Isaiahchapter 58
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Speaks with:Isaiah 58×2Psalms 37×2Titus 2×1Hosea 8×1Acts 20×1Titus 1×1
Summary
Chapter summary
Fasting is the chapter's battleground. Jehovah commands the prophet to lift his voice like a trumpet and declare Jacob's sins: the people seek God daily and ask why their fasts go unseen, yet on fast days they pursue their own pleasure, exact labor, and strike with the fist (vv. 1-4). Jehovah redefines the fast he chooses: loosing the bonds of wickedness, breaking every yoke, sharing bread with the hungry, housing the outcast poor, clothing the naked (vv. 6-7). Then light breaks forth like the morning, Jehovah answers "Here I am," the people become a watered garden and an unfailing spring, ancient ruins are rebuilt, and they are named "The repairer of the breach" (vv. 8-12). A sabbath promise closes the chapter: those who call the sabbath a delight will ride the high places of the earth and feed on Jacob's heritage (vv. 13-14).
Context
Prophecy · Isaiah — Isaiah overview
- A. 1–5 Is This the Fast That I Have Chosen?
- B. 6–12 Loose the Bands of Wickedness and Be a Repairer of the Breach
- C. 13–14 Call the Sabbath a Delight
The outline
A.Is This the Fast That I Have Chosen?vv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Loose the Bands of Wickedness and Be a Repairer of the Breachvv. 6 to 12
Read vv. 6 to 12 →C.Call the Sabbath a Delightvv. 13 to 14
Read vv. 13 to 14 →
The world behind this chapter
Isaiah 58The history
Fasting had a standard physical vocabulary. You bowed your head — the text says like a bulrush, the reed that nods over on its stalk — put on sackcloth, and spread ashes under you to sit or lie on. Israel's law commanded exactly one fast a year, on the Day of Atonement, but by this period other fast days had been added, especially days of mourning for national disasters, and they were observed publicly and visibly.
The complaint quoted from the people is genuine confusion: why have we fasted, and you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and you take no notice? They were not being sarcastic. They thought the transaction should work.
God's first answer is about what happened on the fast day itself. In the day of your fast you find pleasure and exact all your labors — a landowner performing his devotions while his hired workers and debt-servants kept working. And the day ended in quarrelling and fistfights.
The fast that is chosen is described as a list of physical actions with legal weight. Loose the bonds of wickedness and undo the heavy burdens — the vocabulary of debt bondage, where a man who could not pay was worked by his creditor. Let the oppressed go free and break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, bring the poor who are cast out into your house, cover the naked, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh, that is, from your own relatives.
The reward images are all restoration work. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in — a breach is the gap in a city wall after an assault, and repairing it was the first thing done after a siege lifted. And your light shall rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noonday; you shall be like a watered garden and a spring whose waters do not fail.
What it meant to them
The chapter's whole argument is that the religion was working exactly as designed and the design was wrong. They sought God daily, delighted to know his ways, and asked him for just judgments. And they were squeezing their workers on the same afternoon.
The Sabbath section at the end is put the same way: honoring it means not doing your own ways or finding your own pleasure or speaking your own words. A day that belongs to God has to actually be handed over.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (NICOT)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Isaiah 58. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.