Chapter Fifty-Eight

1–2. An introduction to the discourse, which sets forth its theme. 3–5. Exposure of the external, purely outward, and therefore false piety of the Jews. 6–7. The inner content of true and actual piety. 8–14. Its salutary fruits.

Isaiah 58:1. Cry aloud, do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to My people their transgressions, and to the house of Jacob their sins. Isaiah 58:2. They seek Me day by day and desire to know My ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinances of their God; they ask of Me righteous judgments, they desire the nearness of God: The basic theme of the chapter is God’s judgment upon Israel, or the revelation of its deep guilt, despite all its outward apparent righteousness. The Hebrew people, especially in the post-exilic period (which Isaiah here prophetically beholds), were distinguished by a great attachment to the Mosaic ritual and the letter of the law. Therefore, perhaps they sincerely wondered why they could still be accused? Undoubtedly, this is the very meaning of the characterization of the Jews in verse two, where they are depicted “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinances of their God,” as well as in the preceding words of the text.

Matthew 15:8. “They seek Me day by day and desire to know My ways.” But they seek God not where and not in the way they should; this is especially clearly revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ when He said: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mt.15:8; compare this with nearly identical words of the prophet Isaiah from another chapter Isa 29:13). Isaiah 58:3. “Why do we fast, and You do not see? Why do we humble ourselves, and You do not notice?” Behold, on the day of your fast you carry out your own desires and demand hard labor from others. Isaiah 58:4. Behold, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike others with a wicked fist; you do not fast in such a way that your voice would be heard on high. Isaiah 58:5. Is this the fast I have chosen: a day for a person to humble their soul, to bow their head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord? “Why do we fast, and You do not see?” In Hebrew thought there prevailed a crude external, purely mechanical point of view regarding the means of salvation: once a person fulfilled this or that ritual action prescribed by the law, he believed that for this not only did he have grounds to obtain justification and salvation from God, but could even demand it as a sort of earned reward or wages. The typical example of this kind in the prophet Isaiah, as later also in the Savior Himself in His well-known parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, is the Jewish view of the special significance of the widely practiced fasts (Luke 18:12; cf. Matt 6:16; Luke 5:33). The best exposure of all the futility of such a monstrous view is provided by the prophet’s further words, in which he reveals all the hypocrisy and falsehood of such a fast, all its inconsistency with its purpose. “Behold, you fast for strife and contention and to strike others with a wicked fist... Will you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord?” (verses 4–5). From this it becomes perfectly clear that pure physical fasting alone, even if accompanied by complete exhaustion of the body, is entirely insufficient: every fast acquires its significance and meaning only when it is united with the corresponding inner spiritual disposition, which the prophet Isaiah speaks of directly below.

Isaiah 58:6. Behold, this is the fast I have chosen: to loose the bonds of injustice, to untie the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke; Isaiah 58:7. Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, clothe them, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh. In these two remarkable verses the inner side of the fast is beautifully revealed—its true, moral nature, consisting in acts of justice, love, and mercy. The fundamental spirit of such a fast is the struggle against sinful selfishness in service to the lesser brother. These verses so well reveal the meaning and conditions of correct, God-pleasing fasting that it is no wonder they became the content of one of our finest great-fasting hymns: “Fasting in the flesh, brothers, let us also fast spiritually—let us loose every bond of injustice, tear asunder the knots of oppressive arrangements, rend every unrighteous bond; let us give bread to the hungry and bring the homeless poor into our houses, so that we may receive from Christ God great mercy.”

Isaiah 58:8. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. Isaiah 58:9. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, “Here I am.” If you remove from your midst the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and harmful speech, Isaiah 58:10. and if you give your soul to the hungry and satisfy the soul of the afflicted: then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday; All these verses in a series of parallel images reveal the same thought—the thought of the salutary fruits of true fasting, taken here, obviously, as a symbol of proper worship in general. “And your righteousness shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard” (verse 8). That very justification which you now so vainly seek will be before your eyes, and glorification from the Lord will be a natural reward for you. An almost literal expression of this image is also found in the Psalmist (Ps 36:6). “When you remove from your midst the yoke.” Given the context (“the bonds of the yoke” – verse 6), it is most correct to understand “yoke” here as the oppression of legal and socio-economic relations, which bore down on the majority of the sons of Israel from the privileged minority.

Isaiah 5:18–19. “When you cease pointing your finger and speaking harmful words.” “The pointing of the finger signifies the presumptuous pride of a teacher sitting in the seat of Moses; harmful words spoken by those in power, we saw above in Isaiah’s prophecies, for example, in Is.5:18–19; Isa 28:9-10; Isa 30:1-2; Isa 31:1 and many others, from which it is clear... a very widespread unbelief in the ruling classes” (Vlastov). Isaiah 58:11. And the Lord will guide you always, and will satisfy your desire in places of drought, and will make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring whose waters never fail. “And you shall be like a watered garden.” The comparison of divine grace with the effect of enlivening moisture on parched earth is an image well known both in the Old and in the New Testament. In particular, this expression is repeated verbatim in the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31:12). Does not the historical memory of Paradise as an Eden-like garden watered by many rivers lie at the foundation of this image in both prophets? (Gen 2:10).

Isaiah 58:12. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. “Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt... and you shall be called... the restorer of streets to live in.” Bearing in mind that “the barren wilderness” the prophet Isaiah usually understands to mean the pagan world (Isa 35:1; Isa 55:1; Isa 61:4 and others), we are entitled to affirm that here he speaks of the religious mission of the spiritually renewed Israel, namely, the calling through it of the nations into the fold of the New Testament church. Under “descendants” of Israel, in such a case, one should understand not fleshly but spiritual descendants, that is, Christians.

Isaiah 58:13. If you keep your foot from breaking the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor it by not following your own ways or pursuing your own interests or speaking idle words,— Isaiah 58:14. then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. The final two verses of the chapter, revealing the improper character of the Jews’ observance of the Sabbath, show what its true meaning consists of. Although the Jews, especially in the post-exilic period and in the time of the Savior’s earthly life, kept “Sabbath rest” very strictly (Isa 1:13; Matt 12:1; Luke 6:6-9), they clearly did not understand its true spirit, its character of “holiness.” As can be gathered from the prophet’s words, the Jews, ceasing their ordinary working life on the Sabbath, devoted the resulting leisure to indulging their desires, or even to idle speech. In contrast to such unworthy use of time, the true Sabbath, in the prophet’s view, should be a “holy” day, that is, devoted to God and one’s neighbor and consisting in acts of meditation on God and active service to one’s neighbor. Only such observance of the Sabbath, together with complete moral satisfaction, will give great spiritual joy and will be a true liberation from the turmoil of daily life. A high example of true Sabbath observance was repeatedly shown, to the scandal of the Pharisees, by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself during His earthly life (Matt 12:1-14; Luke 14:1-6 and others).