A complaint you may have made yourself

This week's reading opens with people who are doing everything they know to do. They pray daily. They want to know God's ways. They fast, going without food so they can draw near to Him, much as Latter-day Saints do on fast Sunday. And they are hurt, because nothing seems to change:

"Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?" (Isaiah 58:3)

Many of us have felt that. We kept the commandments, we went to church, we prayed, and heaven seemed quiet. Isaiah does not scold the question away. He answers it, and the answer runs through nine chapters to the end of the book. Its promise is in this week's title: "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob" (Isaiah 59:20). Word Studies shows what the word "Redeemer" meant to Isaiah's first hearers.

For Latter-day Saints, the Redeemer has a name. When the Savior stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, it was chapter 61 He read aloud, and He told the congregation, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). Key Passages, the passage on 61:1–3, tells that scene.

What to know before you start

Who is listening. The people in these chapters are standing among ruins. They describe their holy cities as a wilderness and their temple as "burned up with fire" (Isaiah 64:10–11). Promises about rebuilding, light and new names mean the most when you remember who first heard them. Historical & Cultural Context sets out that situation.

What kind of writing this is. These chapters are poetry, not a story. They rarely name a king or a year. Instead they move between voices: God speaks, the people complain and confess, an unnamed "me" announces good news, and a long prayer rises out of the ruins. Noticing who is speaking is half the work of reading them. (The Dramatic Arc near the end of this page shows the shape of the whole, if you like a map before you walk.)

This is the end of the book. Isaiah opened with the LORD's charge against His children: "they have rebelled against me" (Isaiah 1:2). It closes with "all flesh" coming to worship before Him (66:23). This week you read how one becomes the other.

Three questions for any chapter this week

• Who is speaking, and does the text say?
• What is being promised, and to whom?
• What does it ask of the person reading it now?

This week finishes the book. Isaiah 58–66 is a continuous run, and all nine chapters are assigned, so this table is a map of what you are reading rather than a guide to what is being left out. Each chapter below is discussed in the walkthrough that follows. For the shape of the whole book, all sixty-six chapters, see Week 39's chapter map.

On the Restoration column. None of these chapters is quoted at length in the Book of Mormon. They live on in modern revelation instead. In Doctrine and Covenants 133, the Lord takes up the prayer of chapter 64 and the figure in red of chapter 63 in His own voice, and other Restoration scriptures echo chapters 61, 65 and 66 (Doctrine and Covenants 93 and 101, and Abraham 2:7). A dash means none is listed here, not that none exists.

On the New Testament column, the note says who is speaking, because a verse the Savior read or quoted and a verse a later writer applied to Him are not the same thing.

Two things the Chapter Map shows at a glance. First, the Savior's own voice frames this week. He read chapter 61 aloud at Nazareth, and He used the last verse of chapter 66 in His own teaching. Nearly everyone else in the column is Paul, Peter, Stephen or John. The second is quieter: the Restoration column is almost all modern revelation. The Lord did not leave these chapters behind when He spoke again; in Doctrine and Covenants 133 He gives the prayer of chapter 64 to the people who are waiting for Him.

Isaiah 58 — remembering what the fast is for — assigned

Isaiah speaks within Israel's covenant life, where Sabbaths, feasts, and fasts set apart time to remember God, receive His instruction, and renew devotion to Him. The language of humbling oneself recalls the Day of Atonement, when Israel sought cleansing and reconciliation with the Lord. These observances gave physical expression to a relationship meant to reach the heart. Leviticus 23:27–32.

But the people ask why God has not noticed their fasting while they continue exploiting workers, quarreling, and harming others. They have gone without food without allowing that sacrifice to change how they live. Isaiah 58:3–4.

The Lord calls them back to the purpose of their worship. The fast He chooses includes freeing the oppressed, lifting burdens, feeding the hungry, sheltering the poor, and clothing those in need. Humbling themselves before God should open their hearts and hands toward His children. Then come the promises of light, healing, guidance, and His answering presence. The chapter closes with the same invitation expressed through Sabbath observance: make room for God and find delight in Him. Isaiah 58:6–14.

The Book of Mormon makes the connection to Christ explicit. Abinadi explains that the law's ordinances preserved remembrance of God and pointed toward redemption; Jacob describes keeping the law with the intent of "pointing our souls to him." Read in that light, fasting prepares us not merely to endure hunger, but to turn toward the Redeemer and participate in His work of mercy. Mosiah 13:28–32, Jacob 4:5.

What follows is one of the richest strings of promises in the book: light breaking "forth as the morning", healing, the glory of the LORD as a rear guard, "thy rearward" (58:8), a guide in dry places, "a watered garden" (58:11). And the complaint of verse 3 is answered directly: "Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am" (58:9). Key Passages, the passage on 58:3–12, traces those promises and why "Here I am" is such a striking answer. Historical & Cultural Context shows what a fast looked like then, and how the chapter's words echo the Day of Atonement.

Watch the light. Verse 10 promises, "then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday." Remember that promise; the next two chapters come back to it.

The chapter ends on the Sabbath: "call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable", and the promise, "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD" (58:13–14). The Sabbath's "delight" is ʿōneḡ (עֹנֶג), while the people's own "pleasure" in verses 3 and 13 is a different word, ḥēp̄eṣ (חֵפֶץ); Word Studies separates them. The first chapter of this week's reading ends on the Sabbath, and as you will see, the last returns to it in its closing verses.

Isaiah 59 — the separation, the confession, and the arm that saves — assigned

Chapter 59 answers the question behind chapter 58 in plain words. The problem is not God's strength or His hearing: "Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (59:1–2). The distance is real, and it is on the people's side.

The next verses describe a society coming apart: hands defiled with blood, lips speaking lies, plans hatched like "cockatrice' eggs", webs that "shall not become garments" (59:3–6). Paul later gathered verses 7–8 into his list of scriptures showing that all have sinned (Romans 3:15–17).

Then the voice changes from "they" to "we". The people begin to speak for themselves, and what they describe is the light of 58:10 run backward: "we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness… we stumble at noonday as in the night" (59:9–10). Chapter 58 promised darkness turned to noonday. Here they stumble at noonday as if it were night. And then, the honest part: "our sins testify against us… as for our iniquities, we know them" (59:12).

