True Fasting, Justice, and Sabbath Delight Before the Lord

Isa 58:5-7 Whilst the people on the fast-day are carrying on their worldly, selfish, everyday business, the fasting is perverted from a means of divine worship and absorption in the spiritual character of the day to the most thoroughly selfish purposes: it is supposed to be of some worth and to merit some reward. This work-holy delusion, behind which self-righteousness and unrighteousness were concealed, is met thus by Jehovah through His prophet: “Can such things as these pass for a fast that I have pleasure in, as a day for a man to afflict his soul?

To bow down his head like a bulrush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under him - dost thou call this a fast and an acceptable day for Jehovah? Is not this a fast that I have pleasure in: To loose coils of wickedness, to untie the bands of the yoke, and for sending away the oppressed as free, and that ye break every kind of yoke? Is it not this, to break thy bread to the hungry, and to take the poor and houseless to thy home; when thou seest a naked man that thou clothest him, and dost not deny thyself before thine own flesh?

” The true worship, which consists in works of merciful love to one’s brethren, and its great promises are here placed in contrast with the false worship just described. הכזה points backwards: is such a fast as this a fast after Jehovah’s mind, a day on which it can be said in truth that a man afflicts his soul (Lev 16:29)? The ה of הלכף is resumed in הלזה; the second ל is the object to תּקרא expressed as a dative.

The first ל answers to our preposition “to” with the infinitive, which stands here at the beginning like a casus absol. (to hang down; for which the inf. abs. הכפוף might also be used), and as in most other cases passes over into the finite ( et quod saccum et cinerem substernit , viz. , sibi : Ges. §132, Anm. 2). To hang down the head and sit in sackcloth and ashes - this does not in itself deserve the name of fasting and of a day of gracious reception (Isa 56:7; Isa 61:2) on the part of Jehovah (ליהוה for a subjective genitive).

Isa 58:6 and Isa 58:7 affirm that the fasting which is pleasant to Jehovah consists in something very different from this, namely, in releasing the oppressed, and in kindness to the helpless; not in abstinence form eating as such, but in sympathetic acts of that self-denying love, which gives up bread or any other possession for the sake of doing good to the needy. There is a bitter irony in these words, just as when the ancients said, “not eating is a natural fast, but abstaining form sin is a spiritual fast.

” During the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans a general emancipation of the slaves of Israelitish descent (who were to be set free, according to the law, every three years) was resolved upon and carried out; but as soon as the Chaldeans were gone, the masters fetched their liberated slaves back into servitude again (Jer 34:8-22). And as Isa 58:6 shows, they carried the same selfish and despotic disposition with them into captivity.

The זה which points forwards is expanded into infin. absolutes, which are carried on quite regularly in the finite tense. Mōtâh , which is repeated palindromically, signifies in both cases a yoke, lit. , vectis , the cross wood which formed the most important part of the yoke, and which was fastened to the animal’s head, and so connected with the plough by means of a cord or strap (Sir.

30:13; 33:27).

Isa 58:5-7 Whilst the people on the fast-day are carrying on their worldly, selfish, everyday business, the fasting is perverted from a means of divine worship and absorption in the spiritual character of the day to the most thoroughly selfish purposes: it is supposed to be of some worth and to merit some reward. This work-holy delusion, behind which self-righteousness and unrighteousness were concealed, is met thus by Jehovah through His prophet: “Can such things as these pass for a fast that I have pleasure in, as a day for a man to afflict his soul?

To bow down his head like a bulrush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under him - dost thou call this a fast and an acceptable day for Jehovah? Is not this a fast that I have pleasure in: To loose coils of wickedness, to untie the bands of the yoke, and for sending away the oppressed as free, and that ye break every kind of yoke? Is it not this, to break thy bread to the hungry, and to take the poor and houseless to thy home; when thou seest a naked man that thou clothest him, and dost not deny thyself before thine own flesh?

” The true worship, which consists in works of merciful love to one’s brethren, and its great promises are here placed in contrast with the false worship just described. הכזה points backwards: is such a fast as this a fast after Jehovah’s mind, a day on which it can be said in truth that a man afflicts his soul (Lev 16:29)? The ה of הלכף is resumed in הלזה; the second ל is the object to תּקרא expressed as a dative.

The first ל answers to our preposition “to” with the infinitive, which stands here at the beginning like a casus absol. (to hang down; for which the inf. abs. הכפוף might also be used), and as in most other cases passes over into the finite ( et quod saccum et cinerem substernit , viz. , sibi : Ges. §132, Anm. 2). To hang down the head and sit in sackcloth and ashes - this does not in itself deserve the name of fasting and of a day of gracious reception (Isa 56:7; Isa 61:2) on the part of Jehovah (ליהוה for a subjective genitive).

Isa 58:6 and Isa 58:7 affirm that the fasting which is pleasant to Jehovah consists in something very different from this, namely, in releasing the oppressed, and in kindness to the helpless; not in abstinence form eating as such, but in sympathetic acts of that self-denying love, which gives up bread or any other possession for the sake of doing good to the needy. There is a bitter irony in these words, just as when the ancients said, “not eating is a natural fast, but abstaining form sin is a spiritual fast.

” During the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans a general emancipation of the slaves of Israelitish descent (who were to be set free, according to the law, every three years) was resolved upon and carried out; but as soon as the Chaldeans were gone, the masters fetched their liberated slaves back into servitude again (Jer 34:8-22). And as Isa 58:6 shows, they carried the same selfish and despotic disposition with them into captivity.

