Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to humble his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh?
Parallel Translations
-
Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to humble his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh?
-
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
-
Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Isaiah 58:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Daniel 9:3-19 I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to Yahweh my God, and made confession, and said, “Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned, and have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from your precepts and from your ordinances. We haven’t listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. “Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as it is today; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you. Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him. We haven’t obeyed Yahweh our God’s voice, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, turning aside, that they should not obey your voice. “Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us; for we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, that we should turn from our iniquities and have discernment in your truth. Therefore Yahweh has watched over the evil, and brought it on us; for Yahweh our God is righteous in all his works which he does, and we have not obeyed his voice. “Now, Lord our God, who has brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten yourself renown, as it is today; we have sinned. We have done wickedly. Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us. “Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake. My God, turn your ear, and hear. Open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name; for we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies’ sake. Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and do. Don’t defer, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
- Zechariah 7:5 “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
- Isaiah 49:8 Yahweh says, “I have answered you in an acceptable time. I have helped you in a day of salvation. I will preserve you and give you for a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritage,
- Esther 4:16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
- Isaiah 61:2 to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
- Romans 12:2 Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
- Leviticus 16:29 “It shall be a statute to you forever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no kind of work, whether native-born or a stranger who lives as a foreigner among you;
- 2 Chronicles 20:3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
- Psalms 69:13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, Yahweh, in an acceptable time. God, in the abundance of your loving kindness, answer me in the truth of your salvation.
- Luke 4:19 and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
- 1 Kings 21:27-29 When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. Yahweh’s word came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “See how Ahab humbles himself before me? Because he humbles himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but I will bring the evil on his house in his son’s day.”
- Ezra 10:6 Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he ate no bread, nor drank water; for he mourned because of their trespass of the captivity.
- Nehemiah 9:1-2 Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them. The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
- Esther 4:3 In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
- Job 2:8 He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.
- Isaiah 58:3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.
- 1 Peter 2:5 You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
- Jonah 3:5-8 The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.
- 2 Kings 6:30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 58:5 Is it such a fast that I…
Isa 58:5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? [is it] to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes [under him]? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Ver. 5. Is it such a fast that I have chosen?] No; for God hates that mar-good formality; and displeasing service is double dishonour.
Read full note →
A day for a man to afflict his soul,] i.e., His body a whole day at least, from evening till evening, {Lev 23:32} or from morning till evening. {Jdg 20:26 2Sa 3:35} Yet so as that nature be chastised, not disabled for service; and that we take not the more liberty afterwards to pamper the flesh which we have pined, as those dames of Athens did in their Thesmophoria, a feast of Ceres, to the which they prepared themselves with fasting; but after that took their liquor more freely than was fit {a} And as the Turks do at this day in their solemn fasts; they will not so much as taste a cup of water, or wash their mouths with water all the day long, before the stars appear in the sky; but then they lay the reins in the neck and run riot. {b}
Is it to bow down the head as a bulrush?] While the heart is unbowed, and stands bolt upright. Hypocrites, like bulrushes, hang down their heads for a day, while some storm of trouble is upon them; but when a fair sunshine day is come to dry it up again, they lift up their heads as before. Fitly, saith a grave divine, is formality compared to a bulrush; the colour is fresh, the skin smooth; he is very exact that can find a knot in a bulrush; but if you peel it, what is under but a kind of spungeous, unsubstantial substance, of no use in the world worth the speaking of. Such are hypocrites; a fair outside, specious pretences of piety, &c., all the rest not worth a rush. Pictures, saith another, are pretty things to look on, and that is all they are good for. Christ looked on, and loved the young Pharisee, &c.
And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?] The Jews did so usually in their solenm mournings. {Est 4:3 Jer 6:26} The heathens also did the like. {Jon 3:5 Mat 11:21}
Wilt thou call this a fast?] Is it not a mere mock fast, as was that of the Pharisees? and is that of the Papists, who pride themselves that day with opinion of merit, for their mere outward abstinence. Some Protestants also fast; but they had need to send, as God speaks, for mourning women, that by their cunning they may be taught to mourn, {Jer 9:17} and for reformation (the main business of a fast) they mind it not.
