Isaiah 58:3, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 58:3 records professed worshippers complaining that God does not notice their fasting and humbling of themselves, and His answer that on their fast day they chase their own pleasure and drive all their workers hard. Their outward fasting, prayer, and denial of self gain nothing while joined to selfishness, injustice, and oppression, leaving their voice unheard on high. The fault lies not in God failing to see or reward, but in the worshippers themselves, whose hearts remain unsubdued and whose wrongs remain uncorrected. What is required instead is practical godliness that joins devotion with justice and mercy, loosing bonds, freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and clothing the naked. Those who keep this chosen fast receive breaking light, restored health, answered prayer, continual guidance, and fullness like a watered garden.

Complaint and God's Answer

The verse holds together a complaint and an answer: professed worshippers ask why their fasting and afflicting of soul goes unseen and unacknowledged, and the answer exposes that on their fast day they still chase their own pleasure and keep exacting labor from others. The complaint charges that self-denial is overlooked, while the reply shows outward religion contradicted by selfish conduct, unjust dealing, oppression of those counted inferior, and demand for work and payment. Their expectation that deeds must earn reward makes the service self-righteous, and the accusation against God is unjust because the fault lies in the worshippers themselves and in the gap between observance and duty to God and humanity.

Those who complain are a people who seek daily, delight to know the ways of God and to draw near to Him as if doing righteousness, make high profession, pray habitually, delight in religious exercises, and claim godliness as Sabbath-keepers. Yet they cast reproach on God for giving no returns, and the reproach falls back on themselves, for they bear no fruit to His glory, do no unselfish work, remain self-caring instead of doing right and showing practical mercy, and live in neglect of positive duties without which prayer cannot be answered to His glory. What is required of them is heart work with good works springing from a heart filled with love, on condition of obedience to all requirements, instead of confusion of sentiment, fanaticism, impulse, zeal without knowledge, triumphing before victory, self-confident boasting, and prayer without humbleness, distrust of self, and a broken and contrite heart. Their humbling of bowing the head like a bulrush and spreading sackcloth and ashes, joined to fasting for strife and debate and to strike with the fist of wickedness, will not cause the voice to be heard on high and is not the fast that is chosen.

The verse belongs to a showing of transgression and sin under the trumpet call to cry aloud and spare not, and to a description of the nation's spiritual condition and the reasons for its calamity. The people have forsaken and forgotten God, chosen other gods and followed corrupt ways, trampled on His law, broken the everlasting covenant, and despised His Sabbath.

Afflicting the soul here means approaching earnestly and intelligently to follow God and understand His work in the human heart, being ready to recognize His dealings, humbling the heart to stand in right relation to Him, examining the heart in fasting and prayer and seeking counsel earnestly, and considering a life of humiliation and suffering unto death. It does not mean mourning and wearing oneself down with worry and sorrow, but calls for the meekness shown in Christ's life and character, thinking of divine love, talking of divine power, praising the holy name, resting in sustaining care, being of good cheer, and trusting kind compassionate keeping that saves day by day and brings healing and peace, without lifting the soul to vanity and self-confidence or prescribing how the Spirit must work.

False Fasting Rejected

Outward fasting, self-denial, meetings, prayers and abstinence from food please no one and earn no favor when joined to self-interest, selfish conduct, disobedience, injustice and oppression, leaving a gap between religious observance and duty to God and humanity. The contradiction exposed is asking why God does not notice a fast while pursuing personal pleasure and exacting labor from others on the fast day, trusting in fasting and prayers while neglecting mercy and love for God and fellow people. Claim to be connected with God must be shown by doing righteous works for others, for religious practices and self-confidence cannot replace love in action, and true worship requires service from the heart with justice and truth that lifts the oppressed and strengthens the weak. Outward religious observance is not true piety when joined to disobedience, so Sabbath keeping must be strict and sincere and sin must be put away, with obedience to the commandments and following Christ.

The rejected fast is specified as pursuing pleasure and profit, demanding labor and payment from others and driving laborers hard, while neglecting God's work and refusing to follow His way. It is fasting for strife and debate and to strike with wickedness, with the fist of violence, and merely bowing the head and spreading sackcloth and ashes while remaining idle and self-pleasing, which is sin and will not make the voice to be heard on high. Such worship brings a charge against God, complaining that He does not see fasting and afflicting of soul, does not acknowledge works, and does not answer prayers, yet harsh wounding words that injure the righteous show outward fasting and prayer cannot be separated from conduct shaped by faith and love.