The זה which points forwards is expanded into infin. absolutes, which are carried on quite regularly in the finite tense. Mōtâh , which is repeated palindromically, signifies in both cases a yoke, lit. , vectis , the cross wood which formed the most important part of the yoke, and which was fastened to the animal’s head, and so connected with the plough by means of a cord or strap (Sir.

30:13; 33:27).

Isa 58:8-12 The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the “perfect day” (Pro 4:18).

The first series of promises we have in Isa 58:8, Isa 58:9 . “Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing will sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I! ” The love of God is called “light” in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God’s love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God’s wrath.

This life in God’s love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man’s dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun.

A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of God stimulates him to reciprocal love, he is filled with new vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants.

The only other passages in which ארוּכה occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (lxx here, τὰ ἰάματά σου ταχὺ ἀνατελεῖ, an old mistake for ἱμάτια, vestimenta ), and hence general prosperity (2Ch 24:13). It always occurs with the predicate עלתה (causative העלה, cf. , Targ. Psa 147:3, ארכא אסּק, another reading ארוּכין), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat ) alicui sanitas ; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage ( impontiru alicui fascia ).

But the primary word is ארך = ארך, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e. g. , b. Sabbath 33 b , “he cured his wounded flesh”), connected with אריך, Arab. ârak , accommodatus ; so that ארוּכה, after the form מלוּכה, Arab. (though rarely) arika , signifies properly, setting to rights, i. e. , restoration. The third promise is: “thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together,” i.

e. , be thy rear-guard (lxx περιστελεῖ σε, enclose thee with its protection; אסף as in מאסּף, Isa 52:12). The figure is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is δικαιοῦν, and the last δοξάζειν. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clear and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind.

The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help. But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. “If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisfiest the soul that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day.

And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets.

” מוטה, a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in Isa 58:6 , where it stands by the side of רשׁע. שׁלח־אצבּא (only met with here, for שׁלח, Ges. §65, 1, a ), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Pro 6:13, δακτυλοδεικτεῖν) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (Isa 57:4). דּבּר־און, the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one’s neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general.

The early commentators looked for more under נפשׁך, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: “they soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings,” etc.) The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (Isa 56:11), is used in Deu 24:6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself ( appetitus ) for the object of the longing ( Psychol.

p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb תּפק (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. §128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to נפק, Arabic anfaqa , to give out, distribute, nafaqa , distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35, etc.) , and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Psa 140:9; Psa 144:13).

The soul “bowed down” is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. וזרח. אפלה is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh - shemsu , “the sun has become invisible”); see at Job 10:22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called צהרים, because at that point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained.

A new promise points to the fat, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which נחה (הנחה, syn. נהל) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The ἅπαξ γεγρ בצחצחות does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, “ splendoribus ”), but according to צסהיחה (Psa 68:7) and such promises as Isa 43:20; Isa 48:21; Isa 49:10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz.

, in extreme droughts (Targ. “years of drought”). In the place of the perf. cons. we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: “and thy bones will He make strong,” יחליח, for which Hupfeld would read יחליף, “will He rejuvenate. ” חחליץ is a denom. of חלוּץ, expeditus ; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb חלץ, presupposed by חלצים, not, however, in the meaning “to be fat” (lxx πιανθήσεται, and so also Kimchi), but “to be strong,” lit.

, to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamoth 102 b has the very suitable gloss גרמי זרוזי (making the bones strong). This idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level.

The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: “and thy people (ממּך) build” (Ewald, §295, c ); and Böttcher would read ממך וּבנּוּ; but מן with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of ἀπό than in that of ὑπό, and בּנּוּ followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary.

Moreover, there is no force in the objection that ממּך with the active can only signify “some of thee,” since it is equivalent to ממך אשׁר, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.

e. , houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (Isa 61:4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of “builder of breaches,” “restorer of streets (i. e. , of places much frequented once) לשׁבת” (for inhabiting), i. e. , so that, although so desolate now (Isa 33:8), they become habitable and populous once more.

Isa 58:8-12 The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the “perfect day” (Pro 4:18).

The first series of promises we have in Isa 58:8, Isa 58:9 . “Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing will sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I! ” The love of God is called “light” in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God’s love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God’s wrath.

This life in God’s love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man’s dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun.

A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of God stimulates him to reciprocal love, he is filled with new vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants.

The only other passages in which ארוּכה occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (lxx here, τὰ ἰάματά σου ταχὺ ἀνατελεῖ, an old mistake for ἱμάτια, vestimenta ), and hence general prosperity (2Ch 24:13). It always occurs with the predicate עלתה (causative העלה, cf. , Targ. Psa 147:3, ארכא אסּק, another reading ארוּכין), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat ) alicui sanitas ; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage ( impontiru alicui fascia ).

But the primary word is ארך = ארך, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e. g. , b. Sabbath 33 b , “he cured his wounded flesh”), connected with אריך, Arab. ârak , accommodatus ; so that ארוּכה, after the form מלוּכה, Arab. (though rarely) arika , signifies properly, setting to rights, i. e. , restoration. The third promise is: “thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together,” i.

e. , be thy rear-guard (lxx περιστελεῖ σε, enclose thee with its protection; אסף as in מאסּף, Isa 52:12). The figure is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is δικαιοῦν, and the last δοξάζειν. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clear and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind.

