Hypocrisy unmasked.
"And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah," etc. In the latter half of the last chapter we were told of an embassy to Jerusalem, which met with acceptance and honour. In the present passage we read of another, which meets with just the opposite treatment. The question asked by these messengers is not answered at all in this chapter. Not only so, those who ask it are indirectly rebuked for so doing. Why this remarkable difference of behaviour? Not in the surface, but in the sub-surface, view of affairs. So we will now try to point out—
I. THE SURFACE VIEW. At first sight what can appear more thoroughly deserving of approval than the inquiry here mentioned? This so, whether we consider:
1. Its object. What the men desire, apparently, is simply to know God's will—a desire which we find, in so many other cases, so very warmly approved (Acts 2:37; Acts 9:6; Acts 16:30; Luke 3:10, etc.).
2. Or its subject. They would learn God's will as to "fasting," i.e. as to one department of the proper worship of God. What, apparently, more proper and right (comp. Psalms 116:12; Micah 6:6, Micah 6:7; and contrast Numbers 15:30; 1 Kings 12:33; Colossians 2:18, Colossians 2:23)?
3. Or its method; viz. that of going to God's "house" (verses 2, 3), and consulting his regular teachers, the "priests" (Le Zechariah 10:11; 2 Chronicles 15:3; Haggai 2:11; Malachi 2:7), and his occasional and extraordinary teachers, the "prophets" (Jeremiah 7:25; Jeremiah 25:4, etc.).
4. Or its special occasion. Seventy years, as predicted (Jeremiah 25:11), having now elapsed since that burning of the temple on the tenth day of the fifth month (Jeremiah 52:13), in commemoration of which this fast of the fifth month had been instituted; and the renewed building of the temple, commenced in the second of Darius (Ezra 4:24; Ezra 5:1, Ezra 5:2), having now (in this fourth of Darius, see verse 1) so far advanced that the priers could live in it (see verse 3), what more natural and apparently opportune than this inquiry about the propriety of observing this fast any longer (comp. Daniel 9:1-3)?
5. Or its special channel, so to describe it. How peculiarly befitting, to all appearance, the particular messengers sent! And that, whether we understand them (with some) to be persons sent by the inhabitants of "Bethel" (translated in our version, "the house of God," in verse 2); a place so long and notoriously connected with idol worship and the contempt of God's will (see 1 Kings 12:32, 1 Kings 12:33; 2 Kings 17:28; Amos 7:13); or whether, with others, judging from the Assyrian turn of their names, we suppose that they were Jews of the Captivity come up in person to make inquiry. In either case, such an inquiry, from such persons, seems eminently deserving of praise—at first sight.
II. THE SUB-SURFACE VIEW. Nevertheless, in all this same "fasting," about which they inquire, this Scripture, when further examined, shows us that their conduct had been only deserving of blame. This true, inasmuch as their conduct, during all that time, had been:
1. Never wholly in the right. "Fasting" is only valuable as an outward sign of repentance; but their repentance, during all "those seventy years" (verse 5), had never been true repentance, i.e. "repentance toward God." Note, "Did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?" in verse 5; and comp. Acts 20:21; also the "sorrow κατὰ θεόν" of 2 Corinthians 7:10, and the sorrow of David (Psalms 51:4) and the prodigal (Luke 15:18), for the evil of sin, with the sorrow of Saul (1 Samuel 15:30), apparently for its consequences alone.
2. Always eminently in the wrong. Their solicitude, when engaged in their fastings, had not really been about God's pleasure and will: but it had been, and that most thoroughly, concerning their own; as much so, in fact, as when, at other times, they had eaten and drunk (2 Corinthians 7:6). So completely, we see, in some cases, may mere abstinence from food be one of the "sins of the flesh" (comp Matthew 6:16 and Isaiah 58:3-7),
3. Always inexcusably in the wrong.
May not all this illustrate, further, for our own admonition?
1. The exceeding deceitfulness of formalism. All God's people (they speak as one man in 2 Corinthians 7:3), and even, apparently, all God's ministers (the "priests," 2 Corinthians 7:5), being deceived thereby, in this instance, to so great an extent, and for so many years, and in such circumstances of trial (comp. John 18:28 with John 12:10, "Lazarus also;" and Matthew 27:4, Matthew 27:6),
2. The exceeding penetration of God's Word. Unmasking thus, and making plain, and bringing to light all these deeply hidden deceits (comp. Hebrews 4:12, Hebrews 4:13; also Luke 12:2; Matthew 9:4; 1 Corinthians 14:25; Psalms 50:21, end; Psalms 90:8). How easy, in short, to deceive ourselves! How impossible to mock God (see Galatians 6:7)!