Regem-Melek was one of the men sent by the people of Bethel to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem to seek the Lord's favor and to ask the priests and prophets whether they should continue to fast and mourn in the fifth month, as they had done during the exile. His inquiry led to an important prophetic message from Zechariah about true righteousness rather than ritual fasting.
Key events
Sent to the House of the Lord
Regem-Melek was sent together with Sharezer and their men by the people of Bethel to implore the Lord for favor.
Regem-Melek and his delegation asked the priests and prophets whether they should still observe the fast in the fifth month as they had done for many years during the exile.
3and to ask the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, "Should I go on weeping and abstaining in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?"
In response to their question, the Lord spoke through the prophet Zechariah and questioned the motivation behind the fast—whether it was truly directed toward the Lord.
5Say to all the people of the land and to the priests: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and the seventh months these seventy years, was it truly for me, for me, that you fasted?
7Should you not obey the words the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at ease, with her towns around her, and the Negev and the foothills were settled?
12They made their hearts hard as flint, refusing to hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
14"I drove them out with a whirlwind among all the nations they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them, with none passing to and fro. So a pleasant land was made a desolation."