The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help. But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. “If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisfiest the soul that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day.

And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets.

” מוטה, a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in Isa 58:6 , where it stands by the side of רשׁע. שׁלח־אצבּא (only met with here, for שׁלח, Ges. §65, 1, a ), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Pro 6:13, δακτυλοδεικτεῖν) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (Isa 57:4). דּבּר־און, the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one’s neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general.

The early commentators looked for more under נפשׁך, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: “they soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings,” etc.) The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (Isa 56:11), is used in Deu 24:6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself ( appetitus ) for the object of the longing ( Psychol.

p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb תּפק (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. §128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to נפק, Arabic anfaqa , to give out, distribute, nafaqa , distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35, etc.) , and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Psa 140:9; Psa 144:13).

The soul “bowed down” is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. וזרח. אפלה is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh - shemsu , “the sun has become invisible”); see at Job 10:22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called צהרים, because at that point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained.

A new promise points to the fat, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which נחה (הנחה, syn. נהל) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The ἅπαξ γεγρ בצחצחות does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, “ splendoribus ”), but according to צסהיחה (Psa 68:7) and such promises as Isa 43:20; Isa 48:21; Isa 49:10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz.

, in extreme droughts (Targ. “years of drought”). In the place of the perf. cons. we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: “and thy bones will He make strong,” יחליח, for which Hupfeld would read יחליף, “will He rejuvenate. ” חחליץ is a denom. of חלוּץ, expeditus ; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb חלץ, presupposed by חלצים, not, however, in the meaning “to be fat” (lxx πιανθήσεται, and so also Kimchi), but “to be strong,” lit.

, to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamoth 102 b has the very suitable gloss גרמי זרוזי (making the bones strong). This idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level.

The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: “and thy people (ממּך) build” (Ewald, §295, c ); and Böttcher would read ממך וּבנּוּ; but מן with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of ἀπό than in that of ὑπό, and בּנּוּ followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary.

Moreover, there is no force in the objection that ממּך with the active can only signify “some of thee,” since it is equivalent to ממך אשׁר, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.

e. , houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (Isa 61:4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of “builder of breaches,” “restorer of streets (i. e. , of places much frequented once) לשׁבת” (for inhabiting), i. e. , so that, although so desolate now (Isa 33:8), they become habitable and populous once more.

Isa 58:8-12 The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the “perfect day” (Pro 4:18).

The first series of promises we have in Isa 58:8, Isa 58:9 . “Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing will sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I! ” The love of God is called “light” in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God’s love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God’s wrath.

This life in God’s love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man’s dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun.

A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of God stimulates him to reciprocal love, he is filled with new vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants.

The only other passages in which ארוּכה occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (lxx here, τὰ ἰάματά σου ταχὺ ἀνατελεῖ, an old mistake for ἱμάτια, vestimenta ), and hence general prosperity (2Ch 24:13). It always occurs with the predicate עלתה (causative העלה, cf. , Targ. Psa 147:3, ארכא אסּק, another reading ארוּכין), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat ) alicui sanitas ; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage ( impontiru alicui fascia ).

But the primary word is ארך = ארך, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e. g. , b. Sabbath 33 b , “he cured his wounded flesh”), connected with אריך, Arab. ârak , accommodatus ; so that ארוּכה, after the form מלוּכה, Arab. (though rarely) arika , signifies properly, setting to rights, i. e. , restoration. The third promise is: “thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together,” i.

e. , be thy rear-guard (lxx περιστελεῖ σε, enclose thee with its protection; אסף as in מאסּף, Isa 52:12). The figure is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is δικαιοῦν, and the last δοξάζειν. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clear and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind.

The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help. But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. “If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisfiest the soul that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day.

And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets.

” מוטה, a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in Isa 58:6 , where it stands by the side of רשׁע. שׁלח־אצבּא (only met with here, for שׁלח, Ges. §65, 1, a ), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Pro 6:13, δακτυλοδεικτεῖν) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (Isa 57:4). דּבּר־און, the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one’s neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general.

The early commentators looked for more under נפשׁך, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: “they soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings,” etc.) The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (Isa 56:11), is used in Deu 24:6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself ( appetitus ) for the object of the longing ( Psychol.

p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb תּפק (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. §128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to נפק, Arabic anfaqa , to give out, distribute, nafaqa , distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35, etc.) , and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Psa 140:9; Psa 144:13).

The soul “bowed down” is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. וזרח. אפלה is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh - shemsu , “the sun has become invisible”); see at Job 10:22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called צהרים, because at that point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained.

A new promise points to the fat, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which נחה (הנחה, syn. נהל) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The ἅπαξ γεγρ בצחצחות does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, “ splendoribus ”), but according to צסהיחה (Psa 68:7) and such promises as Isa 43:20; Isa 48:21; Isa 49:10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz.

, in extreme droughts (Targ. “years of drought”). In the place of the perf. cons. we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: “and thy bones will He make strong,” יחליח, for which Hupfeld would read יחליף, “will He rejuvenate. ” חחליץ is a denom. of חלוּץ, expeditus ; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb חלץ, presupposed by חלצים, not, however, in the meaning “to be fat” (lxx πιανθήσεται, and so also Kimchi), but “to be strong,” lit.

