Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 58

Verse 1

58:1 Cry {a} aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

(a) The Lord thus speaks to the prophet willing him to use all diligence and severity to rebuke the hypocrites.

Verse 2

58:2 Yet they {b} seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

(b) They will seem to worship me and have outward holiness.

Verse 3

58:3 {c} Why have we fasted, [say they], and thou seest not? [why] have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find {d} pleasure, and exact all your labours.

(c) He sets forth the malice and disdain of the hypocrites, who grudge against God, if their works are not accepted.

(d) Thus he convinces the hypocrites by the second table and by their duty toward their neighbour, that they have neither faith nor religion.

Verse 4

58:4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as [ye do this] day, to make your voice to be {e} heard on high.

(e) So long as you use contention and oppression, your fasting and prayers will not be heard.

Verse 6

58:6 [Is] not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every {f} yoke?

(f) That you leave off all your extortions.

Verse 7

58:7 [Is it] not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou shouldest bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou shouldest cover him; and that thou shouldest not hide thyself from {g} thy own flesh?

(g) For in him you see yourself as in a mirror.

Verse 8

58:8 Then shall thy (h) light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily: and thy {i} righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rear guard.

(h) That is, the prosperous estate with which God will bless you.

(i) The testimony of your goodness will appear before God and man.

Verse 9

58:9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I [am]. If thou shalt take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the {k} finger, and speaking vanity;

(k) By which is meant all manner of injury.

Verse 10

58:10 And [if] thou shalt {l} draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in {m} obscurity, and thy darkness [be] as the noonday:

(l) That is, have compassion on their miseries.

(m) Your adversity will be turned into prosperity.

Verse 12

58:12 And [they that shall be] of thee shall build the old {n} waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

(n) Signifying that of the Jews would come such as would build again the ruins of Jerusalem and Judea: but chiefly this is meant of the spiritual Jerusalem, whose builders were the Apostles.

Verse 13

58:13 If thou shalt {o} turn away thy foot from the sabbath, [from] doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thy own ways, nor finding thy own pleasure, nor speaking [thy own] words:

(o) If you refrain yourself from your wicked works.