Zec 7:5 | CPDV | STEP | Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: Although you may have fasted and mourned in the fifth and the seventh month for these seventy years, did you indeed keep a fast unto me?

Zechariah 7:5

5 Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: Although you may have fasted and mourned in the fifth and the seventh month for these seventy years, did you indeed keep a fast unto me? ^{▼▼7:5The repetition of ‘ieiunium ieiunastis’ (literally, ‘did you fast a fast’) intensifies the meaning, as in ‘did you really keep a fast unto me?’ The word ‘numquid’ implies that the answer is ‘no.’ Notice that the verbs ‘ieiunaretis, et plangeretis’ are subjunctive, which in this context indicates that there was not sufficient fasting and weeping. But in the next verse, the verbs referring to eating and drinking are indicative, not subjunctive. They were good at eating and drinking, but not so good with the fasting and weeping.(Conte)}