, to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamoth 102 b has the very suitable gloss גרמי זרוזי (making the bones strong). This idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level.

The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: “and thy people (ממּך) build” (Ewald, §295, c ); and Böttcher would read ממך וּבנּוּ; but מן with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of ἀπό than in that of ὑπό, and בּנּוּ followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary.

Moreover, there is no force in the objection that ממּך with the active can only signify “some of thee,” since it is equivalent to ממך אשׁר, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.

e. , houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (Isa 61:4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of “builder of breaches,” “restorer of streets (i. e. , of places much frequented once) לשׁבת” (for inhabiting), i. e. , so that, although so desolate now (Isa 33:8), they become habitable and populous once more.

Isa 58:8-12 The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the “perfect day” (Pro 4:18).

The first series of promises we have in Isa 58:8, Isa 58:9 . “Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing will sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I! ” The love of God is called “light” in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God’s love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God’s wrath.

This life in God’s love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man’s dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun.

A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of God stimulates him to reciprocal love, he is filled with new vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants.

The only other passages in which ארוּכה occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (lxx here, τὰ ἰάματά σου ταχὺ ἀνατελεῖ, an old mistake for ἱμάτια, vestimenta ), and hence general prosperity (2Ch 24:13). It always occurs with the predicate עלתה (causative העלה, cf. , Targ. Psa 147:3, ארכא אסּק, another reading ארוּכין), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat ) alicui sanitas ; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage ( impontiru alicui fascia ).

But the primary word is ארך = ארך, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e. g. , b. Sabbath 33 b , “he cured his wounded flesh”), connected with אריך, Arab. ârak , accommodatus ; so that ארוּכה, after the form מלוּכה, Arab. (though rarely) arika , signifies properly, setting to rights, i. e. , restoration. The third promise is: “thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together,” i.

e. , be thy rear-guard (lxx περιστελεῖ σε, enclose thee with its protection; אסף as in מאסּף, Isa 52:12). The figure is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is δικαιοῦν, and the last δοξάζειν. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clear and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind.

The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help. But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. “If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisfiest the soul that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day.

And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets.

” מוטה, a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in Isa 58:6 , where it stands by the side of רשׁע. שׁלח־אצבּא (only met with here, for שׁלח, Ges. §65, 1, a ), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Pro 6:13, δακτυλοδεικτεῖν) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (Isa 57:4). דּבּר־און, the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one’s neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general.

The early commentators looked for more under נפשׁך, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: “they soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings,” etc.) The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (Isa 56:11), is used in Deu 24:6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself ( appetitus ) for the object of the longing ( Psychol.

p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb תּפק (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. §128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to נפק, Arabic anfaqa , to give out, distribute, nafaqa , distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35, etc.) , and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Psa 140:9; Psa 144:13).

The soul “bowed down” is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. וזרח. אפלה is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh - shemsu , “the sun has become invisible”); see at Job 10:22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called צהרים, because at that point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained.

A new promise points to the fat, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which נחה (הנחה, syn. נהל) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The ἅπαξ γεγρ בצחצחות does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, “ splendoribus ”), but according to צסהיחה (Psa 68:7) and such promises as Isa 43:20; Isa 48:21; Isa 49:10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz.

, in extreme droughts (Targ. “years of drought”). In the place of the perf. cons. we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: “and thy bones will He make strong,” יחליח, for which Hupfeld would read יחליף, “will He rejuvenate. ” חחליץ is a denom. of חלוּץ, expeditus ; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb חלץ, presupposed by חלצים, not, however, in the meaning “to be fat” (lxx πιανθήσεται, and so also Kimchi), but “to be strong,” lit.

, to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamoth 102 b has the very suitable gloss גרמי זרוזי (making the bones strong). This idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level.

The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: “and thy people (ממּך) build” (Ewald, §295, c ); and Böttcher would read ממך וּבנּוּ; but מן with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of ἀπό than in that of ὑπό, and בּנּוּ followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary.

Moreover, there is no force in the objection that ממּך with the active can only signify “some of thee,” since it is equivalent to ממך אשׁר, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.

e. , houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (Isa 61:4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of “builder of breaches,” “restorer of streets (i. e. , of places much frequented once) לשׁבת” (for inhabiting), i. e. , so that, although so desolate now (Isa 33:8), they become habitable and populous once more.

Isa 58:8-12 The prophet now proceeds to point out the reward of divine grace, which would follow such a fast as this, consisting of self-renouncing, self-sacrificing love; and in the midst of the promise he once more reminds of the fact, that this love is the condition of the promise. This divides the promises into two. The middle promise is linked on to the first; the morning dawn giving promise of the “perfect day” (Pro 4:18).

The first series of promises we have in Isa 58:8, Isa 58:9 . “Then will thy light break forth as the morning dawn, and thy healing will sprout up speedily, and thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will follow thee. Then wilt thou call and Jehovah will answer; thou wilt beseech, and He will say, Here am I! ” The love of God is called “light” in contrast with His wrath; and a quiet cheerful life in God’s love is so called, in contrast with a wild troubled life spent in God’s wrath.

This life in God’s love has its dawn and its noon-day. When it is night both within and around a man, and he suffers himself to be awakened by the love of God to a reciprocity of love; then does the love of God, like the rising sun, open for itself a way through the man’s dark night and overcome the darkness of wrath, but so gradually that the sky within is at first only streaked as it were with the red of the morning dawn, the herald of the sun.

