Zechariah 7:7

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. ²Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the LORD ³by asking the priests of the house of the LORD of Hosts as well as the prophets, "Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?" ⁴Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying, ⁵"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? ⁶And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves? ⁷Are these not the words that the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were populous and prosperous, and the Negev and the Lowland were inhabited?'"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Should ye not hear the words: or, Are not these the words, etc. Isaiah 55:3, Isaiah 55:6, Isaiah 55:7

cried: Zechariah 1:3-6, Isaiah 1:16-20, Jeremiah 7:5, Jeremiah 7:23, Jeremiah 36:2, Jeremiah 36:3, Ezekiel 18:30-32, Daniel 9:6-14, Hosea 14:1-3, Amos 5:14, Amos 5:15, Micah 6:6-8, Zephaniah 2:1-3

former: Heb. the hand of former

the south: Deuteronomy 34:3, Jeremiah 17:26, Jeremiah 32:44, Jeremiah 33:13

Reciprocal: Isaiah 65:12 - because Jeremiah 11:6 - Proclaim Jeremiah 44:4 - I sent Zechariah 7:9 - saying Zechariah 7:12 - the former Matthew 7:12 - for Mark 12:2 - a servant

Cross-References

Genesis 6:18
But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.

Genesis 7:1
Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

Genesis 7:13
On that very day Noah entered the ark, along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons-

Genesis 7:15
They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life.

Proverbs 22:3
The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and suffer the consequences.

Matthew 24:38
For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.

Luke 17:27
People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

Hebrews 6:18
Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

Hebrews 11:7
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

1 Peter 3:20
who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built. In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

[Should ye] not [hear] the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets,.... As Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others; suggesting that it would have been much better for them to have regarded the exhortations and instructions which the Lord sent them by his servants, which would have prevented their captivity; and so would have had no occasion of fasting and mourning: for those prophecies were delivered out

when Jerusalem was inhabited, and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her; when Jerusalem, and the cities about it, were full of people, and enjoyed all the blessings of life in great plenty; and which would have continued, had they attended to the exhortations, cautions, and warnings given them:

when [men] inhabited the south and the plain? the land of Judea, as the Misnic x doctors say, was divided into three parts; the mountainous part, the plain, and the valley. Jerusalem was in the mountainous part, and these are the other two; and not only those parts of the land which were hilly, and those cities that were encompassed with mountains, were in safety and prosperity; but those also that were in the champaign country, and in the low valleys. The "south" was that part of the land of Canaan formerly inhabited by the Amalekites, and which they invaded when David was at Ziklag, Numbers 13:29. Sometimes it was called Negeb, as here; and sometimes Daroma, as frequently in the Jewish writings; in which Judea is often called the south, with respect to Galilee; for they distinguish between the inhabitants of Galilee and the inhabitants of the south country: and say, a disciple might intercalate the year for Galilee, but not for the south, i.e. Judea. It reached from Eleutheropolis to the south of the land, eighteen or twenty miles: it was distinguished by the Jews y into upper and nether Daroma, or south country: the upper consisted of the hilly part of it; the nether of the plain; and by Jerom z mention is made of interior Daroma, by which there should be an exterior one. The "plain", or "Sephela", was all the champaign country, near to Eleutherepolis, to the north and west; and so the above writer a says it was called in his times: now each of these were well inhabited; Daroma, or the southern part; hence it is frequent, in Jewish writings b, to read of such a Rabbi of Daroma, or the south, as R. Jacob, R. Simlai, and others; and of the elders of the south c; and so Jerom speaks of Eremmon, and Duma, large villages, in his days, in Daroma or the south; the one sixteen, the other seventeen miles from Eleutheropolis; and of Ether, Jether, and Jethan, one of which was eighteen, and another twenty miles from it d; and in the Apocrypha:

"Simon also set up Adida in Sephela, and made it strong with gates and bars.'' (1 Maccabees 12:38)

mention is made of Adida in Sephela, fortified, by Simon; and in which also were various other places well stored with inhabitants. This expresses the happy and safe state the Jews were in before their captivity, and in which they would have remained, had they hearkened to the words of the Lord.

x Misn. Sheviith, c. 9. sect. 2. y T. Hieros. Maaaser Sheni, fol. 56. 3. & Sanhedrin, fol. 18. 4. z De locis Hebr. fol. 91. C. & 92. I. a Ibid. fol. 94. M. b T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 2. 2. & 11. 4. & Succah, fol. 53. 4. c T. Hieros. Erubin, fol. 23. 3. d Ut supra, fol. 90. K. & 91. C. & 92. I.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Should ye “not hear” the words, or, Know ye “not the words?” The verb is presupposed in the emphatic question, as in, “Shall I, the blood of these men?” 2 Samuel 23:17. David omits the word “drink” for abhorrence.

By the former prophets - Isaiah and Jeremiah , “when Jerusalem was dwelling abidingly,” at ease, as the whole world then was, except herself, “and the south and the low-country,” both belonging to Judah, were inhabited. The restoration then was still very incomplete, since he contrasts their then condition with the present, as inhabited or no. The mountain, the south, and the low country, known still by its name of Sephela to Greeks , made up the territory of Judah Joshua 10:40, Judges 1:9; Jeremiah 17:26; Jeremiah 32:44; Jeremiah 33:13.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Zechariah 7:7. The words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets — נביאים הראשנים nebiim harishonim, is the title which the Jews give to Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, and the two books of Kings.

The latter prophets, נביאים אחרונים nebiim acharonim, are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets.

The hagiographa, כתובים kethubim, holy writings, are the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the two books of Chronicles. But the above words, the former prophets, seem to apply to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

The south and the plain? — From Eleutheropolis to the sea, Obadiah 1:19. The south was the wilderness and mountainous parts of Judea: and the plain, the plains of Jericho.