Fathers

Isaiah 58

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Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. 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. 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 as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 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? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

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What the Fathers say

Isaiah 58:9

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

For were He distant from us in place, thou mightest well doubt, but if He is present everywhere, to him that strives and is in earnest He is near. Wherefore also the prophet said, "I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me;" and God Himself again, "I am a God nigh at hand, and not a God afar off." Then as our sins separate us from Him, so do our righteousnesses draw us nigh unto Him. "For while thou art yet speaking," it is said, "I will say, Here I am." What father would ever be thus obedient to his offspring? …

Homilies On The Gospel Of Matthew 54:8 ↗

Athanasius of Alexandria

God is always one and the same; but people have come to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, especially to people on earth. When then people in infirmity invoke him, when in persecution they ask help, when they pray as they endure injuries, then the Invisible, being a lover of people, shines forth on them with his beneficence, which he exercises through and in his proper Word. …

Discourses Against the Arians 1.63 ↗

Western Saints

Jerome

It is difficult to find someone who is not bound by these chains. It is rarely found a soul that does not have this heavy burden encircling its neck, weighing it down with earthly pursuits, so that it does not look to the heavens but only to the earth. This is also reflected in the Gospel story of the woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, so that she was bent over and could not see the heavenly things. …

Commentary on Isaiah ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Then as to intercessions of prayer: then shall you call, above: at the voice of your cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer you (Isa 30:19). 1029. Second, as to the attainment of goods. And first, he returns to the meritorious work: if you will take away the chain, by which you oppress the poor, and cease to stretch out the finger, disparaging and threatening. 1035. …

Commentary on Isaiah ↗