The complaint unjustly charges God and rolls blame back on Him for not seeing, acknowledging, answering or rewarding, while the fault is in the worshippers themselves. Selfishness woven thread after thread into the web of life God will not acknowledge at all, and every soul claiming to partake of the divine nature has work to rid himself of everything like selfishness and be wide awake to see and observe it. Expectation that God must reward deeds makes service self-righteous, for the fasting is self-serving in pursuing own pleasure and demanding payment for labor, with religious profession not matched by sacrifice for Him who sacrificed His only Son that they may be sanctified and made holy. Unanswered prayer points to sufficient reasons in the one praying whose own wrongdoing remains uncorrected, whose heart is not in order and not in others, through oppression, taking advantage of the destitute, unjust dealing, selfishness about means, closeness, benefiting by necessities of the poor, and especially oppressing the hireling in wages by neglecting wants and paying small wages to a poorly clad hard-working conscientious God-fearing worker. This illustrates those who hear Christ's words yet persist in unbelief and sinful indulgence and then wonder why they are not blessed, and calls for learning to represent Christ's character, bearing living testimony, setting one's own heart in order rather than blaming others, with humbling of heart, confession, repentance and restitution.

Fasting and prayer accomplish nothing toward answered prayer while the heart is estranged from God by a wrong course of action, neglect of positive duties, confusion, fanaticism and self-confidence. God's promise is on condition of obedience and compliance with all His requirements, requiring heart work with good works springing from a heart filled with love. Motives and actions must be carefully and prayerfully investigated, with close self-examination to find sins, then repentance, confession and forsaking with deep humility of soul, contrition, broken spirit, inward grace and firm reliance upon the merits of the blood of Christ alone. Reading and practicing the instruction to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and neighbor as self produces praying in the Spirit instead of formal prayers, with petitions heard and answered, backsliding healed and judgment turned away when people repent and turn wholeheartedly.

True Fasting Defined

Isaiah 58:3 is reproof and correction in righteousness that plainly marks out the way of the Lord. What is required is not mere profession and zeal in a false faith but practical godliness and Bible religion, doing justice and mercy and ever elevating the purest principles of the kingdom of God. True worship and faith are shown by practical, unselfish care for people in need, and faith that does not lead to loving help for the oppressed and needy is only a profession. True religion must be lived through practical love and care, for keeping the commandments is more than religious observance and requires seeking, helping, and uplifting those who are wounded or straying. Following these rules brings healthfulness of soul and a joyful experience, and as Jesus is welcomed the light of His righteousness fills the heart.

Praying and abstinence from food avail nothing while the heart still seeks its own pleasure and profit, exacts labor, lives selfishly, refuses inconvenience or sacrifice, and neglects suffering. The fast that can be accepted is not mere abstinence but active labor to loose wicked bands, undo heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke, deal bread to the hungry, bring the homeless poor and cast out into the house, cover the naked, and not hide from one's own flesh. It is to search for the homeless poor and bring them in instead of waiting for them to come, to pour out the soul in sympathy, to put away the yoke and accusation and vanity, to draw out the soul to the hungry, and to lift up a falling brother rather than condemn. One hand must by faith take hold of God's saving power while the other hand in love reaches the oppressed to relieve them, for no one can hold God's arm while the other hand serves self. This is the recipe prescribed for the faint-hearted, doubting, trembling soul and for sorrowful ones who walk mournfully and wonder why prayer is lifeless and faith feeble: arise and help someone who needs help.

Those who resolutely lay hold of this work receive the blessing the chapter promises. Their light breaks forth, health springs forth, righteousness goes before them, divine glory is their rear guard, prayer is answered, guidance is continual, there is satisfaction in drought, strength of bones, and life as a watered garden and unfailing spring. They experience spiritual healthfulness and joy, and they build up waste places in harmony with God. This promise belongs to those who humble themselves and show mercy, care for the needy and oppressed, love justice, reject robbery and self-serving favoritism, and give up luxuries and needless ornaments to make sick and poor people comfortable.

True observance gives life and light, goodness and truth in warning and encouragement to be received and applied to the individual life. It calls for meek and lowly submission to the will of God instead of rebellion that insists on having one's own way. It calls for wrestling with the Father in prayer as Christ did for strength and power to make God known in words and actions, reflecting Christ's likeness in every renewed soul as laborers together with God, representing His character after His great sacrifice, and bearing living testimony. Working to benefit and bless others brings a sense of satisfaction and peace of soul created by the Lord that is worth more than gold, every faithful performance of duty stands registered in the books of heaven for more than an earthly reward, and it fulfills the sacred duty owed to God to receive His grace in order to give it to others.

