The Repairer of the Breach
As I read Isaiah 58 today, I was impressed by the focus in this chapter on helping others through fasting. First, the Lord condemned the people because they were burdening others through their fasting: “Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours” (v3). The footnote for that last phrase suggests that those who fasted were inflicting travail on others through their fast. The Lord, on the other hand, wanted them to fast in order to help and bless others. He declared, “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 yoke?” (v6) Surely we might do all of these things for ourselves as we fast, but it seems to me that the Lord was speaking here of doing this for others: fasting should help to undo heavy burdens and enable us to let the oppressed go free and break their yokes. The chapter continues, “Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and tha...