Zechariah 8:18

"And the word of Jehovah of hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: the fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love truth and peace."

Here at last came the direct answer to the inquiry that had precipitated this rather lengthy response from Zechariah with various direct revelations from Jehovah. Although they had at first inquired about only one of the four popular fasts, later mentioning another, Zechariah named all four of them and, in effect, cancelled them, all of them being illegal, human-initiated religious observances without any value whatever. For a little more detail on these, see under Zechariah 7:3, above.

Wellhausen made a deduction from this passage that the Day of Atonement (a fast) had not been instituted in Zechariah's day, because there was no mention of it here by Zechariah. Leupold properly discerned the reason for Zechariah's omitting a reference to it here, stating that:

"The Day of Atonement was the only divinely appointed fast, whereas the four under consideration were of human choice and of comparatively recent date. It could not have occurred to Israel to ask for an abrogation of the fast on the Day of Atonement."[14]

Keil gives a quotation of Martin Luther's paraphrase of the meaning of this verse thus:

"Keep only what I command, and let fasting alone. Yea, if ye keep my commandments, not only shall such fasts be over and come to an end; but because I will do so much good to Jerusalem, all the affliction, for which ye have chosen and kept such fasting, shall be forgotten, that ye will be transported with joy when ye think of your fasting, and of the heart's grief on account of which ye fasted."[15]