Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?
Speak unto all the people of the land. The question had been asked in the name of the people in general, by Sherezer and Regem-melech. The self-imposed fast they were tired of, not having observed it in the spirit of true religion.
When ye fasted and mourned in the ... seventh month. This fast was in memory of the murder of Gedaliah and those with him at Mizpah, issuing in the dispersion of the Jews (2 Kings 25:25-26; Jeremiah 41:1-3).
Did ye at all fast unto me, even to me? - No: it was to gratify yourselves in hypocritical will-worship. If it had been "unto me" ye would have "separated yourselves" not only from food, but from your sins (Isaiah 58:3-7). They falsely made the fast an end, intrinsically meritorious in itself, not a means toward God's glory in their sanctification. The true principle of piety, reference to God, was wanting; hence, the emphatic repetition of "unto me." Before settling questions as to the outward forms of piety (however proper, as in this case), the great question was as to piety itself; that being once settled, all their outward observances become sanctified being "unto the Lord" (Ram. 14:6).