large, it is enough now briefly to touch on it. ⁷³⁷³     There is one sentence passed by unnoticed, rendered thus by Newcome,—
   Neither imagine in your heart
Every man evil againsthis brother.
   Verbatim it is—
   And the evil of (or, evil to) man, his brother,
Devise ye not in your heart.
   They were not to devise or contrive in their hearts any evil or wrong to man, he being a brother. This sense is given in the Targum, and by Grotius, Henry, and others; but Henderson, following the Septuagint, gives another meaning; and his version or rather paraphrase is —
   And think not in your heart of the injury
Which one hath done to another.
   But the original can hardly admit of such a construction: the former, no doubt, is the true meaning. — Ed. Let us proceed —

⁷³ There is one sentence passed by unnoticed, rendered thus by Newcome,— Neither imagine in your heart Every man evil againsthis brother. Verbatim it is— And the evil of (or, evil to) man, his brother, Devise ye not in your heart. They were not to devise or contrive in their hearts any evil or wrong to man, he being a brother. This sense is given in the Targum, and by Grotius, Henry, and others; but Henderson, following the Septuagint, gives another meaning; and his version or rather paraphrase is — And think not in your heart of the injury Which one hath done to another. But the original can hardly admit of such a construction: the former, no doubt, is the true meaning. — Ed.