Isaiah 58:4

Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,.... Brawling with their servants for not doing work enough; or quarrelling with their debtors for not paying their debts; or the main of their religion lay in

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 heard on high.

Ye fast for strife and debate; your fasting days, wherein you ought in a special manner to implore the mercy of God, and to show compassion to men, you employ in a great measure in injuring or quarrelling with your brethren, your servants, or debtors, or in contriving mischief against them, as if the design of your fasting and praying to God were only to obtain a licence to oppress men. Compare . With the fist of wickedness; or, with a wicked fist; a genitive of the adjunct. To deal rigorously and injuriously with your servants or debtors; which servants, it may be, had sold themselves to the year of redemption, ,40,50. You handle them with a hard hand; the word is used for fist, ; the LXX. add the humble, poor, or inferior person; and that not only their debtors, with a summum jus, exact rigour, which seems elsewhere to be expressed by grinding the face; , and in that parable by taking by the throat, ; but also their servants out of mere will and pleasure, and in contempt of them, treating them opprobriously, as Christ was handled in contempt and scorn, ,68 John 18:22. Your voice; either, 1. In strife and debate, in which men’ s passions show themselves by loud clamours. Or, 2. So as to cause the cry of the oppressed, by reason of your injuries, of what kind soever, to enter into the ears of God; which is a crying sin, whether it proceed from unmercifulness, , which sometimes increaseth to rage, ; or from injustice, ; or from fraud and deceit, . The Scripture doth frequently express whatever sin is against charity in special, as also general complex sins, by crying, ,2. Or, 3. By way of ostentation, to note their hypocrisy; they love to be taken notice of by others, Matthew 6 2,5,16; or their folly, supposing that they shall be heard for their much speaking, upon which account Baal’ s priests are mocked by Elijah, ,28 4. Voice here relates principally to their prayer; it is a synecdoche of the kind: so the sense is, This is not the way to have your prayers heard; if you desire that, you must first in another manner, and abstain from all kind of oppression. And this seems best to suit the context, which is to show what kind of fast the Lord reproves, and what he approves in the following verses.

Isaiah 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 heard on high.Ver. 4. Behold.] Take notice whence it is, that ye so miscarry in your services, and leave muttering against me. Ye fast for strife and debate.] Or, Unto strife and debate - i.e., On your fast days ye contend and quarrel; being hungry, you are angry, as emptiness whetteth choler. Sed quid prodest pallor in ore, si sit livor in corde? to what purpose is a pale face and a spiteful spirit? and what is a humbling day without a humbled heart! not only an irreligious incongruity, but a high provocation; like Zimri’ s act, when all the congregation were weeping before the door of the tabernacle. Get thee behind, saith Jehu to the messenger, "what hast thou to do with peace?" Confessions and prayers are our messengers; but if the heart be not broken, there is no peace to such wicked. And to smite with the fist of wickedness,] scil., Your servants or your debtors, as Matthew 18:28. They should have had, on such a day especially, Pacem cum hominibus, cum vitiis bellum (which was Otho II’ s motto), Peace with men, and war with their wickednesses. Ye shall not fast as ye do this day.] For ye fast not to God, but bear fruit to yourselves, like that "empty vine" Ephraim, and so are not a button the better for all you do; Jeremiah 14:12, "When they fast, I will not hear their cry." To make your voices to be heard on high.] Out of ostentation of devotion; but secrecy here were a better argument of sincerity. Or, do you think to be heard on high, i.e., in heaven, for such outside services?

(4) Behold, ye fast for strife and debate.—The words possibly point to the psychological fact that an unspiritual fasting irritates the nerves and embitters the temper. Extremes meet, and the disputes of fasting controversialists are often as fierce as those of drunken disputants. (Comp. the conspiracy of Act 23:21.)

Verse 4. Ye fast for strife and debate] How often is this the case! A whole nation are called to fast to implore God's blessing on wars carried on for the purposes of wrath and ambition. To smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day - "To smite with the fist the poor. Wherefore fast ye unto me in this manner"] I follow the version of the Septuagint, which gives a much better sense than the present reading of the Hebrew. Instead of רשע לא resha lo, they seem to have read in their copy רש על מה לי rash al mah lli. The four first letters are the same, but otherwise divided in regard to the words; the four last are lost, and א aleph added in their place, in order to make some sort of sense with רשע ל. The version of the Septuagint is, καιτυπτετετυγμαιςταπεινον·ἱνατιμοινηστευετε - as above.

4. 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 your present mode of fasting, your prayers can never reach the ear of Jehovah.” “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” Hamlet, Act iii. Scene iii. 97 f.

Behold, ye fast for strife and debate - This is a third characteristic of their manner of fasting, and a third reason why God did not regard and accept it.

3, 4. Wherefore have we fasted, (say they,) and thou seest not — They turn to complaining of God. He does not honour their work-righteousness; does not see it; gives it no attention. The answer is, Ye deserve it not.