Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Speak unto all the people of the land - They of Bethel had spoken as one man, as Edom said to Israel, "Thou shalt not pass by me" Numbers 20:18; and "the men of Israel said to the Hivite; Perhaps thou dwellest in the midst of me, and how shall I make a league with thee?" Joshua 9:7. God gives the answer not to them only, but to all like-minded with them, "all the people of the land," the whole population (in our language); as Jeremiah says, "ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes and all the people of the land" Jeremiah 44:21, and, "the scribe who mustered the people of the land." Jeremiah 52:25.
When ye fasted and that, mourning - It was no mere abstinence from food (severe as the Jewish fasts were, one unbroken abstinence from evening to evening) but with real mourning, the word being used only of mourning for the dead (Genesis 23:2; Genesis 50:10; I Samuel 25:1; I Samuel 28:3; II Samuel 1:12; II Samuel 3:31; II Samuel 11:26; I Kings 13:29-30; I Kings 14:13, I Kings 14:18; Ecclesiastes 12:5; Jeremiah 16:4-6; Jeremiah 22:18; (twice); Jeremiah 25:33; Jeremiah 34:5; Ezekiel 24:16, Ezekiel 24:23; Zechariah 12:10, Zechariah 12:12), or, in a few instances, , for a very great public calamity; probably with beating on the breast.
In the seventh month - The murder of Gedaliah, "whom the king of Babylon made governor of the land," completed the calamities of Jerusalem, in the voluntary, but prohibited exile to Egypt, for fear lest the murder should be avenged on them Jer. 41-43.
Did ye at all fast unto Me, Me? - God emphatically rejects such fasting as their' s had been, as something, unutterably alien from Him, "to Me, Me!" Yet the fasting and mourning had been real, but irreligious, like remorse for ill-deeds, which has self only for its ground. He prepares the way for His answer by correcting the error of the question. Osorius: "Ye fasted to yourselves, not to Me. For ye mourned your sorrows, not your misdeeds; and your public fast was undertaken, not for My glory, but out of feeling for your own grief. But nothing can be pleasing to God, which is not referred to His glory. But those things alone can be referred to His glory, which are done with righteousness and devotion."
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