Zechariah 7:1-3 Prayer, Fasting, And weeping.

Now in the fourth year of Darius, the word of the LORD again came to Zechariah (v. 1). “Fourth year…fourth day…ninth month…December 7, 518 B.C., a little more than two years after the visions in chs. 1-6”(NGSB. p.1473). Here we learn that the people sent one Sherezer, or Sar-Ezer, “to the house of God, to pray to the LORD, and to ask the priests who were in the house of the LORD of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years” (vv. 2-3). “For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts” (Mal. 2:7 Cf. Nu. 27:21; Dt. 17:8-11; Jer. 18:18; Gal. 4:14). The answer is in the affirmative, found at 8:18-19.