Zechariah 7:5

“Speak unto all the people of the land, etc.] Of Judea, who had sent these men on this errand, and whom they represented, and in whose name they spake: and to the priests; who were consulted on this occasion: saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth; on the seventh or tenth day of the fifth month Ab, on account of the temple being burnt by Nebuchadnezzar: and seventh [month]; the month Tisri, which answers to September; on the third day of this month a fast was kept on account of the murder of Gedaliah, (<244101>Jeremiah 41:1) though Kimchi says he was slain on the first day of the month; but, because that was a feast day, keeping a day for a fast on this occasion was fixed on the day…”

“Speak unto all--The question had been asked in the name of the people in general by Sherezer and Regemmelech. The self-imposed fast they were tired of, not having observed it in the spirit of true religion. seventh month--This fast was in memory of the murder of Gedaliah and those with him at Mizpah, issuing in the dispersion of the Jews (Kg2 25:25-26; Jer 41:1-3). did ye . . . fast unto me?--No; it was to gratify yourselves in hypocritical will-worship. If it had been "unto Me," ye would have "separated yourselves" not only from food, but from your sins (Isa 58:3-7). They falsely made the fast an end intrinsically meritorious in itself, not a means towards God's glory in their…”

“Speak unto all the people of the land - They of Bethel had spoken as one man, as Edom said to Israel, “Thou shalt not pass by me” Numbers 20:18; and “the men of Israel said to the Hivite; Perhaps thou dwellest in the midst of me, and how shall I make a league with thee?” Joshua 9:7. God gives the answer not to them only, but to all like-minded with them, “all the people of the land,” the whole population (in our language); as Jeremiah says, “ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes and all the people of the land” Jeremiah 44:21, and, “the scribe who mustered the people of the land.” Jeremiah 52:25. When ye fasted and that, mourning - It was no mere abstinence from food (severe as the…”

“Unto all the people - By their messengers. And seventh - For the murder of Gedaliah, slain by Ishmael. Even to me - You pleased yourselves in it, not me; you wept more for the inconveniences of the thing than the sinfulness of it. Zechariah 7:6”

“7:5 According to Jeremiah, seventy years of exile in Babylon (see Jer 25:11-12; 29:10) were to make up the Sabbath years of rest for the land that had gone unobserved for nearly 500 years (2 Chr 36:21; see Exod 23:10-11; Lev 26:34-35). • While the summer fast lamented the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (Zech 7:3), the early autumn fast either commemorated the assassination of Gedaliah, governor of Judah (see 2 Kgs 25:22-25; Jer 41:1-3), or it was the Day of Atonement (Lev 23:26-32).”

“When: Isa 58:5 seventh: Zac 8:19; Kg2 25:23; Jer 41:1-4 seventy: From the eleventh year of Zedekiah to the fourth of Darius Hystapses are just seventy years. Zac 7:3, Zac 1:12; Jer 25:11 did: Zac 7:6; Isa 1:11, Isa 1:12, Isa 58:4-6; Mat 5:16-18, Mat 6:2, Mat 6:5, Mat 6:16, Mat 23:5; Rom 14:6-9, Rom 14:17, Rom 14:18; Co1 10:31; Co2 5:15; Col 3:23 Zechariah 7:6”