A second figure of a promising character follows. The man is sick unto death; but when the love of God stimulates him to reciprocal love, he is filled with new vigour, and his recovery springs up suddenly; he feels within him a new life working through with energetic force like a miraculous springing up of verdure from the earth, or of growing and flowering plants.

The only other passages in which ארוּכה occurs are in the books of Jeremiah, Chronicles, and Nehemiah. It signifies recovery (lxx here, τὰ ἰάματά σου ταχὺ ἀνατελεῖ, an old mistake for ἱμάτια, vestimenta ), and hence general prosperity (2Ch 24:13). It always occurs with the predicate עלתה (causative העלה, cf. , Targ. Psa 147:3, ארכא אסּק, another reading ארוּכין), oritur (for which we have here poetically germinat ) alicui sanitas ; hence Gesenius and others have inferred, that the word originally meant the binding up of a wound, bandage ( impontiru alicui fascia ).

But the primary word is ארך = ארך, to set to rights, to restore or put into the right condition (e. g. , b. Sabbath 33 b , “he cured his wounded flesh”), connected with אריך, Arab. ârak , accommodatus ; so that ארוּכה, after the form מלוּכה, Arab. (though rarely) arika , signifies properly, setting to rights, i. e. , restoration. The third promise is: “thy righteousness will go before thee, the glory of Jehovah will gather thee, or keep thee together,” i.

e. , be thy rear-guard (lxx περιστελεῖ σε, enclose thee with its protection; אסף as in מאסּף, Isa 52:12). The figure is a significant one: the first of the mercies of God is δικαιοῦν, and the last δοξάζειν. When Israel is diligent in the performance of works of compassionate love, it is like an army on the march or a travelling caravan, for which righteousness clear and shows the way as being the most appropriate gift of God, and whose rear is closed by the glory of God, which so conducts it to its goal that not one is left behind.

The fourth promise assures them of the immediate hearing of prayer, of every appeal to God, every cry for help. But before the prophet brings his promises up to their culminating point, he once more lays down the condition upon which they rest. “If thou put away from the midst of thee the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of evil, and offerest up thy gluttony to the hungry, and satisfiest the soul that is bowed down: thy light will stream out in the darkness, and thy darkness become like the brightness of noon-day.

And Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in droughts, and refresh thy bones; and thou wilt become like a well-watered garden, and like a fountain, whose waters never deceive. And thy people will build ruins of the olden time, foundations of earlier generations wilt thou erect; and men will call thee repairers of breaches, restorers of habitable streets.

” מוטה, a yoke, is here equivalent to yoking or oppression, as in Isa 58:6 , where it stands by the side of רשׁע. שׁלח־אצבּא (only met with here, for שׁלח, Ges. §65, 1, a ), the stretching out of the finger, signifies a scornful pointing with the fingers (Pro 6:13, δακτυλοδεικτεῖν) at humbler men, and especially at such as are godly (Isa 57:4). דּבּר־און, the utterance of things which are wicked in themselves and injurious to one’s neighbour, hence sinful conversation in general.

The early commentators looked for more under נפשׁך, than is really meant (and so does even Stier: “they soul, thy heart, all thy sympathetic feelings,” etc.) The name of the soul, which is regarded here as greedily longing (Isa 56:11), is used in Deu 24:6 for that which nourishes it, and here for that which it longs for; the longing itself ( appetitus ) for the object of the longing ( Psychol.

p. 204). We may see this very clearly from the choice of the verb תּפק (a voluntative in a conditional clause, Ges. §128, 2), which, starting from the primary meaning educere (related to נפק, Arabic anfaqa , to give out, distribute, nafaqa , distribution, especially of alms), signifies both to work out, acquire, carry off (Pro 3:13; Pro 8:35, etc.) , and also to take out, deliver, offer, expromere (as in this instance and Psa 140:9; Psa 144:13).

The soul “bowed down” is bowed down in this instance through abstinence. The apodoses commence with the perf. cons. וזרח. אפלה is the darkness caused by the utter absence of light (Arab. afalat esh - shemsu , “the sun has become invisible”); see at Job 10:22. This, as the substantive clause affirms, is like the noon-day, which is called צהרים, because at that point the daylight of both the forenoon and afternoon, the rising and setting light, is divided as it were into two by the climax which it has attained.

A new promise points to the fat, that such a man may enjoy without intermission the mild and safe guidance of divine grace, for which נחה (הנחה, syn. נהל) is the word commonly employed; and another to the communication of the most copious supply of strength. The ἅπαξ γεγρ בצחצחות does not state with what God will satisfy the soul, as Hahn supposes (after Jerome, “ splendoribus ”), but according to צסהיחה (Psa 68:7) and such promises as Isa 43:20; Isa 48:21; Isa 49:10, the kind of satisfaction and the circumstances under which it occurs, viz.

, in extreme droughts (Targ. “years of drought”). In the place of the perf. cons. we have then the future, which facilitates the elevation of the object: “and thy bones will He make strong,” יחליח, for which Hupfeld would read יחליף, “will He rejuvenate. ” חחליץ is a denom. of חלוּץ, expeditus ; it may, however, be directly derived from a verb חלץ, presupposed by חלצים, not, however, in the meaning “to be fat” (lxx πιανθήσεται, and so also Kimchi), but “to be strong,” lit.

