Zechariah 8:19 - "Thus
says the Lord of hosts: ‘The fast of the fourth month,
The fast of the fifth, The fast of the seventh, And the
fast of the tenth, Shall be joy and gladness and
cheerful feasts For the house of Judah. Therefore love
truth and peace.'
Why had the Jews accepted these fasts upon themselves?
What can Christians learn from the historical background
of these days? Are there any practices relating to these
days that Christians might emulate?
Jeremiah 7:12 - "But go now to My place which was in
Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I
did to it because of the wickedness of My People
Israel."
Thus spoke Jeremiah, a priest and prophet, to the people
of Judah. Where once the center of God’s religion, the
Tabernacle, had stood, one could find in Jeremiah’s day
only a pile of rubble. Many Jews in ancient Jerusalem
could not believe that God would allow His house to be
demolished and the capital established by David to be
destroyed. The prophesied chastisement did indeed come
to pass. As we read in Lamentations 5:16 "The crown has
fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!"
In hindsight, Jews understood that they had misused,
abused, and defiled the sacred institutions that had
preserved the kingdom of Judah as the remnant of the
divinely chosen nation of Israel, the Old Covenant
Church. Each summer traditional Jews commemorate the two
destructions of Jerusalem and its Holy Temple in 587 BC
and in 70 AD. The days of mourning associated with the
destruction of the First and Second Temples are a
reminder to observant Jews to be spiritually on guard,
to maintain high standards in thoughts, words and deeds.
The New Testament Church is similarly in need to be
spiritually alert. (Lk. 21:36; I Pe. 4:7)
The siege of Jerusalem by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar
began on January 15, 588 BC, the tenth day of the tenth
month on the Hebrew calendar. The walls were broken and
the defending army fled about a year and a half later.
Between the seventh and tenth days of the fifth month,
Ab, Jerusalem and its Temple met a fiery doom.
Even before this final calamity, many Judeans had
already been exiled from their land. Among them was
another priest and prophet, Ezekiel. When the siege of
Jerusalem began he was supernaturally informed about the
coming tragedy. The national disaster was preceded by
the death of Ezekiel’s wife that evening, an
overwhelming personal tragedy which foreshadowed the
imminent holocaust (Eze. 24).
Five years after these calamitous events, the
assassination of Gedaliah, the Chaldean appointed
governor of Judah, caused another imperial invasion.
Judah then disappeared as a political entity in the
world’s history for several decades. The people of Judah
now dispersed throughout the Middle East, adopted four
days of fasting to remember the key events of the
Babylonian Captivity.
At the time of Zechariah a partial restoration of Judah
had occurred. A second temple was standing. The fast
days were not discontinued but Zedekiah prophesied that
in the future those days of fasting would become days of
rejoicing. That time has not yet come.
In 70 AD, while Jews around the world were reading
Lamentations, the disastrous events of their past were
repeated. Today, traditional Jews fast on the ninth day
of Ab to commemorate the destruction of the first and
second temples. They also fast on the seventeenth day of
the fourth month, three weeks earlier. On that day,
sacrifices ended in 70 AD. As of the summer of 2000 AD
they have not yet been restored.
The assassination of Gedaliah is commemorated in the
Jewish community with a fast from dawn to dark on the
third day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.
So the fast occurs between the Feast of Trumpets and the
Day of Atonement. On the tenth day of the tenth month,
Tebeth, traditional Jews also fast during the daylight
hours to remember the day when the siege of Jerusalem
began in the era of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
The most significant observance of the four fasts is on
the ninth of Ab. It lasts about 26 hours and is followed
by an additional day of mourning on the tenth. The fast
occurs in late July or early August on the Roman
calendar and is the occasion for public reading of the
Book of Lamentations in synagogues around the world and,
of course, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
There is something that we as Christians can do in
response to the history covered in this article. I
recommend that my sisters and brothers in Christ take
time in mid-summer to read the Book of Lamentations. The
post-exilic Jewish fast days are not divinely commanded
on God’s New Testament Church. For spiritual Jews
(Romans 2:28-29) reading the Book of Lamentations in
mid-summer is spiritual food in due season. About two
months before the Autumn Festival season, we can be
reminded ofd the importance of keeping our focus on
God’s Kingdom and of continuing to walk in the straight
and narrow path that leads to ultimate eternal joy.
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