Is this the kind of fast I have chosen? (Isaiah 58:5)The final eleven chapters of Isaiah bring us once again into a new setting and focus. Whereas chapters 1-39 dealt with the Assyrian threat (late 8th century BC), and chapters 40-55 were situated in Babylon awaiting God's deliverance (ca. 540 BC), chapters 56-66 find the exiles back in Jerusalem, working out life in community (ca. 520 BC). [1]
In Mark 12:30-31, when Jesus was challenged as to the most important commandment, his familiar response was: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength [2] . . . [and] Love your neighbor as yourself. [3]
Centuries before Jesus walked the dusty roads of Palestine, these commands were the sticking point between God and his people. The prophets repeatedly took Israel and Judah to task over precisely these issues: breaking the first commandment (loving someone or something more than God), and injustice toward weaker neighbors (loving self more than others).
Then the prophet outlines a proper fast: ...to loose the chains of injustice . . . to set the oppressed free . . . to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter . . . [and] to clothe him (58:6,7).
It seems we still struggle with the same things.
How do you offer a fast that is pleasing to God?
[1] Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 170.
[2] Deuteronomy 6:5; Exodus 20:3
[3] Leviticus 19:18
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