, to be loose or ready for action; and b. Jebamoth 102 b has the very suitable gloss גרמי זרוזי (making the bones strong). This idea of invigorating is then unfolded in two different figures, of which that of a well-watered garden sets forth the abundance received, that of a spring the abundance possessed. Natural objects are promised, but as a gift of grace; for this is the difference between the two testaments, that in the Old Testament the natural is ever striving to reach the spiritual, whereas in the New Testament the spiritual lifts up the natural to its own level.

The Old Testament is ever striving to give inwardness to what was outward; in the New Testament this object is attained, and the further object now is to make the outward conformed to the inward, the natural life to the spiritual. The last promise (whether the seventh or eighth, depends upon whether we include the growing of the morning light into the light of noon, or not) takes its form from the pining of the exiles for their home: “and thy people (ממּך) build” (Ewald, §295, c ); and Böttcher would read ממך וּבנּוּ; but מן with a passive, although more admissible in Hebrew than in Arabic, is very rarely met with, and then more frequently in the sense of ἀπό than in that of ὑπό, and בּנּוּ followed by a plural of the thing would be more exact than customary.

Moreover, there is no force in the objection that ממּך with the active can only signify “some of thee,” since it is equivalent to ממך אשׁר, those who sprang from thee and belong to thee by kindred descent. The members born to the congregation in exile will begin, as soon as they return to their home, to build up again the ruins of olden time, the foundations of earlier generations, i.

e. , houses and cities of which only the foundations are left (Isa 61:4); therefore Israel restored to its fatherland receives the honourable title of “builder of breaches,” “restorer of streets (i. e. , of places much frequented once) לשׁבת” (for inhabiting), i. e. , so that, although so desolate now (Isa 33:8), they become habitable and populous once more.

Isa 58:13-14 The third part of the prophecy now adds to the duties of human love the duty of keeping the Sabbath, together with equally great promises; i. e. , it adds the duties of the first table to those of the second, for the service of works is sanctified by the service of worship. “If thou hold back thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy business on my holy day, and callest the Sabbath a delight, the holy of Jehovah, reverer, and honourest it, not doing thine own ways, not pursuing thy business and speaking words: then wilt thou have delight in Jehovah, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the land, and make thee enjoy the inheritance of Jacob thy forefather, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

” The duty of keeping the Sabbath is also enforced by Jeremiah (Jer 17:19.) and Ezekiel (Eze 20:12. , Eze 22:8, Eze 22:26), and the neglect of this duty severely condemned. Chapter 56 has already shown the importance attached to it by our prophet. The Sabbath, above all other institutions appointed by the law, was the true means of uniting and sustaining Israel as a religious community, more especially in exile, where a great part of the worship necessarily feel into abeyance on account of its intimate connection with Jerusalem and the holy land; but whilst it was a Mosaic institution so far as its legal appointments were concerned, it rested, in a way which reached even beyond the rite of circumcision, upon a basis much older than that of the law, being a ceremonial copy of the Sabbath of creation, which was the divine rest established by God as the true object of all motion; for God entered into Himself again after He had created the world out of Himself, that all created things might enter into Him.

In order that this, the great end set before all creation, and especially before mankind, viz. , entrance into the rest of God, might be secured, the keeping of the Sabbath prescribed by the law was a divine method of education, which put an end every week to the ordinary avocations of the people, with their secular influence and their tendency to fix the mind on outward things, and was designed by the strict prohibition of all work to force them to enter into themselves and occupy their minds with God and His word.

The prophet does not hedge round this commandment to keep the Sabbath with any new precepts, but merely demands for its observance full truth answering to the spirit of the letter. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath” is equivalent to, if thou do not tread upon its holy ground with a foot occupied with its everyday work. עשׂות which follows is not elliptical (= מעשׂות answering to משּׁבּת, an unnecessary and mistaken assumption), but an explanatory permutative of the object “thy foot:” “turn away thy foot,” viz.

, from attending to thy business (a defective plural) on my holy day. Again, if thou call (i. e. , from inward contemplation and esteem) the Sabbath a pleasure ( ‛ōneg , because it leads thee to God, and not a burden because it leads thee away from thine everyday life; cf. , Amo 8:5) and the holy one of Jehovah (on this masculine personification of the Sabbath, see Isa 56:2), “ mekhubbâd ,” honoured = honourable, honorandus , and if thou truly honourest him, whom Jehovah has invested with the splendour of His own glory (Gen 2:3 : “and sanctified it”), “not” (מן = ὥστε μὴ) “to perform thy ways” (the ordinary ways which relate to self-preservation, not to God), “not to attend to thine own business’ (see at Isa 58:3) “and make words,” viz.

, words of vain useless character and needless multitude (דּבּר־דּברas in Hos 10:4, denoting unspiritual gossip and boasting); then, just as the Sabbath is thy pleasure, so wilt thou have thy pleasure in Jehovah, i. e. , enjoy His delightful fellowship (על־ה תּתענּג, a promise as in Job 22:26), and He will reward thee for thy renunciation of earthly advantages with a victorious reign, with an unapproachable possession of the high places of the land - i.

e. , chiefly, though not exclusively, of the promised land, which shall then be restored to thee - and with the free and undisputed usufruct of the inheritance promised to thy forefather Jacob (Psa 105:10-11; Deu 32:13 and Deu 33:29) - this will be thy glorious reward, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. Thus does Isaiah confirm the predictions of Isa 1:20 and Isa 40:25 (compare Isa 24:3).

