Isaiah 58:4

4 On these special days when you do not eat, you argue and fight and hit each other with your fists. You cannot do these things as you do now and believe your prayers are heard in heaven.

Isaiah 58:4 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 58:4

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 wickedness;
their servants or their debtors; or rather it may design the persecution of such whose consciences would not suffer them to receive the doctrines professed; or submit to ordinances as administered; or comply with rites and ceremonies enjoined by the said churches; for which they have smitten their brethren that dissented from them with the fist, or have persecuted them in a violent manner by imprisonment, confiscation of goods; all which is no other than a fist of wickedness, and highly displeasing to God, and renders all their services unacceptable in his sight; see ( Matthew 24:49 ) : ye shall not fast as ye do this day;
or, "as this day"; after this manner; this is not right: to make your voice to be heard on high;
referring either to their noisy threatening of their servants for not doing their work; or their clamorous demands upon their debtors; or to their loud prayers, joined with their fasting, which they expected to be heard in the highest heaven, but would be mistaken; for such services, attended with the above evils, are not wellpleasing to God.

Isaiah 58:4 In-Context

2 They still come every day looking for me and want to learn my ways. They act just like a nation that does what is right, that obeys the commands of its God. They ask me to judge them fairly. They want God to be near them.

3 They say, 'To honor you we had special days when we gave up eating, but you didn't see. We humbled ourselves to honor you, but you didn't notice.'" But the Lord says, "You do what pleases yourselves on these special days, and you are unfair to your workers.

4 On these special days when you do not eat, you argue and fight and hit each other with your fists. You cannot do these things as you do now and believe your prayers are heard in heaven.

5 This kind of special day is not what I want. This is not the way I want people to be sorry for what they have done. I don't want people just to bow their heads like a plant and wear rough cloth and lie in ashes to show their sadness. This is what you do on your special days when you do not eat, but do you think this is what the Lord wants?

6 "I will tell you the kind of special day I want: Free the people you have put in prison unfairly and undo their chains. Free those to whom you are unfair and stop their hard labor.