The answer to that confession is God's own action. He looks and finds no one able to step in for the people: "he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him" (Isaiah 59:16). Where justice has failed, the Lord steps forward Himself. He puts on righteousness as a breastplate, salvation as a helmet, "the garments of vengeance," and zeal as a cloak. These garments describe His purpose: He comes to rescue and to confront the wrongdoing that has made rescue necessary. Isaiah 59:15–18.

The Redeemer is also the defender who sets things right. Isaiah calls Him gōʾēl (גֹּאֵל), a word rooted in a relative's responsibility to reclaim what a family member had lost. That responsibility also included the gōʾēl ha-dām, the "avenger of blood," who acted against a murderer. Israel's law distinguished murder from unintentional killing through judgment and provision for refuge. This wider family responsibility helps us understand Isaiah's portrait: the Lord does not merely recover His people; He also answers the violence and injustice threatening them. Numbers 35:12, 19, 24–25; Joshua 20:3. Word Studies follows the Redeemer's name.

The armor imagery continues beyond this chapter. Isaiah elsewhere describes righteousness and faithfulness as the Lord's girdles and celebrates the feet of those who proclaim peace. Paul gathers these images into his teaching about the whole armor of God: truth around the loins, the breastplate of righteousness, feet prepared with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. In Isaiah, the Lord clothes Himself to confront injustice and bring salvation; in Ephesians, His people are invited to put on His armor and stand faithfully against evil. Isaiah 11:5, Isaiah 52:7, Ephesians 6:14–17. The invitation also appears in Doctrine and Covenants 27:15–18.

Malachi carries the coming-and-judgment theme forward. In Latter-day Saint understanding, his description of the Lord's coming includes Christ's Second Coming: the Redeemer comes to purify, judge oppression, and establish righteousness. This gives Isaiah's Redeemer-avenger imagery a further horizon—the Lord who rescues His people will also set things right. Malachi 3:1–5, Church study commentary on Malachi.

Then comes the promise: "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob" (Isaiah 59:20). The One clothed for justice is the One who comes to redeem. Hold on to verse 16; chapter 63 uses the same words again. Key Passages, the passage on 59:9–21, reads this confession and answer closely.

The chapter that opened with separation ends with a covenant that God's words "shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed… from henceforth and for ever" (Isaiah 59:21).

Isaiah 60 — Zion rises from darkness — assigned

The darkness described in chapter 59 gives way to an invitation: "Arise, shine." Zion—the city of Jerusalem pictured as a woman—is called to rise because the Lord's glory shines upon her. Her light comes from His presence. Isaiah 60:1–3.

For people facing exile and the devastation of Jerusalem, these promises addressed real losses. Children would return from distant lands; foreigners would help rebuild; the sanctuary would receive honor again. These images offered hope for a restored home, community, and life of worship. Isaiah 60:4–13.

We can see an initial historical expression of that hope in the return from Babylon: Cyrus permitted the rebuilding of the temple and returned its vessels, while others supplied resources. That return helps us understand the promise's practical meaning, without exhausting its fulfillment. Ezra 1:1–11.

The vision reaches beyond rebuilding a city. Violence ends, mourning ceases, and the Lord becomes Zion's everlasting light. For Latter-day Saint readers, it points toward the gathering of Israel, the Messiah's return, and Zion's ultimate glory. Isaiah 60:18–22.

John draws on this imagery when describing the New Jerusalem: God and the Lamb illuminate the city, its gates remain open, and the nations bring their glory into it. The promise grows from restoration after devastation into a vision of life in God's presence. Revelation 21:23–26.

For its ancient hearers, the message offered a future after loss. For us, it also points toward the complete restoration Christ will bring.

Isaiah 61 — good news for a wounded people — assigned

Chapter 60 describes Zion rising from darkness. Chapter 61 explains what that restoration means for her people. A speaker announces that the Lord has anointed him—commissioned him for a sacred purpose—to bring good news, bind up broken hearts, and proclaim freedom. These promises address people living with grief, captivity, and the destruction of their community. Isaiah 61:1–4.

The language of freedom recalls Israel's Jubilee. In Leviticus, the Jubilee proclaimed liberty, returning Israelites to their families and ancestral holdings. Isaiah draws on that familiar language to announce the Lord's favor: an opportunity for restoration rather than permanent dispossession. Leviticus 25:10. Word Studies explores this connection through the Hebrew word for liberty, dᵊrôr (דְּרוֹר).

Jesus identifies Himself with this mission at Nazareth. After reading Isaiah's opening promise, He declares that it is being fulfilled in their hearing. His proclamation connects the promised deliverance directly to His own ministry. Luke 4:16–21. Key Passages examines His reading more closely. The encounter will be explored further in Historical & Cultural Context, including the political setting, expectations surrounding the Messiah, and why His words provoked such a strong response.

Latter-day Saints also read this chapter in anticipation of Christ's Second Coming. His ministry at Nazareth announces the work of deliverance; Isaiah's wider vision includes enduring restoration, covenant renewal, and righteousness flourishing before the nations. The chapter speaks both to people longing to rebuild their community and to the ultimate fulfillment of the Messiah's mission. Isaiah 61:4–11.

The chapter then pictures mourning giving way to celebration: "beauty for ashes," joy, and praise. Those who mourn become firmly planted trees, and ruined communities are rebuilt. Restoration includes renewed dignity, belonging, and a future. Isaiah 61:3–4.

The closing image is someone rejoicing in the "garments of salvation," dressed for celebration like a bride or bridegroom. The chapter moves from wounded hearts to restored community—and finally to joy in what God has provided. Keep this clothing imagery in mind when you reach chapter 64. Isaiah 61:10–11.

Isaiah 62 — Zion welcomed home as a bride — assigned

Chapter 61 promises restoration to a wounded people. Chapter 62 portrays that restoration as a renewed covenant relationship. Jehovah is the bridegroom, and Zion—representing His covenant people—is the bride. Isaiah has already identified the Lord as Israel's husband and Redeemer, promising to gather her with enduring mercy. The marriage imagery expresses belonging, commitment, and His joy in their reunion. Isaiah 54:5–10.

