Zechariah 7:1-3
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Chapter 7
A Question About Fasting. 1 In the fourth year of Darius the king, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Kislev.[a] 2 Bethelsarezer sent Regem-melech and his men to implore the favor of the Lord 3 and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, “Must I weep and abstain in the fifth month[b] as I have been doing these many years?”
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- 7:1 The fourth year of Darius…the ninth month, Kislev: December 7, 518 B.C., the last chronological heading in Zechariah.
- 7:3 Weep…fifth month: a mourning ritual commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple on the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (ca. 587/586 B.C.; see 2 Kgs 25:8).
Matthew 9:14-15
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
The Question About Fasting. 14 (A)Then the disciples of John approached him and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast [much], but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.[a]
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- 9:15 Fasting is a sign of mourning and would be as inappropriate at this time of joy, when Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom, as it would be at a marriage feast. Yet the saying looks forward to the time when Jesus will no longer be with the disciples visibly, the time of Matthew’s church. Then they will fast: see Didache 8:1.
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