If You Call the Sabbath a Delight
8 Then your light will break out as the morning, and your healing will appear quickly; then your righteousness shall go before you, and Yahweh’s glory will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer. You will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away from among you the yoke, finger pointing, and speaking wickedly; 10 and if you pour out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in darkness, and your obscurity will be as the noonday; 11 and Yahweh will guide you continually, satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong. You will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters don’t fail. 12 Those who will be of you will build the old waste places. You will raise up the foundations of many generations. You will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Paths with Dwellings. 13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Yahweh honorable, and honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, 14 then you will delight yourself in Yahweh, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father;” for Yahweh’s mouth has spoken it.
Seven promises attached to one condition, and the Sabbath described as something to enjoy rather than survive.
Then your light will break out as the morning, and your healing will appear quickly; then your righteousness shall go before you, and Yahweh’s glory will be your rear guard.
The word then governs the rest of the chapter, and everything after it is conditional on the eight clauses before it. The escort front and back is the arrangement of the second exodus Isaiah 52:12, now attached to a household's conduct toward the poor.
Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer. You will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away from among you the yoke, finger pointing, and speaking wickedly;
The complaint that opened the chapter — that God does not notice — is answered, and the answer is two words. Here I am is what the prophet said when he was called Isaiah 6:8; here God says it back.
Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer. You will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away from among you the yoke, finger pointing, and speaking wickedly;
Three things to remove, and the middle one is a gesture. Pointing at people is listed beside oppression.
and if you pour out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in darkness, and your obscurity will be as the noonday;
The verb is the one for emptying a vessel. What is asked is not a donation but the person.
and Yahweh will guide you continually, satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong. You will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters don’t fail.
Two images and the second is the better one. A watered garden receives; a spring supplies, and the promise is that the supply does not run out — which is the specific fear of anyone told to pour themselves out.
Those who will be of you will build the old waste places. You will raise up the foundations of many generations. You will be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Paths with Dwellings.
Two titles, both from building work. A breach is the gap in a wall an enemy came through, and repairing it is the least glamorous job on the site.
“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Yahweh honorable, and honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,
The chapter's second half turns to the day, and it is treated exactly as the fast was. The negatives are all about substituting one's own program — your own ways, your own pleasure, your own words — for what the day is.
And the positive requirement is the surprising one. The Sabbath is to be called a delight. Not endured, not merely kept; enjoyed, and the word is the same one used two verses later of delighting in Yahweh.
then you will delight yourself in Yahweh, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father;” for Yahweh’s mouth has spoken it.
The promise for the day and the promise for the fast are the same shape: a condition about what is given up, and a then.
settled What this mark means