The new names describe that restored relationship. "Forsaken" and "Desolate" express the experience of abandonment and a devastated homeland. Hephzi-bah, "My delight is in her," and Beulah, "Married," announce a different future: Zion is cherished, and her land is inhabited again. God rejoices over His people as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. Isaiah 62:2–5. Word Studies and Historical & Cultural Context explore how names communicate identity and covenant belonging.

For those returning from Babylonian exile, restoration involved gathering families, rebuilding homes, and renewing worship. Ezra describes the people assembling in Jerusalem, restoring the altar, and laying the temple's foundation. Their celebration mingled with tears from those who remembered the former temple. They were rebuilding a sacred community while still carrying the memory of what had been lost. Ezra 3:1–13.

The watchmen are people entrusted with keeping watch over Jerusalem. Ancient lookouts guarded a city by noticing danger and reporting what approached. Isaiah draws on that familiar responsibility, but gives these watchmen another task: they continually call upon the Lord for Jerusalem's restoration. Their watchfulness becomes prayer. "Give him no rest" expresses their persistence—not that God has forgotten His people. In a chapter about a city once called "Forsaken," the image is reassuring: Jerusalem has not been abandoned. Her restoration remains the object of faithful attention and hope. Isaiah 62:6–7. Historical & Cultural Context explores the watchmen's responsibilities and the Hebrew term.

Then the chapter moves from prayer to preparation: build the highway, remove the stones, and raise a standard—a visible signal around which people can gather. The imagery makes homecoming tangible: prepare the way for the returning people. The chapter closes by naming them holy, redeemed, and sought out. Isaiah 62:10–12.

For Latter-day Saints, these ancient events also reveal a pattern that reaches toward the last days. Doctrine and Covenants 133 again calls people to gather, leave Babylon, and prepare for the Bridegroom's coming. The correspondence is more than a resemblance between two building projects: both involve gathering a covenant people and preparing them to receive the Lord. Doctrine and Covenants 133:4–10.

This helps us recognize a recurring scriptural pattern: scattering and gathering, loss and renewal, estrangement and reconciliation. History does not repeat in every detail, but God's earlier deliverances help His people understand and trust His future promises. Nephi's practice of likening Isaiah to his own people invites us to recognize those connections in our lives as well. 1 Nephi 19:23–24.

The gathering is ultimately about relationship: a people welcomed home and prepared to meet the Lord who delights in them.

Isaiah 63 — Christ’s redeeming power, in sacrifice and in glory — assigned

The Book of Mormon teaches us to recognize Christ in the sacred patterns of Israel’s worship. Jacob explains that keeping the law of Moses pointed their souls to Him; King Benjamin describes its types and shadows as teaching His people about His coming. This gives Latter-day Saints a framework for reading Isaiah’s images of sacrifice, deliverance, and redemption. Jacob 4:4–5, Mosiah 3:15.

Isaiah 63 opens with a powerful Redeemer approaching in stained garments. He identifies Himself as “mighty to save.” His clothing resembles that of someone who has trodden grapes in a winepress, and He declares that He has accomplished His work alone. The scene joins judgment against evil with the deliverance of His redeemed people. Isaiah 63:1–6.

For Latter-day Saints, this portrait brings Christ’s redeeming mission into view: the saving work only He could accomplish, the suffering that draws our thoughts to Gethsemane, and the judgment and deliverance associated with His return.

The name Gethsemane means “oil press”—a place where olives were crushed to release their oil. In his address “The Atonement,” President Russell M. Nelson affirms the connection between that setting and the Savior bearing the overwhelming weight of humanity’s sins. His insights help us contemplate the cost of our redemption. In the garden, Jesus submitted to the Father’s will and endured the agony He later described as causing Him to bleed from every pore. Doctrine and Covenants 19:16–19.

The One who suffered for us is the One who will return in glory. Doctrine and Covenants 133 explicitly places Isaiah’s red garments and winepress imagery within Christ’s coming. It then recalls His loving-kindness and compassion toward those He has redeemed. His atoning sacrifice, continuing care, and final victory belong to one redeeming mission. Doctrine and Covenants 133:46–53.

Isaiah’s chapter likewise turns from judgment to remembered mercy. The people recall how the Lord loved, redeemed, and carried them through their afflictions. They remember His guidance through the sea under Moses, while also acknowledging their rebellion. Their hope rests in the character of the God who has already delivered them. Isaiah 63:7–14.

For a community whose sanctuary had been trampled, those memories give shape to prayer. They appeal to the Lord as their Father and Redeemer. Abraham and Jacob belong to their distant past, but their relationship with God remains living and personal. Even when they feel forgotten or unrecognized, they can turn to Him as His children, trusting in His willingness to receive them. Remembering His earlier deliverance gives them courage to seek His help again. That prayer continues into chapter 64. Isaiah 63:15–19.

That hope of reconciliation also helps us contemplate the Savior’s return to Jerusalem. Doctrine and Covenants 45 describes Him standing upon the Mount of Olives, where the Jewish people come to recognize Him and ask about the wounds in His hands and feet. He answers that these were received “in the house of my friends.” The encounter includes grief and recognition, but we should not overlook His choice of words: He still calls them His friends. Read through the lens of reconciliation, those words remind us that the wounds have not erased His love or His desire for a restored relationship with His people. Doctrine and Covenants 45:48–53.

For Latter-day Saints, this should deepen our kinship with the Jewish community, not distance us from it. Through our understanding of the house of Israel and the Abrahamic covenant, we recognize a family connection—we are covenant cousins, tied to one another by a sacred heritage. Differences in belief do not diminish that relationship or anyone’s worth before God. This passage must never become ammunition for collective blame against Jewish people, ancient or modern. Antisemitism is never appropriate. The Savior’s words invite us toward humility, love, and reconciliation.

Jewish and Christian traditions understand these passages in different ways, and the comparative sections provide room to explore those readings respectfully. Our Latter-day Saint reading remains centered on Jesus Christ: the Redeemer who suffers for His people, carries them in compassion, and returns to fulfill His promises.

Isaiah 64 — Come down, and renew Your people — assigned

Isaiah 64 continues the prayer begun in chapter 63. The people remember God’s deliverance of their ancestors, but now Jerusalem lies devastated and their temple has burned. They plead for Him to tear open the heavens and come down—to make His presence known again. Isaiah 64:1–3, 10–11.

