Zechariah (7)

Below is what our small group worked with this morning. How can we read the Prophets and not see ourselves? How can we not see that in Christ alone is there hope? What is the Word of the LORD in our lives today? In the lives of our churches? Are we hearing Christ in and through His Book? Are we obeying Him? Or...are we playing with religion as the people of Zechariah's time? And consider - these are the very people who God released from captivity in Babylon.

Our passage is Zechariah Chapter 7. As we’ll see, the prophet is switching gears here in the sense that chapters 1 – 6 contain a series of visions; beginning in Chapter 7 we move into the type of material that we’ve seen in most of the Minor Prophets -  not so heavy on visions and their interpretation but rather heavy on the contemporary situation and how God views it.

My sense is that chapters 7 & 8 form a unit; compare 7:1, 8; 8:1, 9, and 18. Just as we had a series of visions in chapters 1 – 6, we have a series of “the word of Yahweh” coming to Zechariah in chapters 7 and 8. (Remember that when the word LORD is capitalized in English that it means the word in Hebrew – the primary language of the OT – is either Yahweh, or the shortened form of Yahweh, “Yah”. This is the covenant name of God.)

In Chapter 7 we have two movements, or two instances of the Word of Yahweh coming to Zechariah, or two units of thought…however we may choose to term it. The first is 7:1 – 7 and the second is 7:8 – 14.

Considering 7:2 – 3, while we may not know the exact background of the Jews who lived in Bethel, we know that they were people who were weeping and fasting in the fifth month for many years – presumably over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

Then when we look at 7:5 it appears that there was a practice of fasting and mourning among many other Jews in the fifth and seventh months during the seventy-years captivity.

In 7:3 the people of Bethel have a question for Yahweh; then in 7:4 – 7 Yahweh takes their question and turns it into a question for all the people of the land and the priests.

What is Yahweh asking the people and the priests and why might He be asking these questions?

While there are many passages we can link 7:4 – 7 to, including passages we’ve already read in the Minor Prophets, I’m going to suggest we look at a classic passage – Isaiah Chapter 1.

We can also link Isaiah Chapter 1 to Zechariah 7:8 – 11.

What do we see when we compare Isaiah Chapter 1 with Zechariah Chapter 7? When we gather on Sunday morning why do we gather? Is there any difference between one Sunday and the next Sunday and the next Sunday? What is the level of commitment to Christ in our churches?

What happens when a people do not care for the disenfranchised? The poor? The widow?

See Matthew 25:31 – 46. Note that those who were judged unrighteous were judged not on the basis of what they did, but rather on the basis of what they didn’t do.

Looking at 7:10 we see the idea of “devising evil in your hearts toward one another”. What examples do we have of this today?

Well boys, how are we measuring up in all this? Our families? Our churches? The church in the USA?