Isaiah 58 explained: The Kind of Fasting God Wants

A loud warning (vv. 1-2)

The prophet is told to call out the people's wrongs as loudly as a trumpet, even though they look very religious. They show up daily, seem eager to learn God's ways, and ask God to act for them, as if they had done nothing wrong.

Why isn't God noticing? (vv. 3-5)

The people complain that God ignores their fasts, with their bowed heads and their lying in rough sackcloth and ashes, which were signs of grief and humility. God answers that on those very days they push their workers hard and end up in quarrels and fistfights, so the outward show means nothing.

The fast God chooses (vv. 6-7)

A yoke was the wooden bar on an ox's neck, here a picture of forced labor, debt slavery and unfair contracts that bound people. The fasting God wants is breaking those bonds, sharing food, taking in the homeless, clothing the poor and not ignoring one's own relatives.

Light, healing and answered prayer (vv. 8-9a)

Light stands for good times returning, and the word for healing pictures a bandage closing a wound. God's glory guarding them from behind recalls the cloud that protected Israel when they left Egypt, and their prayers would finally be answered.

Rebuilding the ruins (vv. 9b-12)

If they stop pointing fingers in scorn or accusation, stop speaking harmfully, and pour themselves out for the needy, their darkness would turn to noon and they would be like a garden that never dries up. Many scholars think this was spoken to people back from exile among Jerusalem's ruins, who would become known as repairers of its broken walls and streets.

Honoring the Sabbath (vv. 13-14)

They are asked to treat the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest set apart for God, as a delight and an honor, not a day for doing as they please, going their own way and talking idly. The promise to ride on the heights pictures a secure people holding their hilly homeland, the land promised to Jacob's family.

Key verse: Isaiah 58:6

Something to think about

When someone's outward religious or moral habits don't match how they treat people with less power, which do you find yourself trusting more, and why?