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Be warned: Fasting from food while continuing to treat people unjustly might get you carried away by flying stork women.

In today’s reading, the Israelites ask if they should keep fasting—a practice they kept up every year during the exile as a way to express their grief. Zechariah says they’re missing the whole point of fasting. They’ve been mourning the exile, which makes sense, but they have not stopped doing the things that led to their exile in the first place.

Before the exile, they were selfishly feasting on the spoils of their oppressive treatment of the vulnerable and poor. Now, they’re selfishly fasting, not out of humble or repentant hearts, but out of a desire to achieve a better life.

God wants nothing to do with pretend humility and hollow religious ritual. Instead, Yahweh calls his people to feast on doing what’s right. Whet your appetite for integrity, says the prophet. Be gluttons for justice. Turn up your nose at bribery and corruption in the courts. Crave your neighbors’ good instead of salivating over their downfall. Make sure the poor and vulnerable always have a seat at your table.

Yahweh promises that the Israelites who hunger for justice will finally arrive at a banquet of blessing. Clusters of grapes will hang heavy and sweet on their vines. Dew will sparkle on the glossy crowns of their fig trees. Stalks of wheat will shoot up from their fields in thick, golden rows.

The exiles who remain scattered among the nations will stream back home. Grey-haired women will soak up the sun on their front porches, watching their great-grandchildren play in the streets.

The people want to know: Is Yahweh’s Kingdom ready for us? But Zechariah tells them they have it all backwards. The real question is, are you ready to embrace the ways of Yahweh’s Kingdom and, by doing so, enter into its beauty and life?

Reflection Questions

• Compare Zechariah 7 to Isaiah 58. What parallels do you notice? What do these two passages reveal about the kind of fasting God desires from his people?
• Look back over Haggai 1:5-11 and 2:15-19. Where do you see these curses for disobedience reversed by blessing in Zechariah 8?