An Oracle on Fasting and the Observance of the Sabbath (1) The prophet announces his commission to expose the sin of his people, especially the formal and perfunctory character of their religious service (Isaiah 58:1). (2) He then takes up the question of fasting, which is the immediate occasion of... [ Continue Reading ]
_Cry aloud_ lit. CRY WITH THE THROAT, with the full power of the voice. _shew my people their transgression &c_.] The function of the true prophet as distinguished from the false; see Micah 3:8, a verse which seems to have been in the prophet's mind.... [ Continue Reading ]
The people indeed are zealous in the performance of their external religious duties, and imagine that this suffices to put them in a right relation to God. They are ostensibly as eager to know the divine will as if they were in reality, and not merely in profession, a people that practised righteous... [ Continue Reading ]
The first half of the verse expresses the people's sense of disappointment at the failure of their efforts to win the favour of Jehovah; the second half begins the prophet's exposure of their hypocrisy. There is an incipient Pharisaism in their evident expectation that by external works of righteous... [ Continue Reading ]
_ye fast for strife and_ CONTENTION (R.V.)] The fasting made them as irritable as Arabs in the month of Ramadan; it produced a quarrelsome temper which even led to open violence, "smiting with godless fist." _ye shall not fast &c_.] Render: YE DO NOT FAST AT PRESENT SO AS TO MAKE &c., i.e. "with yo... [ Continue Reading ]
SHOULD SUCH BE THE FAST THAT I CHOOSE? Can mere gestures and symbols of humiliation avail anything, along with such evidences of an unspiritual frame of mind? _to afflict his soul_ Both here and in Isaiah 58:3 the phrase expresses what is of moral value in the act of fasting, the repression of sens... [ Continue Reading ]
Description of the true fast in which Jehovah delights. The duties enjoined fall under two heads: (1) abstinence from every form of oppression (Isaiah 58:6), and (2) the exercise of positive beneficence towards the destitute (Isaiah 58:7). In naming these things as the moral essence of fasting, the... [ Continue Reading ]
Comp. Ezekiel 18:7 f., Ezekiel 18:16 f.; Job 31:13 ff. _the poor that are cast out_ THE VAGRANT (homeless) POOR. The word rendered "vagrant" is peculiar, but is supposed to come from a verb meaning "wander." It occurs with an abstract sense, and along with the abstract noun corresponding to the wor... [ Continue Reading ]
_draw out thy soul to the hungry_ A very peculiar expression. The most natural sense would be "let thy desire go out" &c.; but most commentators rightly feel that the object ("the hungry") demands some more specific definition of duty than this. Hence they take "thy soul" to mean "that in which thy... [ Continue Reading ]
_the Lord shall guide thee_ Cf. ch. Isaiah 57:18 "I will lead him," the same verb in Hebr. _satisfy thy soul_(cf. Isaiah 58:10) _in drought_ R.V. "dry places". _make fat thy bones_ So the LXX. The verb (which does not elsewhere occur in this form) may mean "make strong" (thy bones). But it is best... [ Continue Reading ]
Comp. ch. Isaiah 61:4; Isaiah 49:8. The importance attached to the restoration of the ruined places shews that what the prophet has in view is chiefly the recovery of temporal and political prosperity. It may also throw some light on the date of the prophecy. The description of the ruins as "ancient... [ Continue Reading ]
A promise attached to the strict and cheerful observation of the Sabbath. See on ch. Isaiah 56:2. _If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath_ treating it as "holy ground" (ἄβατος). The metaphor is translated into literal terms in the following clause. from _doing thy pleasure_ SO AS NOT TO DO TH... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then shalt thou delight thyself_ Better: THEN SHALT THOU HAVE THY DELIGHT; Job 22:26. The same verb as in ch. Isaiah 57:4. _and I will cause thee to ride_ OVER THE HEIGHTS _of_ THE EARTH] Apparently a quotation from Deuteronomy 32:13. The meaning is "I will carry thee triumphantly over all obstacl... [ Continue Reading ]