Isaiah 58: The Fast That I Have Chosen

"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression… Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness… Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness" (58:1–4).

"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?… Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?" (vv. 5–7).

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily… Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity… and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (vv. 8–12).

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable… Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father" (vv. 13–14).

Fasting in the Persian period

Zechariah 7–8, dated to 518 BC, records a delegation asking whether to continue the fasts mourning Jerusalem's fall, and the prophet's answer: "Execute true judgment, and shew mercy… oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor" (7:9–10). Zechariah 8:19 names fasts in the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months. Isaiah 58 belongs to the same world of communal fasting after the exile, though it does not name a fast day or a date.

Workers, debts and bread

Nehemiah 5:1–13 describes Judeans who mortgaged fields and sold children into slavery to pay for grain and the king's tax, and Nehemiah's demand that creditors release them. Jeremiah 34:8–22 tells of slaves freed and then taken back. The vocabulary of Isaiah 58:6 (fetters, cords, yoke, send free) fits that world of debt bondage, though the verse cites no law and names no institution. Ancient Near Eastern kings proclaimed releases of debts (Mesopotamian misharum and andurarum decrees; compare Hebrew deror, 61:1), and the Torah's sabbath-year and jubilee laws (Exodus 21; Deuteronomy 15; Leviticus 25) address the same problems.

Social obligation behind worship

Isaiah 58 does not reject fasting; it defines it. The "fast I choose" is a set of actions toward others: releasing those bound by debt, feeding, housing, clothing. The chapter stands in a line of prophetic texts that judge worship by justice: Isaiah 1:10–17, Amos 5:21–24, Micah 6:6–8, Hosea 6:6, Zechariah 7:4–10. Each speaks in its own setting; Isaiah 58 speaks to a community that fasts and asks why God does not answer, and the answer concerns how its members treat their workers and their poor. 58:6's "loose the bands of wickedness" is ethical and civic; it is not evidence for a single law being enforced.

Jesus and the fast

Luke 4:18 includes the Greek of 58:6 ("to set at liberty them that are bruised") inside the reading from Isaiah 61, so that Luke's "Nazareth manifesto" joins two passages. Matthew 6:16–18 reports Jesus' teaching on fasting in secret, and Matthew 25:35–36 his words about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked, which echo 58:7 without citing it. These are separate texts in separate Gospels; the site does not merge them into one teaching, and it does not read Isaiah 58 as if it had been written about any of them.

Sabbath and economy

The sabbath at the end of the chapter is also economic: rest from "your business" (chefets, v. 13; compare Amos 8:5, merchants waiting for the sabbath to end). Jewish tradition took "call the sabbath a delight" as the basis of oneg shabbat, honoring the day with food, clothing and rest (b. Shabbat 118a–b, reported).