And an acceptable day to the Lord.] Heb., A day of goodwill or well liking, therefore called elsewhere a day of atonement or expiation, and hath most excellent promises made to it. {Joe 2:12; Joe 2:18} Only there must be withal a turning from wicked works; without which God seeth no work or worth in a fast, {Joh 3:10} nor can it be an acceptable day to the Lord.
{a} Rous’s Archaeol. Attica.
{b} Turkish History, 777; Voyage into the Levant.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That I have chosen; approve of, accept, or delight…
That I have chosen; approve of, accept, or delight in, by a metonymy, because we delight in what we freely choose.
A day for a man to afflict his soul; or, to afflict his soul for a day. It is an hypallage, and so it may be understood either for a man to take a certain time to afflict his soul in, and that either from even to even, Lev 23:32, or from morning to evening, Jdg 20:26; 2Sa 3:35; or else to afflict his soul for a little time. To afflict, or keep himself low, or chastise the body for want of food, viz. outwardly, without any inward sorrow, or compunction for sin, working a true humiliation in the sight of God.
Read full note →
His soul, put here synecdochically for the body or person, as is usual in Scripture, Gen 46:18,22,25; Le 5:2,4; 7:20,21,27; 22:11.
To bow down his head as a bulrush: here the prophet sets down those external gestures and postures in particular which they did join with their hypocritical fasts, as he had mentioned it before in general.
To bow down; bowing is the posture of mourners, Psa 35:14; and here it is either, as if through weakness of body their heads did hang down; or counterfeitly, to represent the posture of true penitents, moving sometimes their heads this way, and that way, as the word signifieth, not unlike the balance of a clock, as the bulrush moved by the wind boweth itself down, waving to and fro, in a kind of circular or semicircular motion; the contrary motion of lifting up the head being an indication of pride, Isa 3:16. It is the guise of hypocrites to put on affected countenances, Mt 6 16.
To spread sackcloth and ashes under him. The Jews, to express their sorrow, made use of sackcloth and ashes two ways.
1. Sometimes by putting on sackcloth upon their bodies, as 1Ki 21:27; Psa 69:11, and casting ashes upon their heads, 2Sa 13:19. And,
2. Sometimes by spreading sackcloth under them, and lying down upon ashes, Est 4:3; Job 2:8. The intent of
sackcloth was to afflict the body by its unpleasing harshness, and of
ashes to represent their own vileness, as being but dust and ashes; their putting of them on might note their uneasiness under sin, and laying on them their self-abhorrency, shaming themselves for it.
Quest. Are such rites now convenient on a day of humiliation to help us in our afflicting of ourselves?
Answ. Gospel services neither require them nor need them, respecting more the inward afflicting of the soul with godly sorrow and deep contrition; yet may they carry this instruction along with them, that our ornaments, our best and gaudy apparel, ought to be laid aside, as not suiting either the ground and cause, or the end and design, of days of humiliation.
Wilt thou call this a fast? i.e. canst thou upon a rational account as a mere man call it so? canst thou think, suppose, or believe it to be so? it being such a one as has nothing in it but the lifeless skeleton and dumb signs of a fast, nothing of deep humiliation appearing in it, or real reformation proceeding from it. Not that the prophet blames them for these external rites in this outward way of afflicting themselves; for, this he commands, Lev 23:27,31-32, and appoints certain rites to be used, Lev 16:19,21. And these particular rites were frequent in their solemn humiliations, 1Ki 21:27; Est 4:3; Dan 9:3; used also by the heathen, Jon 3:5,6. See Mat 11:21. But that which he condemns is their hypocrisy in separating true humiliation from them, for bodily exercise profiteth little, 1Ti 4:8.
