God instructs Zechariah to address the entire community and the priests, saying: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during these seventy years, was it for me that you were fasting?\u2014establishing a radical challenge to the community's understanding of their own ritual practices and their motivation. The reference to the fifth and seventh months (the seventh month also had a commemoration day for the destruction) indicates that multiple fasts marked the exile period. The seventy years references the complete period of exile, establishing that these practices have characterized the entire period of displacement. The critical question\u2014was it for me that you were fasting?\u2014suggests that the fasts, though ostensibly religious, may have been performed without genuine orientation toward God. The implication is that fasting can become habitual, mechanical, and focused on the emotions it expresses rather than on relationship with God.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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