The mountain imagery brings together memories of Sinai, covenant, and temple worship. At Sinai, the Lord descended in fire and the mountain trembled as Israel gathered to meet Him. Elsewhere, Isaiah calls the temple the mountain of the Lord’s house, where people receive His instruction. These associations enrich the prayer: the people seek more than rebuilt walls. They long for renewed communion with the God who made them His people. Exodus 19:16–20, Isaiah 2:2–3.

For Latter-day Saints, that longing also looks toward the gathering of Israel and the Savior’s Second Coming. Doctrine and Covenants 133 repeats Isaiah’s appeal as the prayer of those awaiting the Lord’s return. Ancient Israel’s plea becomes one we can share: Come, Lord, and fulfill Your promises. Doctrine and Covenants 133:40–45.

The Hebrew of verse 4 adds an important perspective. Where the English speaks of what God has “prepared,” the Hebrew verb can express His acting on behalf of those who wait for Him. Their hope rests not only in future blessings, but in the character of a God who intervenes for His people. Waiting means continuing to look toward Him, even before His answer becomes visible. Isaiah 64:4, Hebrew interlinear.

Paul draws upon this passage when describing blessings beyond human understanding, then explains that God reveals them through His Spirit. We do not have to understand everything before we can receive guidance from Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9–12.

The prayer also acknowledges the people’s wrongdoing. Its stained garments belong to Israel’s familiar language of purity and preparation to approach God. Read alongside the washed garments at Sinai and Isaiah’s earlier garments of salvation, the image invites us to consider our need for cleansing and reconciliation. Their confession expresses a need for God’s help—not a declaration that they have no worth. Isaiah 64:6, Exodus 19:10–11, Isaiah 61:10.

Then the prayer turns to a deeply hopeful image: God is their Father, and they are clay in His hands. The Hebrew word translated “our potter” means the One who forms them. It recalls God forming humanity from the earth and shaping Israel into a covenant people. They appeal to the One who gave them life to renew them. Isaiah 64:8, Hebrew interlinear, Genesis 2:7.

Notice how often the prayer includes everyone: all of us need cleansing; all of us are the work of His hand; all of us are His people. This is a community seeking restoration together. For us, the potter’s image invites both personal repentance and a larger question: what kind of families, congregations, and communities are we allowing God to shape? Isaiah 64:6–9.

The chapter ends by asking whether the Lord will remain silent amid their suffering. The question is unresolved, but they are still addressing Him, still seeking Him, and still claiming their relationship with Him. Their prayer holds confession and belonging together: You formed us. We are Your people. Please come and renew us. Isaiah 64:12.

Isaiah 65 — God answers, and promises a renewed world — assigned

Chapter 64 ends by asking whether God will remain silent. Chapter 65 answers with a picture of Him reaching out: "Behold me, behold me"—hinnēnî (הִנֵּנִי), "Here I am," repeated twice. He describes His hands extended throughout the day toward people who have resisted Him. Before the chapter describes a renewed world, it shows the Lord seeking a renewed relationship. Paul later quotes these opening verses in his discussion of Gentiles and Israel; the invitation reaches beyond those who were already seeking God. Isaiah 65:1–2, Romans 10:20–21.

That invitation belongs to a thread running through Isaiah. In his temple vision, Isaiah answered the Lord, "Here am I; send me." In chapter 58, the Lord promised to answer His people's cry with "Here I am." Now, in chapter 65, He repeats those words as He reaches toward them. The same expression moves between God and His people: an answer that offers presence and willingness to respond. Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah 58:9. Key Passages, Passage 1, follows this thread more closely.

But being addressed by God is not the same as listening to Him. Earlier, Isaiah described people who could see and hear without understanding what they received. Jesus explicitly quoted that passage when explaining His parables: the issue was whether His teaching reached the heart and led to turning and healing. Isaiah 65 develops this related concern through a broken conversation: God calls, but the people do not answer; He speaks, but they do not listen. Isaiah 6:9–10, Matthew 13:13–16, Isaiah 65:12.

The problem is not that the people have stopped being religious. They are sacrificing, burning incense, and preparing offerings—but directing their worship away from the Lord. Verse 11 names gaḏ (גַּד), Fortune, and mᵊnî (מְנִי), Fate or Destiny. These rival deities are difficult to recognise in the King James wording, "that troop" and "that number." The passage challenges misplaced trust: looking elsewhere for security while forgetting the God of the covenant and His holy mountain. Isaiah 65:3–11.

Yet judgment does not erase the promise. Isaiah pictures a cluster of grapes containing a blessing worth preserving. The Lord will not destroy everyone; He will preserve His servants and bring descendants of Jacob and Judah into their inheritance. He recognises faithfulness within a troubled community rather than treating everyone as indistinguishable. Isaiah 65:8–10.

The poetry then places contrasting futures beside one another. "My servants" repeats four times in verses 13–14: they will eat, drink, rejoice, and sing, while those rejecting the Lord experience hunger, thirst, shame, and grief. These paired lines make the consequences of covenant loyalty vivid. They are not permission to assume that someone suffering today must have been unfaithful. The passage describes God's judgment and promised restoration, not a simple test for judging another person's life. Isaiah 65:13–16.

The promised restoration reaches into ordinary life. People build houses and actually live in them; they plant vineyards and enjoy their harvests; their children are not born only to face calamity. An Israelite audience familiar with Deuteronomy could hear the reversal: earlier covenant warnings described homes occupied by others, lost harvests, and children taken captive. Here those losses give way to belonging, fruitful work, and family security. For displaced people, these are deeply tangible promises—not merely picturesque details. Isaiah 65:21–23, Deuteronomy 28:30–41.

The renewal is also described in the language of creation: new heavens, a new earth, and Jerusalem becoming a place of joy. Latter-day Saints recognise in these promises the peace of the Millennium following the Savior's return. Doctrine and Covenants 101 likewise describes renewed creation, the end of hostility, and lives no longer cut short in infancy. Key Passages, Passage 8 on Isaiah 65:17–25, explores these connections more closely. Isaiah 65:17–23, Doctrine and Covenants 101:25–31.

Near the chapter's close, the broken conversation becomes restored communion. The same verbs return with the relationship transformed:

"Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24.