An acceptable day to the Lord; a day that God will approve of, as before. Heb. a day of acceptance, or that will turn to a good account on your behalf.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Is it such a fast that I have chosen?....…
Is it such a fast that I have chosen?.... That is, can this be thought to be a fast approved of by me, and acceptable to me, before described, and is as follows:
a day for a man to afflict his soul? only to appoint a certain day, and keep that, by abstaining from bodily food, and so for a short time afflict himself; or only after this manner to afflict himself, and not humble himself for his sins, and abstain from them, and do the duties of justice and charity incumbent on him:
Read full note →
is it to bow down his head as a bulrush; when it is moved with the wind, or bruised, or withered; as if he was greatly depressed and humbled, and very penitent and sorrowful. The Syriac version renders it, "as a hook"; like a fish hook, which is very much bent; so Jarchi interprets the word:
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? which were ceremonies used in times of mourning and fasting; sometimes sackcloth was put on their loins, and ashes on their heads; and sometimes these were strewed under them, and they laid down upon their sackcloth, which, being coarse, was uneasy to them, and rolled themselves in ashes, as expressive of their meanness and vileness:
wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? does this deserve the name of a fast? or can it be imagined that such a day so spent, can be agreeable to God? that such persons and services will be accepted of by him? or that hereby sin is atoned for, and God is well pleased, and will show his favour and good will, and have respect to such worshippers of him? no, surely.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Chosen - Approve of, accept, or delight in, by…
Chosen - Approve of, accept, or delight in, by a metonymy, because we delight in what we freely chuse. For a day - This may be understood, either for a man to take a certain time to afflict his soul in, and that either from even to even, Lev. xxiii, 32, or from morning to evening, or for a little time. Wilt thou call - Canst thou suppose it to be so? A fast - It being such an one as has nothing in it, but the dumb signs of a fast, nothing of deep humiliation appearing in it, or, real reformation proceeding from it. Acceptable day - A day that God will approve of.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Is it such a fast that I have chosen?…
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? - Is this such a mode of fasting as I have appointed and as I approve?
A day for a man to afflict his soul? - Margin, ‘To afflict his soul for a day.’ The reading in the text is the more correct; and the idea is, that the pain and inconvenience experienced by the abstinence from food was not the end in view in fasting. This seems to have been the mistake which they made, that they supposed there was something meritorious in the very pain incurred by such abstinence. Is there not danger of this now? Do we not often feel that there is something meritorious in the very inconveniences which we suffer in our acts of self denial? The important idea in the passage before us is, that the pain and inconvenience which we may endure by the most rigid fasting are not meritorious in the sight of God. They are not that at which he aims by the appointment of fasting. He aims at justice, truth, benevolence, holiness Isa 58:6-7; and he esteems the act of fasting to be of value only as it will be the means of leading us to reflect on our faults, and to amend our lives.
Read full note →
Is it to bow down his head - A bulrush is the large reed that grows in marshy places. It is, says Johnson, without knots or joints. In the midst of water it grows luxuriantly, yet the stalk is not solid or compact like wood, and, being unsupported by joints, it easily bends over under its own weight. it thus becomes the emblem of a man bowed down with grief. Here it refers to the sanctimoniousness of a hypocrite when fasting - a man without real feeling who puts on an air of affected solemnity, and ‘appears to others to fast.’ Against that the Saviour warned his disciples, and directed them, when they fasted, to do it in their ordinary dress, and to maintain an aspect of cheerfulness Mat 6:17-18. The hypocrites in the time of Isaiah seemed to have supposed that the object was gained if they assumed this affected seriousness. How much danger is there of this now! How often do even Christians assume, on all the more solemn occasions of religious observance, a forced sanctimoniousness of manner; a demure and dejected air; nay, an appearance of melancholy - which is often understood by the worm to be misanthropy, and which easily slides into misanthropy! Against this we should guard. Nothing more injures the cause of religion than sanctimoniousness, gloom, reserve, coldness, and the conduct and deportment which, whether right or wrong, will be construed by those around us as misanthropy. Be it not forgotten that the seriousness which religion produces is always consistent with cheerfulness, and is always accompanied by benevolence; and the moment we feel that our religious acts consist in merely bowing down the head like a bulrush, that moment we may be sure we shall do injury to all with whom we come in contact.
