The people were rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. They had returned from captivity long before, but after laying the temple’s foundation they were discouraged by opposition. For nearly twenty years their work ceased until God used Haggai and Zechariah to stir them up.

At this point in Zechariah 7, the people had been spiritually awakened and now asked this good question about a day of mourning in the fifth month. They had added this observance to their calendar after the temple was destroyed by Babylon’s armies in that month (Jer. 52:12). The question itself was straightforward and anticipated a “yes/no” answer. But the Lord responded very differently! Through Zechariah, He said: “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me? When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?” (Zech. 7:5–6).

Instead of replying “Yes” or “No,” the Lord replied, “Why?” He turned the searchlight not on their actions but on their motives. They were fasting, but it was only a tradition which had little to do with God’s honor. How often we too allow our practices to become merely traditions rather than acts of worship or service!

The Lord neither condemned nor commended the fast itself. Instead, He asked them to consider not only their fasting but even their normal, day-to-day eating and drinking. It would be fine to fast—but only if their days of fasting and their days of eating would be lived out with reverence for Him! We hear the same exhortation in our days: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).