The chapter begins with God offering His presence—"Here I am"—and near its close promises His attention—"I will hear." As you read, notice who is calling and who is answering: the promised restoration embraces both the world people inhabit and their relationship with the Lord.

The closing picture recalls Isaiah 11: wolf and lamb together, the lion feeding without violence, and nothing harming or destroying on the Lord's holy mountain. The serpent's dust recalls Genesis, suggesting that the power associated with humanity's earliest troubles has been brought low. The chapter moves from a community divided in its worship toward creation at peace in God's presence. For ancient people rebuilding their lives—and for readers awaiting the Savior's return—the promise is larger than recovery alone: God can renew both His people and the world they inhabit. Isaiah 65:25, Isaiah 11:6–9, Genesis 3:14–15.

Isaiah 66 — God sees His people and gathers them home — assigned

The chapter opens with heaven as God’s throne and earth as His footstool. The temple is sacred, but its Creator cannot be contained within it. Solomon acknowledged this when dedicating the first temple: even heaven could not contain God, much less the house he had built. Isaiah’s question belongs within that same tradition—not a rejection of temples, but a reminder of whom temple worship is meant to bring us near. Isaiah 66:1–2, 1 Kings 8:27–30.

God then directs His attention toward the poor and contrite. The Hebrew expression nĕkēh-rûaḥ pictures someone stricken in spirit—not someone without worth. These opening contrasts invite us to consider the heart we bring into worship, rather than treating religious observance as a substitute for listening to God. Isaiah 66:2–4, Hebrew and English.

Zion then appears as a mother bringing forth her children. This develops the earlier promise to the woman who feared she would remain childless: her family would grow beyond what she could imagine. For a scattered people, that image offers hope that displacement need not be their final condition. The restored community can become a place of belonging again. Isaiah 54:1–3, Isaiah 66:7–11.

The poetry moves from birth to nourishment, carrying, and comfort. Peace flows like a river; children are held close. Then God Himself takes up the maternal comparison. His restoration includes tenderness toward people who have mourned. Read alongside Zion’s expanding household in chapter 54, these images help us picture restoration as renewed relationships, not merely rebuilt walls. Isaiah 66:12–14, Hebrew and English, Isaiah 54:4–10.

That gathering reaches beyond Israel. Messengers travel among the nations, and scattered brethren return to Jerusalem, God’s holy mountain. Their homecoming is compared to an offering brought reverently into His house. Temple, people, and gathering belong together in this picture. Isaiah 66:18–20.

The chapter’s horizon is also the Savior’s return: judgment confronts evil, while God promises an enduring future for His people. The new heavens and earth accompany a promise that their descendants and name will remain. Worship follows the familiar rhythms of new moons and Sabbaths, but now the invitation embraces all peoples. Isaiah 66:15–23.

The final verse does not soften the consequences of rebellion. Jesus draws upon its severe imagery when warning against sin. His warning asks for serious repentance—not contempt toward others. Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:43–48.

"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 59:20)

These chapters begin with people who feel unseen and end with God answering before they call. The Redeemer comes to people who are turning. He comes to the ruined city, the mourner, the captive, the one with soiled garments and a confession. He does not wait for them to be finished, only for them to turn.

The nine chapters move in four motions. Knowing which one you are in makes the week easier to read.

1. The complaint and the answer — 58 and 59. People fasting and feeling unheard learn what God has seen and what fast He chooses. The community acknowledges the injustice and wrongdoing that have damaged its covenant life; then God's own arm acts to save.
2. The light arrives — 60 to 62. The darkness of 59 gives way to "Arise, shine". The anointed one comes with good news for the brokenhearted, and Zion is renamed. If the first chapters felt heavy, this is where the week breathes.
3. The red garments and the long prayer — 63 and 64. A figure comes from Edom having trodden the winepress alone. Then a people remembers God's lovingkindness, confesses, calls Him father, and asks whether He will stay silent.
4. The answer and the new creation — 65 and 66. God replies: He was always calling. New heavens, a new earth, long lives, comfort like a mother's, and all flesh worshipping, Sabbath after Sabbath.

These chapters were first heard by people who were doing their religious duty and still felt unseen. Many of us know that feeling. We fast, we pray, we keep the Sabbath, and some weeks it seems to change nothing. Isaiah does not dismiss that complaint. He answers it, and the answer is gentler and more searching than we expect: look at whose burden your fast is lifting.

The week also teaches us how to pray when we feel far from God. The long prayer of 63–64 remembers His kindness, acknowledges wrongdoing, calls Him Father, and asks Him plainly not to be silent. Chapter 65 answers with the Lord reaching toward His people and promising restored communion. Their conversation invites both repentance and trust; it does not make every unanswered prayer evidence of personal failure. We can bring grief, uncertainty, and confession to Him without giving up our belonging as His children.

And these chapters are full of Christ. He is the anointed one who read chapter 61 aloud and said it was being fulfilled. He is the Redeemer who comes to Zion, and the one who trod the winepress alone because no one else could. He is the one who offers "the garments of salvation" in exchange for our soiled ones.

If you do one thing with this week: read Isaiah 58:6–7 slowly, and name one burden near you that you could help lift this week: a visit, a meal, a word, a fast offering. Then read 58:8–9 and notice what the Lord promises the person who does it.

Continue to Historical & Cultural Context.

Picture the people these chapters address. They are praying in sight of what they have lost:

"Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste." (Isaiah 64:10–11)

Zion began as the name of the stronghold David took, "the city of David" (2 Samuel 5:7), and in Isaiah it stands for Jerusalem and the people who belong to God there. "Our holy and our beautiful house" is the temple. The speakers remember their fathers praising God in it, and now it is ash.

Read with that scene in mind, the promises of these chapters are concrete. They are promises to builders. "They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities" (Isaiah 61:4). The person who keeps the fast God has chosen will be called "The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (Isaiah 58:12). A breach is a gap in a city wall. To people living beside broken walls, that title meant something they could see.

