GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ZECHARIAH 8:14-19
14 For this is what the LORD of hosts says: “Just as I planned to bring disaster on you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the LORD of hosts, 15 so again in these days I have planned to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not be afraid.
God uses the truthful and historical fact of the Babylonian exile to make a gospel comparison: “I punished them because they provoked me to wrath, and I planned their punishment. Now,” he continues, “I have also planned something. This time it is not more punishment, but good things and blessings which I will bring. Do not be afraid of me today. I am only coming to bless you because that is my plan for you.” One of the Church Fathers (Lactantius) said: “As God is a very forgiving Father toward the devout, so he is a very upright judge against the wicked.”
One of God’s divine attributes is that he is just. Pharaoh, flawed and selfish as he was, admitted to Moses, “The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong” (Exodus 9:27). Also, David says: “The Lord is righteous. He loves justice” (Psalm 11:7). God’s justice is, on the one hand, remunerative. He endows good people with rewards. On the other hand, his justice is also punitive, punishing the wicked and afflicting them with suffering and punishments. Here he uses the fulfillment of his punitive justice to show the certainty of his remunerative justice. God keeps his promises, and therefore since he has promised to bless his people, they can be sure that his blessings will certainly come.
Augustine said: “There are many secret judgments of God, but no unjust ones.”
16 These are the things that you must do: Speak the truth to one another. Make judgments that uphold justice, truth and peace in your courts. 17 Do not plot evil in your hearts against one another, and do not reward perjury, for I hate all these things, declares the LORD.”
Mankind does not merit any of God’s blessings, most especially his forgiveness and grace. But when by his grace he chooses to bless us, we have ways to thank him, and these are the things he is describing here. Remember that he was previously condemning their extra fasts and other traditions that God had never commanded or asked of them. Instead of worrying about their own man-made rules, they should focus on the things he has already taught them (and us) to do:
Speak the truth. Be “the nation that guards the truth” (Isaiah 26:2), for “every promise of the Lord your God has come true” (Joshua 23:15).
Make judgments that uphold justice. This is the Lord’s own promise about the coming kingdom of the Lord, which “the zeal of the Lord will accomplish” (Isaiah 9:7).
Let there be truth and peace in your courts. “Courts” is actually “gates” in Hebrew, because the gate of a city was where judgment took place locally, unless someone was taken before the king. This was the court where Abraham went to buy a grave for his wife (Genesis 23:10), where Ruth’s fiancé Boaz went to establish the legality of their marriage (Ruth 4:1), and where the people were instructed to dispense justice, even in a city of refuge (Joshua 20:4).
A court where there is no peace is not a place where there is any justice. Solomon said: “If a wise man goes to court with a fool, he rages and scoffs, and there is no peace” (Proverbs 29:9). And in the apocrypha there are other reminders like this: “The talk of the godly man is always wise, but the fool changes like the moon” (Sirach 27:11). But also: “The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds until it reaches the Lord; he will not stop until the Most High visits him and does justice by the righteous, and executes judgment” (Sirach 35:17).
God also says: “Do not plot evil in your heart and do not reward perjury.” The wicked don’t care about lying as long as they get their way and their reward, but it is the only reward they will receive. “A worthless witness mocks at justice,” the Proverb says, “but punishment is coming for mockers, and beatings for the backs of fools” (Proverbs 19:28-29). The early church said simply: “Do not commit perjury, do not give false testimony, do not speak evil, and do not bear malice.” Those who love themselves so much that they try out one of those sins will end up hip-deep in them all, and he will be caught in his lies, shrieking more lies as he sinks, because in the end he would rather lie than repent. But God also shows his glory in his mercy, because “he is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
18 And the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 19 “This is what the LORD of hosts says: The fasts of the fourth month and of the fifth, seventh and tenth months shall be seasons of joy and gladness; cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.
Here the Lord dismisses the fasts that the Jews had adopted. Originally, they were historical commemorations:
The Fast of the Fourth Month. This was the fast that remembered when Nebuchadnezzar’s army breached Jerusalem’s walls (2 Kings 25:3-4). Jeremiah said: “In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city wall. All the officers of the king of Babylon entered and sat down in the middle gate (Jeremiah 39:2-3).
The Fast of the Fifth Month. This remembered the burning of the temple and other buildings in the city (2 Kings 25:8-10). Jeremiah said: “On the tenth day of the fifth month… the captain of the guard who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the temple of the LORD, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burned down every important building” (Jeremiah 52:12-13). Perhaps this was the moment when Solomon’s personal library, thousands of songs and hymns as well as the books he wrote about trees, animals, birds, reptiles, other crawling things, and fish, were finally destroyed (1 Kings 3:32-33). Only his proverbs, collected as part of the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, survived, along with two of his Psalms (Psalms 72 and 127).
The Fast of the Seventh Month. This was the anniversary of Gedaliah’s assassination. Gedaliah was the faithful Jew who was appointed to be governor, but he was treacherously murdered by a cruel and wicked man named Ishmael. Jeremiah said: “In the seventh month, Ishmael… a descendant of the royal family and one of the chief officials of the king, came with ten men to Gedaliah at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together there, Ishmael got up and struck down Gedaliah with a sword, killing the man the king of Babylon had appointed as governor over the land” (Jeremiah 41:1-2).
The Fast of the Tenth Month. This recalled the very beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege, which continued until the breach in the fourth month of the following year (Ezekiel 24:1-2; Jeremiah 52:4). Ezekiel also recorded the Lord’s judgment: “The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back. I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign Lord” (Ezekiel 24:14). This connects directly with the Lord’s statement about his justice and mercy above.
All of these fasts remembered terrible things that God permitted to happen in order to lead his people to see their sins and to turn back to him in repentance. Now that this had taken place, and that he had promised to bless them after their return to Canaan, the Lord told them to turn all of their fasts into feasts. And more than this. He circles back to his command: “Love truth and peace.” He had afflicted his people to turn them to repent. They shouldn’t go on afflicting themselves. He wants us to use and appreciate his blessings, whether these are physical blessings like food and drink, new shoes, a loving wife, or the birds at my feeder, the kittens under my feet, and the fish splashing in her little tank, or the spiritual blessings that come with his gospel. These are the forgiveness of our sins, the certainty of the resurrection, life in heaven, reunion with loved ones and the Christians of antiquity, and the omnipresence of God in our lives, who lives and wills and acts for our good in all things and at all times. We are “children of the living God, the most high, the most mighty, who has directed his kingdom both for us and for our ancestors in the most excellent way.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Zechariah 8:14-19 Feasts, not fasts