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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 58:3 - 58:3
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There follow now the words of the work-righteous themselves, who hold up their fasting before the eyes of God, and complain that He takes no notice of it. And how could He?! “'Wherefore do we fast and Thou seest not, afflict our soul and Thou regardest not?' Behold, on the day of your fasting ye carry on your business, and ye oppress all your labourers. Behold, ye fast with strife and quarrelling, and with smiting with the fist maliciously closed: ye do not fast now to make your voice audible on high.” By the side of צוּם (root צם, to press, tie up, constrain) we have here the older expression found in the Pentateuch, נֶפֶשׁ עִנָּה, to do violence to the natural life. In addition to the fasting on the day of atonement (the tenth of the seventh month Tizri), the only fast prescribed by the law, other fasts were observed according to Zec 7:3; Zec 8:19, viz., fasts to commemorate the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem (10th Tebeth), its capture (17th Tammuz), its destruction (9th Aibb), and the murder of Gedaliah (3rd Tizri). The exiles boast of this fasting here; but it is a heartless, dead work, and therefore worthless in the sight of God. There is the most glaring contrast between the object of the fast and their conduct on the fast-day: for they carry on their work-day occupation; they are then, more than at any other time, true taskmasters to their work-people (lest the service of the master should suffer form the service of God); and because when fasting they are doubly irritable and ill-tempered, this leads to quarrelling and strife, and even to striking with angry fist (בְּאֶגְרֹף, from גָּרַף, to collect together, make into a ball, clench). Hence in their present state the true purpose of fasting is quite unknown to them, viz., to enable them to draw near with importunate prayer to God, who is enthroned on high (Isa 57:15).
(Note: The ancient church called a fast statio, because he who fasted had to wait in prayer day and night like a soldier at his post. See on this and what follows, the Shepherd of Hermas, iii. Sim. 5, and the Epistle of Barnabas, c. iii.)
The only difficulty here is the phrase חֵפֶץ מָצָא. In the face of Isa 58:13, this cannot have any other meaning than to stretch one's hand after occupation, to carry on business, to occupy one's self with it - חֵפֶץ combining the three meanings, application or affairs, striving, and trade or occupation. מָצָא, however, maintains its primary meaning, to lay hold of or grasp (cf., Isa 10:14; Targ. צָרְכֵיכוֹן תָּבְעִין אַתּוּן, ye seek your livelihood). This is sustained by what follows, whether we derive עַצְּבֵיכֶם (cf., חַלְּקֵי, Isa 57:6) from עֶצֶב (et omnes labores vestros graves rigide exigitis), נָגַשׂ (from which we have here תִּנְגֹּשׂוּ for תִּגֹּשׂוּ, Deu 15:3) being construed as in 2Ki 23:35 with the accusative of what is peremptorily demanded; or (what we certainly prefer) from עָצָב; or better still from עָצֵב morf ll (like עָמֵל): omnes operarios vestros adigitis (urgetis), נָגַשׂ being construed with the accusative of the person oppressed, as in Deu 15:2, where it is applied to the oppression of a debtor. Here, however, the reference is not to those who owe money, but to those who owe labour, or to obligations to labour; and עָצֵב does not signify a debtor (an idea quite foreign to this verbal root), but a labourer, one who eats the bread of sorrows, or of hard toil (Psa 127:2). The prophet paints throughout from the life; and we cannot be persuaded by Stier's false zeal for Isaiah's authorship to give up the opinion, that we have here a figure drawn from the life of the exiles in Babylon.