Prophetic Call for Last Days

The whole of Isaiah 58 is a trumpet command to cry aloud, spare not, lift up the voice like a trumpet, and show God's people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. That message is to be given to the churches over and over again, to be searched in order to realize the times and the nearness of the end, and to be received as both warning and encouragement for the individual life. Read with the entire chapter, the complaint about fasting enjoins upon every soul the necessity of receiving Bible truth enthroned in the heart, with individual souls at stake. It answers the question the times now ask, What is truth, which eternal realities and pure and undefiled religion ask, and it foretells the work of presenting a warning that exposes departure from the Lord's ordinances and adoption of worldly principles.

The chapter belongs to present truth for this time and the last days of earth's history, with marked fulfilment now as the end approaches. It is to be fulfilled and calls all church members, all true missionaries, all who believe the third angel's message, and all who turn away from Sabbath breaking to consider it, to recognize sin, and to prepare for Christ's coming. It applies to present experience now, showing that time is passing rapidly and that many have little understanding of what needs to be done in right lines, and calling for that understanding and right doing. Upon those who keep the Sabbath of the Lord is laid the responsibility of doing a work of mercy and benevolence, with medical missionary work and the gospel ministry bound together as the message is given to the world, bound up with the message and sealed with the seal of God. Keeping this Sabbath holy shows to the world recognition of God as the One who created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and the message must be borne earnestly and untiringly lest time pass and people be left unwarned.

Studied carefully with Isaiah 54 and 55, the chapter shows a precious and extended work to be done by the people of God in the last days to learn what they must do to be saved, with the Lord working intelligently for all who will work intelligently for Him in lifting up Christ before the world. That means not sitting in churches Sabbath after Sabbath only listening to preaching, and ministers not hovering about the churches repeating the same truths week after week, but laboring together with God by visiting friends, neighbors, and families, creating an interest in the truth for this time, planting the saving and precious Word in many hearts, and dealing out the bread of life to many hungering souls. It shows the great work before us is the proclamation of the gospel with its life-saving principles to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, to be studied by every person and obeyed by active service. No one is to remain idle because he cannot do the work of the most experienced servants, hold the highest place, trade on pounds, possess five talents, or work for multitudes, but is to do the smaller duties waiting, help those bearing heavy responsibilities, work for individuals, use ever so few talents faithfully and wisely in the service of God to whom life and every capability belong, keep Jesus ever before him and do all to the glory of His name, thereby gaining power for better work and heavier responsibilities.

The appointed work enjoined at this time by God's own appointment is repairing the breach made in God's law when the seventh-day Sabbath, the memorial and sign of God's work in creating the world, was displaced by the man of sin. That message to make up the breach carries God's power to convert souls, and calls ministers and people to renewed conversion in their observance of the Sabbath. Its teaching reaches Sabbathkeepers who have brought their own work, words, and unsanctified thoughts into the Sabbath, showing that outward religious observance without reverence for the day dishonors God. The chapter represents churches whose members have broken God's law and need to return to Him through heartfelt repentance and confession, with obedience to God's commandments as the basis of the covenant of peace between Him and His people. The seventh-day Sabbath is thus contrasted with a false Sabbath that people may be compelled by law to observe.

Genuine medical missionary work is bound up inseparably with keeping the commandments, especially the Sabbath, and with restoring the moral image of God in man, and rightly performed brings rich blessings to the church. Medical missionary work and the gospel ministry are to be bound together and borne earnestly as evangelistic labor in all cities, temperance work that brings converts to see saloons closed and the dealing out of poisoned liquor that creates madness and bloodshed ended, and warning to the whole world including the message of the law of God on the Sabbath question. That proclamation is the truth as it is in Jesus in all its bearings that the denominated people of God are appointed to proclaim after God's order before nations and the highest authority, with well-planned methods for the cities in America, reaching all classes and especially the higher classes upon temperance, handled in a wise way at camp meetings. It is not to be sunk by absorbing means and time in Chicago slum work and manufacturing enterprises that consume but do not produce and leave thousands unreached.

