"Ask all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?
But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the LORD, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
Significance
Zechariah 7:5-6 questions whether the seventy years of fasting were truly directed toward God, while Jeremiah 25:12 promised that after seventy years God would punish Babylon. Zechariah's challenge implies that the people observed the exile's duration as a calendar fact (counting the seventy years) without internalizing its spiritual lesson. Jeremiah 25:12 focused on divine justice against the oppressor; Zechariah refocuses attention on the people's own hearts during that period. The connection reveals that the post-exilic community needed not just the fulfillment of Jeremiah's promise (Babylon punished, return permitted) but a transformation of their worship from self-referencing ritual ("when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so for yourselves?" 7:6) to genuine obedience.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Promise-Fulfillment
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