And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him - On the meaning of the word ‘sackcloth,’ see the notes at Isa 3:24. It was commonly worn around the loins in times of fasting and of any public or private calamity. It was also customary to sit on sackcloth, or to spread it under one either to lie on, or to kneel on in times of prayer, as an expression of humiliation. Thus in Est 4:3, it is said. ‘and many lay on sackcloth and ashes:’ or, as it is in the margin, ‘sackcloth and ashes were laid under many;’ (compare 1Ki 21:27). A passage in Josephus strongly confirms this, in which he describes the deep concern of the Jews for the danger of Herod Agrippa, after having been stricken suddenly with a violent disorder in the theater of Caesarea. ‘Upon the news of his danger, immediately the multitude, with their wives and children, “sitting upon sackcloth according to their country rites,” prayed for the king; all places were filled with wailing and lamentation; while the king, who lay in an upper room, beholding the people below thus falling prostrate on the ground, could not himself refrain from tears’ (Antiq. xix. 8. 2). We wear crape - but for a somewhat different object. With us it is a mere sign of grief; but the wearing of sackcloth or sitting on it was not a mere sign of grief, but was regarded as tending to produce humiliation and mortification. Ashes also were a symbol of grief and sorrow. The wearing of sackcloth was usually accompanied with ashes Dan 9:3; Est 4:1, Est 4:3. Penitents, or those in affliction, either sat down on the ground in dust and ashes Job 2:8; Job 42:6; Jon 3:6; or they put ashes on their head 2Sa 13:19; Lam 3:16; or they mingled ashes with their food Psa 102:9. The Greeks and the Romans had also the same custom of strewing themselves with ashes in mourning. Thus Homer (Iliad, xviii. 22), speaking of Achilles bewailing the death of Patroclus, says:
Cast on the ground, with furious hands he spread
The scorching ashes o’er his graceful head,
His purple garments, and his golden hairs;
Those he deforms, and these he tears.
Laertes (Odys. xxiv. 315), shows his grief in the same manner:
Deep from his soul he sighed, and sorrowing spread
A cloud of ashes on his hoary head.
So Virgil (AEn. x. 844), speaking of the father of Lausus, who was brought to him wounded, says:
Canitiem immundo deformat pulvere.
Wilt thou call this a fast? - Wilt thou suppose that these observances can be such as God will approve and bless? The truth here taught is, that no mere outward expressions of penitence can be acceptable to God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Circle. They affected extreme debility, Matthew vi. 16. (Calmet)…
Circle. They affected extreme debility, Matthew vi. 16. (Calmet) --- Ashes. These external marks of penance are not condemned, but the want of corresponding sentiments. (Haydock) --- Protestants would hence infer that fasting from flesh is not requisite, or a religious worship. But St. Jerome shews the contrary, provided it be joined with the observance of other commandments, as the saints and Christ himself have shewn us. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain for a man to afflict his soul--The pain felt…
for a man to afflict his soul--The pain felt by abstinence is not the end to be sought, as if it were meritorious; it is of value only in so far as it leads us to amend our ways (Isa 58:6-7).
bow . . . head . . . sackcloth--to affect the outward tokens, so as to "appear to men to fast" (Mat 6:17-18; Kg1 21:27; Est 4:3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 5-7. Is it such a fast — That is,…
5-7. Is it such a fast — That is, the one chosen fast which I have appointed through my servant Moses? Only the fast connected with the day of atonement had been thus duly appointed. With this annual great day of atonement were prescribed many and various ceremonial duties, all having symbolic importance, not needful to be here defined. At various times in the history of Israel other fasts were established, especially from the time of the exile onward. With classes of Jews who affected much religiousness, fasting became merely an outward asceticism, and this is what is here condemned. The moral intent of a fast is expressed by the deepest humiliation, penitence, a whole self-surrender to God, heart-felt love for others, and a round of sincerely compassionate acts such as the wants of our fellow men call for. For the lack of these the prophet characterizes the fasting of his times, and of times foreseen far into the future, as dumb show and hypocrisy. The kind of pretended humiliation he condemns does not tend to radical reformation of life. This demands that they should loose the bands of wickedness, and undo heavy burdens: or, in other words, should cease to be unjust to debtors and others. Break every yoke, etc. — That is, the manumission of slaves, (Leviticus 25,) and the cessation of every sort of oppressiveness, etc. See Jer_34:8-22. The kind of character required before God embraces, moreover, forgiveness of enemies, unfeigned sympathy with sufferers, and pure, general beneficence.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 5. Should such be the fast that I choose?…
5. Should such be the fast that I choose? Can mere gestures and symbols of humiliation avail anything, along with such evidences of an unspiritual frame of mind?