The chapter opens a wide field of service to enlighten the world and to relieve distressed families, especially people cast out or suffering because they accepted the truth and keep the commandments. Its directions present a plan for giving means so workers can enter unreached places, and its ministry brings life to churches and carries the gospel through both generous giving and personal work, with feeding the hungry and helping those who suffer as acts of Christ's benevolent ministry. Its teaching calls for personal care and practical help for children, youth, and others in need, and for caring personally for the poor, orphans, and aged members of the church, rather than leaving that duty to others. Such service calls for self-denial, including giving up luxuries and ornamental display so that people in need can be made comfortable. When the church follows it, members overcome selfishness and covetousness, share their light through living faith and godly example, and the church gains spiritual strength, growth, blessing, and power.

Practical Duties in Daily Life

Practicing the verse means refusing to turn away fatherless and motherless children for profit and refusing to neglect the poor, the homeless, widows, the hungry, the naked, the sick, the aged, and the youth, or to say Am I my brother's keeper, but instead feeding the hungry, housing the cast out, clothing the naked, and caring for one's own flesh. It requires giving up luxuries and ornaments to make sufferers comfortable, and denying self rather than spending on personal wants, while keeping the spiritual message and the needs of the soul central to true religious service. The chapter does not support using God's resources for work among people in the slums when that work produces few genuine conversions and does not strengthen workers for God, but directs benevolent care toward people who accept the truth, keep God's commandments, and suffer hardship for their faith, including losing work and being unable to support their families. Its teaching on Sabbath observance in this connection calls for honoring the Sabbath rather than pursuing one's own pleasure.

Institutions, church workers, physicians, and those in authority must do more than fast and pray by putting things in order and living by God's principles, for fasting cannot be accepted while they have turned from their appointed purpose to serve selfish ends and neglect the work God requires. The rebuke applies to those who complain that God does not notice their fasting and self-denial while pursuing their own pleasure and exploiting those who work for them, whose conduct, disputes, and self-satisfaction separate them from Christ and bring reproach on the truth, so that outward profession without a changed life cannot benefit them. Fasting does not gain God's attention when people demand their workers' labor during the fast, and fasting alongside strife, debate, and violence is empty, especially when harsh, wounding words injure the righteous, since outward fasting and prayer cannot be separated from conduct shaped by faith and love. The instruction plainly specifies the methods Sabbathkeepers are to follow in their work, showing that God will not be a party to any dishonest transaction and that marketplaces, merchandise stores, courts of justice, lawyers' offices, the medical fraternity, and medical missionary work need cleansing and purifying. The soul who keeps the Sabbath is stamped with the sign of God's government and must not dishonor this sign but must learn from the Word whether he has the King's mark as one chosen and set apart to honor God, preserving truthful compassionate practice in medical work and honoring God rather than serving selfish ends. Authority must not be used to burden servants, hinder their light, exploit hirelings by small wages, or injure others by harsh words, and restaurant work must not become so enlarged that those who should be engaged in giving the gospel to souls starving for the bread of life are occupied in serving tables.

The verse exposes the gap between outward religious devotion and a life that is not pure and holy, showing that people may expect God to notice their fasting and self-denial while failing to live rightly, and calling them to recognize and forsake their sins. It exposes the evil of the diseased soul and gives warning and instruction with the remedy, calling for decided reformation not only among young people but among instructors of the young, with repentance and reformation going deep and thorough and requiring a decided change. The chapter marks out right and wrong and gives assurance of specified blessings if the right is followed, setting the wrong course condemned in ancient Israel against the right course, so that taking up the duties close at hand avoids those faults and exercises calm, unwavering trust in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Those addressed need to study the chapter because they have disregarded the Lord's reproofs and need reformation, setting one's own heart in order rather than blaming others, keeping the commandments and loving the law, and doing the appointed work of relieving sufferers as missionaries. It is to be studied alongside the promises in Isaiah 45, 49, and 55, providing instruction whose adoption by converted ministers and church members would produce wonderful results in witnessing to the Lord's power, bringing comfort, encouragement, and effective witnessing. Those who walk in the light of God's commands may be maligned and persecuted, while the verse itself portrays fasting alongside self-serving conduct and demands on workers.

The verse forbids idle profession such as sitting in churches Sabbath after Sabbath listening to preaching while ministers hover about believers repeating the same truths. It requires instead doing waiting smaller duties, helping burden-bearers, working for individuals, using few talents faithfully to God's glory, and carrying on missionary rather than exacting labor in the churches. Studied with Isaiah 54 and Isaiah 55, it means there is a precious and extended work for the people of God in the last days to lift up Christ before the world, planting the Word of God in many hearts and dealing out the bread of life to many hungering souls by visiting the families of friends and neighbors and seeking to create an interest in present truth, laboring together with God for the salvation and conversion of souls.