Exile had uprooted households, not only a city. Babylonian cuneiform records discussed by Ira Spar of the Metropolitan Museum of Art show Judeans resettled in the Babylonian countryside: leasing and farming land, paying taxes and owing service to the state, signing promissory notes for debts, and taking disputes before judges. One group of these documents comes from Babylonian villages and runs from about 572 to 473 BC. The Murashu archive, from 454 to 403 BC, is a separate and later collection (Ira Spar, "Cyrus and the Judean Diaspora," The Met). Records like these cannot tell us how every exile lived or what each one believed. They do invite a reflection: for many families, returning could mean leaving a life already rebuilt once in order to rebuild again among ruins.

Ezra names Cyrus, king of Persia, as the ruler who let the exiles go up to rebuild (Ezra 1:1–4). Cyrus also left his own royal inscription, the clay Cyrus Cylinder. As the Metropolitan Museum's exhibition description explains, it speaks of restoring shrines and returning deported peoples to their homes, but it does not mention the Jewish return. Nor is it the decree Ezra records. It shows the kind of royal policy within which Ezra's account can be read (The Met, "The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia").

Isaiah 58–66 itself rarely names a king or a year. Most of what we know about their first hearers comes from what the hearers themselves say: they fast and feel unheard, they confess that "our sins testify against us" (Isaiah 59:12), and they are surrounded by ruins. When these words were first spoken or written down is a separate question, explored in Week 40's Historical & Cultural Context. What does not depend on that question is the audience. The people listening needed to know whether God still saw them, and whether rebuilding was worth beginning.

Isaiah 58 opens on a complaint: "Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?" To hear it the way its first hearers did, it helps to know what fasting looked like.

A fast in ancient Israel was visible. People went without food, and they also dressed and sat as mourners. Sackcloth was a rough cloth worn in grief, and ashes were sat in or put on the head. Scripture shows the pattern again and again:

• When Mordecai learned of the decree against his people, he "rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes," and in every province there was "fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes" (Esther 4:1, 3).
• Daniel sought the Lord "with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes" (Daniel 9:3).
• In Nehemiah's day the people assembled "with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them" (Nehemiah 9:1).

When Isaiah describes a man bowing "his head as a bulrush" and spreading "sackcloth and ashes under him" (58:5), his hearers would recognize the outward signs of humility and mourning. But recognizable signs did not mean the fast had fulfilled its purpose. The same chapter describes workers being pressed and people quarreling on their fast day (58:3–4). The question is whether their observance has opened their hearts to God and changed how they treat His children. Isaiah 58:3–7.

A detail worth noticing: Isaiah is not the only prophet who asked the question. Joel called the people to fasting and weeping, and then added, "rend your heart, and not your garments" (Joel 2:12–13). Zechariah, speaking to people who had mourned in the fifth and seventh months for many years, asked, "did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?" (Zechariah 7:5). The prophets did not reject fasting. They kept asking whom it was for.

Set beside Isaiah 58:3, the fast of Nineveh makes a striking contrast. When Jonah preached there, the people "proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them," and the king "sat in ashes" (Jonah 3:5–6). Then comes the line Isaiah's hearers felt they were missing: "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way" (Jonah 3:10). Nineveh's fast changed how the city lived, and God saw it. Isaiah 58 names what the people's fasts had not changed.

The Savior taught the same thing to His disciples in His own words. Fasting is not for being seen: "anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:17–18). The sackcloth and ashes are gone from a Latter-day Saint fast, but the question Isaiah asks is still ours. Key Passages, the passage on 58:3–12, reads the Lord's answer about the fast He has chosen.

Isaiah's language echoes the Day of Atonement. The law of Moses commanded Israel, "in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls". The reason followed: "on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD" (Leviticus 16:29–30). That day is the Day of Atonement, and its command, "afflict your souls," comes again at Leviticus 23:27.

Now listen to the people in Isaiah 58:3: "wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?" They are using the law's phrase. And by putting "fasted" and "afflicted our soul" side by side, they show what afflicting the soul meant to them: going without, in humility, before God.

The Day of Atonement had a second role in the law, and it is the one that makes Isaiah 58 surprising. Every fiftieth year, the year of jubilee, the trumpet was to sound on that same day: "on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land" (Leviticus 25:9). The jubilee was a year of release. Land went back to the families who had lost it, because the Lord said, "the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me" (Leviticus 25:23). A man who had sold himself into service because he was poor would "depart… both he and his children with him, and… return unto his own family" (Leviticus 25:39–41).

Jubilee release was proclaimed on the Day of Atonement in the jubilee year, bringing fasting, cleansing, and freedom into the same setting. That background helps us hear Isaiah's answer: "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?" (Isaiah 58:6). The fast God chooses includes loosening burdens and freeing the oppressed. Outward observance was not meant to stand apart from mercy toward others.

The connection was not lost on later Jewish readers. The Talmud is the great collection of rabbinic teaching and discussion. It records that on the Day of Atonement the reading from the law was Leviticus 16, and the reading from the prophets was the passage named for its line "For thus saith the high and lofty One" (Isaiah 57:15); the English edition linked here marks it as 57:14 through 58:14, so it runs on into the fast of chapter 58 (Megillah 31a). A Talmud reference reads like an address: Megillah 31a is the tractate called Megillah, leaf 31, first side. These traditions are not ours, and nothing here is offered as a practice to adopt; they show how closely Jewish readers heard this chapter beside that day.

The jubilee's word for "liberty", dᵊrôr (דְּרוֹר), returns in Isaiah 61:1, the verse the Savior read at Nazareth. Word Studies traces that word, and Key Passages, the passage on 61:1–3, reads the Nazareth scene.

For a Latter-day Saint reader, the name of the day is already familiar. The King James Version calls it the day of atonement, the same English word we use for the Savior's sacrifice. The Day of Atonement cleansed Israel once a year. The Epistle to the Hebrews describes Christ as the high priest who "by his own blood… entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Hebrews 9:12). Isaiah 58 suggests what His people do in response: they loose the bands, lift the burdens and let the oppressed go free.

Isaiah 58 closes on the Sabbath: "call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable" (58:13). To its first hearers the Sabbath was more than a day off. It was the sign of the covenant.

"Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you." (Exodus 31:13)

The Sabbath made covenant belonging visible in the rhythm of ordinary life. Setting the day apart gave people time to remember the Lord, receive His instruction, and extend rest to others.

