Isa 58

ISAIAH 58.—This chapter opens as with the blast of a trumpet. What is the matter calling for such a loud voiced utterance? It is Israel’s transgression that the prophet is commanded to trumpet forth. Their fast days they have turned into pleasure days: days of debate, strife, and smiting. This was a kind of fast that stood no chance of being regarded with favour on high. It was not the thing at all that Yahweh had chosen or appointed. It was an infliction to know anything about it, for it was the very opposite of what was pleasing to God. The right kind of institution the prophet well defines, for that time, and all time to come. The thing disregarded, however, by Israel in the times of Isaiah, affords us a view of the times when all Yahweh’s precepts and institutions will be obeyed in the spirit of the most cordial faith. In that day, the day of Messiah’s reign, there will be no bonds of wickedness, no heavy burdens, no oppression, no yokes; on the contrary, the poor and the needy will receive royal attention (Ps. 62:12, 14); as the result of which there will be light, and health, and righteousness, satisfied souls, fat bones, watered gardens, noon-day sun, restored paths; and the high places of the earth in Israel’s possession, with the glory of Yahweh everywhere in the ascendant.

1888 Christadelphian, 25(electronic ed.), 492.