Isa 58:13-14 The third part of the prophecy now adds to the duties of human love the duty of keeping the Sabbath, together with equally great promises; i. e. , it adds the duties of the first table to those of the second, for the service of works is sanctified by the service of worship. “If thou hold back thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy business on my holy day, and callest the Sabbath a delight, the holy of Jehovah, reverer, and honourest it, not doing thine own ways, not pursuing thy business and speaking words: then wilt thou have delight in Jehovah, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the land, and make thee enjoy the inheritance of Jacob thy forefather, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.

” The duty of keeping the Sabbath is also enforced by Jeremiah (Jer 17:19.) and Ezekiel (Eze 20:12. , Eze 22:8, Eze 22:26), and the neglect of this duty severely condemned. Chapter 56 has already shown the importance attached to it by our prophet. The Sabbath, above all other institutions appointed by the law, was the true means of uniting and sustaining Israel as a religious community, more especially in exile, where a great part of the worship necessarily feel into abeyance on account of its intimate connection with Jerusalem and the holy land; but whilst it was a Mosaic institution so far as its legal appointments were concerned, it rested, in a way which reached even beyond the rite of circumcision, upon a basis much older than that of the law, being a ceremonial copy of the Sabbath of creation, which was the divine rest established by God as the true object of all motion; for God entered into Himself again after He had created the world out of Himself, that all created things might enter into Him.

In order that this, the great end set before all creation, and especially before mankind, viz. , entrance into the rest of God, might be secured, the keeping of the Sabbath prescribed by the law was a divine method of education, which put an end every week to the ordinary avocations of the people, with their secular influence and their tendency to fix the mind on outward things, and was designed by the strict prohibition of all work to force them to enter into themselves and occupy their minds with God and His word.

The prophet does not hedge round this commandment to keep the Sabbath with any new precepts, but merely demands for its observance full truth answering to the spirit of the letter. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath” is equivalent to, if thou do not tread upon its holy ground with a foot occupied with its everyday work. עשׂות which follows is not elliptical (= מעשׂות answering to משּׁבּת, an unnecessary and mistaken assumption), but an explanatory permutative of the object “thy foot:” “turn away thy foot,” viz.

, from attending to thy business (a defective plural) on my holy day. Again, if thou call (i. e. , from inward contemplation and esteem) the Sabbath a pleasure ( ‛ōneg , because it leads thee to God, and not a burden because it leads thee away from thine everyday life; cf. , Amo 8:5) and the holy one of Jehovah (on this masculine personification of the Sabbath, see Isa 56:2), “ mekhubbâd ,” honoured = honourable, honorandus , and if thou truly honourest him, whom Jehovah has invested with the splendour of His own glory (Gen 2:3 : “and sanctified it”), “not” (מן = ὥστε μὴ) “to perform thy ways” (the ordinary ways which relate to self-preservation, not to God), “not to attend to thine own business’ (see at Isa 58:3) “and make words,” viz.

, words of vain useless character and needless multitude (דּבּר־דּברas in Hos 10:4, denoting unspiritual gossip and boasting); then, just as the Sabbath is thy pleasure, so wilt thou have thy pleasure in Jehovah, i. e. , enjoy His delightful fellowship (על־ה תּתענּג, a promise as in Job 22:26), and He will reward thee for thy renunciation of earthly advantages with a victorious reign, with an unapproachable possession of the high places of the land - i.

e. , chiefly, though not exclusively, of the promised land, which shall then be restored to thee - and with the free and undisputed usufruct of the inheritance promised to thy forefather Jacob (Psa 105:10-11; Deu 32:13 and Deu 33:29) - this will be thy glorious reward, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. Thus does Isaiah confirm the predictions of Isa 1:20 and Isa 40:25 (compare Isa 24:3).

Isa 59:1-2 This second prophetic address continues the reproachful theme of the first. In the previous prophecy we found the virtues which are well-pleasing to God, and to which He promises redemption as a reward of grace, set in contrast with those false means, upon which the people rested their claim to redemption. In the prophecy before us the sins which retard redemption are still more directly exposed.

“Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not too short to help, nor His ear too heavy to hear; but your iniquities have become a party-wall between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. ” The reason why redemption is delayed, is not that the power of Jehovah has not been sufficient for it (cf. , Isa 50:2), or that He has not been aware of their desire for it, but that their iniquities (עונתיכם with the second syllable defective) have become dividers (מבדּלים, defective), have grown into a party-wall between them and their God, and their sins (cf.

, Jer 5:25) have hidden pânı̄m from them. As the “hand” ( yâd ) in Isa 28:2 is the absolute hand; so here the “face” pânı̄m ) is that face which sees everything, which is everywhere present, whether uncovered or concealed; which diffuses light when it unveils itself, and leaves darkness when it is veiled; the sight of which is blessedness, and not to see which is damnation.

This absolute countenance is never to be seen in this life without a veil; but the rejection and abuse of grace make this veil a perfectly impenetrable covering. And Israel had forfeited in this way the light and sight of this countenance of God, and had raised a party-wall between itself and Him, and that משּׁמוע, so that He did not hear, i. e. , so that their prayer did not reach Him (Lam 3:44) or bring down an answer from Him.