The weekly Sabbath belonged within a larger calendar of sacred times. Leviticus 23 sets out appointed festivals and days of assembly, with rest commanded on particular festival days; it also calls the Day of Atonement a Sabbath of rest. These observances had distinct purposes—remembering deliverance, giving thanks, seeking cleansing—but together ordered life around the Lord. We should not make every festival day identical to the weekly Sabbath, or assume every fast was the Day of Atonement. The common question is how time set apart for God shapes the heart and the community. Leviticus 23:3–8, 27–32, 39–43.

This helps us hear Isaiah's invitation to "call the sabbath a delight." The day is more than a restriction on activity; it is time set apart for a relationship with God. Isaiah places it beside his teaching about fasting: both invite people to bring their worship into the way they live and care for others.

The law calls it "a perpetual covenant" and ties it to creation: "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" (Exodus 31:16–17). Ezekiel, a prophet among the exiles, repeats it: "I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them" (Ezekiel 20:12).

The struggle over the Sabbath was practical. Jeremiah warned Jerusalem to "bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem" (Jeremiah 17:21). Generations later, in the rebuilt city, Nehemiah found people "treading wine presses on the sabbath" and bringing "all manner of burdens" into Jerusalem to sell. He had the gates shut at dusk before the Sabbath and set men to keep them closed (Nehemiah 13:15, 19). Scenes like these show what Isaiah's words "not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure" (58:13) were up against: trade and work kept squeezing the day.

The Savior kept the Sabbath as His people's covenant day. Luke says that at Nazareth, "as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read" (Luke 4:16). Key Passages, the passage on 58:13–14, takes up President Russell M. Nelson's question about what sign our own Sabbath gives to God.

Isaiah 60–66 names places and peoples a first reader would have recognised at once. Each one carries a memory.

Edom and Bozrah (63:1). "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" Edom was the nation descended from Esau, Jacob's brother: "Esau, who is Edom" (Genesis 36:1). It lay south and east of the Dead Sea, along the road called the King's Highway. When Israel came out of Egypt and asked to pass along that road, Edom answered, "Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword" (Numbers 20:17–18). The brother nation had become the old enemy. Bozrah was one of Edom's leading towns: Genesis names a king of Edom from it (Genesis 36:33), and Amos speaks of "the palaces of Bozrah" (Amos 1:12). Isaiah had named it before, in a judgment on "Bozrah, and… the land of Idumea" (Isaiah 34:6). So when the figure in 63:1 comes up from Bozrah, He comes from the place that stood for opposition to God's people. Key Passages, the passage on 63:1–9, reads who He is.

The caravans of chapter 60. Isaiah 60:6–9 pictures the world's wealth streaming toward a restored Zion. A reader who knows Genesis will recognise many of these names as Abraham's own family:

Why caravans, ships, and timber? Isaiah names the places in his vision: Midian and Ephah send camels; Sheba brings gold and incense; ships of Tarshish arrive with silver and gold; and trees come from Lebanon (Isaiah 60:6, 9, 13). These were real goods carried across known trade networks. Phoenician merchants carried cedar and fir by land and sea, while spices from Arabia moved through their markets (World History Encyclopedia, "Trade in the Phoenician World"). The returnees knew this trade firsthand: Ezra records them paying people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar from Lebanon to Joppa for the temple (Ezra 3:7). Isaiah uses this familiar commerce to picture the nations bringing their resources to Zion and honoring the Lord.

Sharon and the valley of Achor (65:10). "Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in." Sharon was good grazing land; David's herds fed there (1 Chronicles 27:29). Achor is the surprise. It was the valley where Achan, who had taken forbidden spoil from Jericho, was put to death, and Joshua's words to him make a play on its name: "Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day" (Joshua 7:25–26). "Trouble" is the verb ʿāḵar (עָכַר), and the place became ʿāḵôr (עָכוֹר), the valley of trouble. Hosea had already promised to make "the valley of Achor for a door of hope" (Hosea 2:15). Isaiah makes it a place where flocks lie down in peace, "for my people that have sought me." The valley named for Israel's trouble becomes a place of rest.

At Christmas many readers hear Isaiah 60:6, "they shall bring gold and incense," and think of the wise men who brought the young child "gold, and frankincense, and myrrh" (Matthew 2:11). Christians have long heard the two passages together.

It is worth knowing what kind of connection this is. Matthew does not quote Isaiah 60. His account of the wise men cites other prophets, and Isaiah 60:6 describes caravans coming to Zion, not visitors to a child. Alfred Edersheim, a Christian scholar, made the point carefully in The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1883). No one, he argued, would have invented the visit of the Magi (the wise men's traditional name) from Isaiah 60:6. But if the visit really happened, it is easy to see how Christians would later see it foreshadowed there, "though uncritically" (Book 2, chapter 8, in a footnote).

So read the two side by side as a resonance, not a fulfillment Matthew claims. The resonance is still a lovely one. Isaiah saw the nations coming to the light of Zion with gold and incense, "and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD" (60:6). In Matthew, wise men from the east follow a star to Bethlehem, and when they find the child, they "fell down, and worshipped him."

Names in biblical Hebrew and Greek often carried meanings that listeners could recognize. A name might express a hope, recall an event, describe a relationship, or honor someone. When scripture explains a new name—as with Abraham, Israel, or Zion's promised names—the naming becomes part of the message.

English names have histories and meanings too, but these are often less apparent to us. We may know why a name was chosen without knowing where it came from. Exploring that history can make the biblical practice feel less unfamiliar.

Try investigating one of your own names. What language does it come from? Is it formed from two recognizable words or roots? Does it connect you with a relative, a community, or someone whose reputation mattered to the person who named you? Look beyond a naming book's one-line definition: compare reliable dictionaries and historical sources, follow the roots, and notice where more than one meaning—or an uncertain origin—is possible. A similar spelling alone does not establish a connection.

The discovery may be linguistic, but it may also be personal. A name's significance includes both its history and the relationships it carries. Its meaning is something to explore, not a verdict on your character or destiny.

We also bear more than one name: given names, family names, and names associated with our relationships and commitments. For Latter-day Saints, the most important name we take upon ourselves is the name of Jesus Christ. King Benjamin connects that name with entering a covenant and belonging to the Savior (Mosiah 5:7–9).

That brings us back to Zion. The Lord's promised names do more than describe her past. They express His delight in her and the relationship He promises to restore.

