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John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Isaiah 58 From the wicked and antichristian party the prophet is bid to turn to the professors of the true religion, and openly, boldly, and sharply, reprove them for their sins, particularly their hypocrisy and formality in worship, Isaiah 58:1, who yet were angry, and complained that the Lord took no notice of their religious services, particularly their fasting, which is put...
John Gill
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 contentions and strifes about words, vain hot disputations about rites and ceremonies in worship, as is well known to have been the case of the reformed churches: and to smite with the fist of...
Matthew Henry
The prophet, in this chapter, has his commission and charge renewed to reprove the sinners in Zion, particularly the hypocrites, to show them their transgressions, ver. 1. It is intended for admonition and warning to all hypocrites, and is not to be confined to those of any one age. Some refer it primarily to those at that time when Isaiah prophesied; see chap. xxxiii. 14; xxix. 13. Others to the...
Charles H. Spurgeon
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. The best sort of mere external religion will soon turn sour. If you do not worship the Lord in a right spirit, God will loathe the very form of your service. Why, you might, by hypocrisy, make even prayer-meetings to be hateful in the sight...
Charles H. Spurgeon
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. They were fond of getting into religious disputes; and when they had a fast day they fell to loggerheads about different doctrines, and they got angry with one another, till they began to smite with the fist of wickedness, and they thought...
Charles H. Spurgeon
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: Even in their fasts, they disputed with one another; one said the fast should be on such a day, another would keep it on another day; and no doubt there are some professing Christians who are very zealous, mainly out of spite against other professors; they with as much zeal keep fast days or feast days the wrong way...
Charles H. Spurgeon
To make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head us a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? The mere appearance of sorrow, the outward garb of mortification,-what is there in that to please the Lord?