Isa 59:1-2 This second prophetic address continues the reproachful theme of the first. In the previous prophecy we found the virtues which are well-pleasing to God, and to which He promises redemption as a reward of grace, set in contrast with those false means, upon which the people rested their claim to redemption. In the prophecy before us the sins which retard redemption are still more directly exposed.

“Behold, Jehovah’s hand is not too short to help, nor His ear too heavy to hear; but your iniquities have become a party-wall between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. ” The reason why redemption is delayed, is not that the power of Jehovah has not been sufficient for it (cf. , Isa 50:2), or that He has not been aware of their desire for it, but that their iniquities (עונתיכם with the second syllable defective) have become dividers (מבדּלים, defective), have grown into a party-wall between them and their God, and their sins (cf.

, Jer 5:25) have hidden pânı̄m from them. As the “hand” ( yâd ) in Isa 28:2 is the absolute hand; so here the “face” pânı̄m ) is that face which sees everything, which is everywhere present, whether uncovered or concealed; which diffuses light when it unveils itself, and leaves darkness when it is veiled; the sight of which is blessedness, and not to see which is damnation.

This absolute countenance is never to be seen in this life without a veil; but the rejection and abuse of grace make this veil a perfectly impenetrable covering. And Israel had forfeited in this way the light and sight of this countenance of God, and had raised a party-wall between itself and Him, and that משּׁמוע, so that He did not hear, i. e. , so that their prayer did not reach Him (Lam 3:44) or bring down an answer from Him.

Isa 59:3 The sins of Israel are sins in words and deeds. “For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak lies, your tongue murmurs wickedness. ” The verb גּאל, to spot (see Isa 63:3), is a later softening down of גּעל (e. g. , 2Sa 1:21); and in the place of the niphal נגאל (Zep 3:1), we have here, as in Lam 4:14, the double passive form נגאל, compounded of niphal and pual .

The post-biblical nithpaël , compounded of the niphal and the hithpael , is a mixed form of the same kind, though we also meet with it in a few biblical passages (Deu 21:8; Pro 27:15; Eze 23:48). The verb hâgâh (lxx μελετᾶ) combines the two meanings of “thought” (meditation or reflection), and of a light low “expression,” half inward half outward.

Isa 59:4-6 The description now passes over to the social and judicial life. Lying and oppression universally prevail. “No one speaks with justice, and no one pleads with faithfulness; men trust in vanity, and speak with deception; they conceive trouble, and bring forth ruin. They hatch basilisks’ eggs, and weave spiders’ webs. He that eateth of their eggs must die; and if one is trodden upon, it splits into an adder.

Their webs do not suffice for clothing, and men cannot cover themselves with their works: their works are works of ruin, and the practice of injustice is in their hands. ” As קרא is generally used in these prophetic addresses in the sense of κηρύσσειν, and the judicial meaning, citare , in just vocare , litem intendere , cannot be sustained, we must adopt this explanation, “no one gives public evidence with justice” (lxx οὐδεὶς λαλεῖ δίκαια).

צדק is firm adherence to the rule of right and truth; אמוּנה a conscientious reliance which awakens trust; משׁפּט (in a reciprocal sense, as in Isa 43:26; Isa 66:16) signifies the commencement and pursuit of a law-suit with any one. The abstract infinitives which follow in Isa 59:4 express the general characteristics of the social life of that time, after the manner of the historical infinitive in Latin (cf.

, Isa 21:5; Ges. §131, 4, b ). Men trust in tōhū , that which is perfectly destitute of truth, and speak שׁוא, what is morally corrupt and worthless. The double figure און והוליד עמל הרו is taken from Job 15:35 (cf. , Psa 7:15). הרו (compare the poel in Isa 59:13) is only another form for הרה (Ges. §131, 4, b ); and הוליד (the western or Palestinian reading here), or הולד (the oriental or Babylonian reading), is the usual form of the inf.

abs. hiph. (Ges. §53, Anm. 2). What they carry about with them and set in operation is compared in Isa 59:5 to basilisks’ eggs (צפעוני, serpens regulus , as in Isa 11:8) and spiders’ webs (עכּבישׁ, as in Job 8:14, from עכּב, possibly in the sense of squatter, sitter still, with the substantive ending ı̄sh ). They hatch basilisks’ eggs (בּקּע like בּקע, Isa 34:15, a perfect, denoting that which has hitherto always taken place and therefore is a customary thing); and they spin spiders’ webs (ארג possibly related to ἀράχ-νη; the future denoting that which goes on occurring).

The point of comparison in the first figure is the injurious nature of all they do, whether men rely upon it, in which case “he that eateth of their eggs dieth,” or whether they are bold or imprudent enough to try and frustrate their plans and performances, when that (the egg) which is crushed or trodden upon splits into an adder, i. e. , sends out an adder, which snaps at the heel of the disturber of its rest.

זוּר as in Job 39:15, here the part. pass. fem. like סוּרה (Isa 49:21), with a - instead of ā - like לנה, the original ă of the feminine ( zūrăth ) having returned from its lengthening into ā to the weaker lengthening into ĕ . The point of comparison in the second figure is the worthlessness and deceptive character of their works. What they spin and make does not serve for a covering to any man (יתכּסּוּ with the most general subject: Ges.

§137, 3), but has simply the appearance of usefulness; their works are מעשׂי־און (with metheg , not munach , under the Mem ), evil works, and their acts are all directed to the injury of their neighbour, in his right and his possession.