to afflict his soul] Both here and in Isa_58:3 the phrase expresses what is of moral value in the act of fasting, the repression of sensual impulses through abstinence, &c. It is so used also in Psa_35:13 (“I humbled my soul through fasting”), and in the laws about fasting it becomes almost a technical expression (Lev_16:29; Lev_16:31; Lev_23:27; Lev_23:32; Num_29:7). From it comes the noun ta‘anîth (humiliation), the common term for fasting in late Hebrew (found Ezr_9:5). How little the true end of fasting was attained in the case of those here addressed has been shewn in Isa_58:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (5) A day for a man to afflict his…
(5) A day for a man to afflict his soul.—The phrase comes from Lev_16:29, and describes the soul-sorrow which was the true ideal of fasting. In contrast with this we have the picture, reminding us of Mat_6:16, of the mechanical prostrations, which are as the waving of a bulrush in the breeze. The image suggests a new aspect of our Lord’s statement, that the Baptist was not as “a reed shaken by the wind” (Mat_11:7), scil., that his fasting was not outward and ceremonial, like that of the Pharisees.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Is it such a fast that I have chosen,…
Is it such a fast that I have chosen, etc.? Do you suppose that such can be the fast commanded by me in the Law a fast which is expressly called "a day for a man to afflict his soul"? Is afflicting one"s soul simply bowing down one"s head as a bulrush, and making one"s couch on sackcloth and ashes? Surely it is much more than this. (On the employment of "sackcloth and ashes" in fasting, see Est_4:3 Dan 9:3Jo Dan_3:6)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
Isa_58:5-9
Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
Read full note →
--
The fast which God has chosen
I. GODS PURPOSE IN COMMANDING MEN TO FAST.
1. To lead us to prayer (Isa_58:4), prayer so real that our voices are heard on high, that God will hear and answer.
2. To aid us in realizing communion with Him (Isa_58:9); that His voice be heard by us as truly as ours by Him; our voice to Him (Isa_58:8), His to us.
3. To aid in repressing self in all its forms. In Joh_3:30, we have thegeneral principle, also in Php_2:8.
II. THE NATURE OR CHARACTER OF TRUE ABSTINENCE.
1. To loose our bands (Luk_13:16), whom Satan hath bound Luk_11:21-22; Mat_5:29-30).
2. To undo our burdens (Psa_55:22; Mat_11:28-30).
3. To break every yoke, every habit that enslaves (Rom_14:21; 1Co_6:12-18). I will not be brought under the power of any.
4. To bring the flesh into subjection to the spirit (Gal_5:17).
III. THE EFFECT OF TRUE ABSTINENCE.
1. Then thy light shall break forth like morning (Php_2:15-16; Mat_5:16).
2. Thy righteousness shall go before thee as a leader to higher grace and 2Co_3:18).
3. Thy prayer shall be heard (verse 9).
4. There shall be light from on high, and His guidance for ever (verse 10; Psa_32:8; Exo_33:14).
Conclusion: To keep this season properly, we must be ourselves free as now creatures in Him. We must act habitually in the spirit of freedom Gal_5:1). We must do what in us lies to make others free Num_10:29). (H. Linton, M. A.)
Philanthropic piety
In these verses you have the religious instinct working, not through selfishness, but through love, not in formal religious devotions, but in earnest philanthropic services.
I. ITS RITUAL IS PHILANTHROPIC SERVICE. Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the widow and fatherless, etc.
II. ITS INFLUENCE IS GLORIOUSLY BENEFICENT. What is it? Light. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning. Prosperity will come on them as the genial dawning of a long and blessed day. Health. Thine health shall spring forth speedily. All weakness and disease will depart, and healthful vigour will come into the soul. Righteousness. Thy righteousness shall go before thee. The eternal law of rectitude--not expediency, not caprice, not passion, not morbid sentiment, will guide the footsteps as a leader through the winding path of life. Glory. The glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward (margin, shall gather thee up, that ye shall bring up the rear).
III. ITS SPIRIT IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD. Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am. The idea is that if men would only be real in their religion, show their love to Him by labouring earnestly for the good of suffering humanity, then He would respond to their prayers, and grant them their request. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 58:5 This is a satirical portrayal of the people’s…
58:5 This is a satirical portrayal of the people’s fasting as mere external piety without repentance and righteous acts. Ritualistic and insincere fasting is nothing but pomp. • Wearing burlap and ashes are expressions of sorrow and mourning. • please the Lord? The people erroneously believed that the Lord would bless them, if only they performed the right rituals.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.