When Jesus read Isaiah's promise of deliverance in Nazareth, He spoke among people who knew His family and shared Israel's scriptures. He announced that the promise was being fulfilled in their hearing. Their familiarity with Him became a point of questioning: "Is not this Joseph's son?" His response—that no prophet is accepted in his own hometown—shows that the encounter involved resistance, not simply admiration. The confrontation intensified when He recalled God's mercy reaching a Sidonian widow and a Syrian commander. Understanding the history behind these communal boundaries helps us appreciate why those examples carried such force. Luke 4:16–30.

Why Isaiah 61 could be heard as a promise of the Messiah. The passage Jesus read opens, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me" (Luke 4:18). Messiah means "anointed one," and Kerry Muhlestein notes that these verses were understood as a messianic prophecy partly for that reason. S. Kent Brown observes that a scroll about Melchizedek, found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls (ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered near the Dead Sea), uses language from Isaiah 61 to describe a messianic figure. Both observations are gathered in Scripture Central's KnoWhy on Isaiah 61:1–2. In light of that expectation, Jesus said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21), claiming the promise for Himself.

Returning from Exile: Belonging, Genealogy, and Sacred Privileges

Centuries before Jesus's ministry, the people returning from Babylon faced the difficult work of rebuilding their sanctuary and restoring their community. Conquest and displacement had disrupted families, records, and religious institutions. Questions about ancestry therefore involved more than personal heritage: they could determine recognized standing and eligibility for sacred responsibilities.

Ezra distinguishes two situations. Some returning households could not establish their Israelite ancestry. Separately, men claiming priestly descent could not locate their genealogical registrations. These priestly claimants were treated as "polluted" and excluded from the priesthood. They were also prohibited from eating the most holy offerings until a priest could determine the matter through the Urim and Thummim. The restriction affected sacred privileges, not merely an administrative appointment. Ezra 2:59–63, Nehemiah 7:61–65.

These passages show how consequential genealogical recognition had become. They specifically establish restrictions on priestly claimants and holy food, however—not a universal prohibition against every undocumented household entering any part of the temple.

An Offer Rejected, and Opposition to Rebuilding

Ezra also records a conflict over participation in rebuilding the temple. A group the narrative identifies as the "adversaries of Judah and Benjamin" approached the returning leaders. They said they worshipped the same God and had offered sacrifices to Him since the Assyrian king Esar-haddon settled them in the region. They asked to help build.

Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other leaders refused. They asserted that their own community would build the temple under Cyrus's authorization. The account then describes discouragement, intimidation, and hired counselors working against construction. Later correspondence in the chapter concerns Jerusalem's city and walls, presenting their rebuilding as a potential threat to Persian authority and revenue. The religious dispute became entangled with imperial politics. Ezra 4.

These conflicts belong to the background of the later division between Jewish and Samaritan communities, although Ezra does not explicitly call this group "Samaritans." Their ancestry and legitimacy remained contested. Samaritan tradition understood the community as preserving Israelite descent and an authentic priestly inheritance, not simply as outsiders borrowing Israel's religion. American Bible Society: Samaritans, Then and Now.

For a small community recovering from exile, preserving covenant identity was a serious concern. Nevertheless, disputes over legitimate worship, ancestry, and authority could deepen into enduring hostility.

From Seleucid Persecution to Roman Rule

Further centuries of conflict intensified those tensions. Under the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV, Jerusalem's temple was plundered and Jewish religious observances were violently suppressed. First Maccabees describes prohibitions against offerings, Sabbath observance, and circumcision. Religious faithfulness could become a matter of life and death. 1 Maccabees 1.

The resulting struggle produced shifting alliances. Judas Maccabeus sought an alliance with Rome against Seleucid domination. Later, the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samaritan sanctuary on Mount Gerizim, adding another painful episode to the rivalry between the communities. Rome subsequently became a dominating power itself: Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 BC amid a Hasmonean succession conflict. Political relationships changed, while memories of violence endured. 1 Maccabees 8, Temple on Mount Gerizim, Livius: Roman–Jewish Wars.

By Jesus's time, a proclamation of deliverance was therefore heard within a society where worship, communal identity, and foreign domination were inseparable concerns.

Temple Boundaries Enforced in Stone

By the first century, restrictions on non-Jewish access to the temple's inner precincts were explicit. Surviving Greek warning inscriptions prohibited foreigners from crossing the barrier and warned of death for anyone who violated it. This was not a prohibition against entering the entire Temple Mount, but it was a stark boundary within the sacred complex. University of Michigan: Temple Warning Inscription.

Paul's arrest demonstrates how seriously that boundary was taken. While he was participating in temple purification, opponents accused him of bringing Greeks into the restricted area and defiling the sanctuary. The crowd seized him, dragged him outside, and attempted to kill him. Roman soldiers intervened and took him into custody. Acts explains that the accusation arose because people had seen Trophimus, an Ephesian, with Paul in the city and supposed Paul had brought him into the temple. The alleged entry—not a confirmed violation—triggered the confrontation. Acts 21:26–33.

At this point, Christianity and Judaism were not yet two neatly separated communities. Jewish followers of Jesus continued to participate in Jewish religious life, while the inclusion of Gentile followers raised disputed questions about circumcision, law, and belonging. Acceptance into the community of believers did not automatically remove the temple's access restrictions. Acts 15:1–11, Acts 21:20–25.

Paul's later experience helps us recognize how explosive the intersection of sacred boundaries, Gentile inclusion, and Roman intervention could become.

Why Jesus's Examples Carried Such Weight

Against this broader history, Jesus's examples at Nazareth were anything but neutral.

The widow lived in the Sidonian region, outside Israel. Naaman was a commander of Syria's army; his story even begins with an Israelite girl taken captive by Syrian raiders. These examples crossed boundaries shaped not only by religious difference but also by memories of conflict and vulnerability. 1 Kings 17:8–16, 2 Kings 5:1–14.

Jesus reminded His listeners that God had blessed people beyond Israel when others within Israel were not receiving those blessings. Covenant belonging did not make divine mercy their exclusive possession. Luke directly connects the congregation's anger to these examples: after hearing them, the listeners became enraged and attempted to throw Jesus from the hillside. The challenge to their expectations belongs at the center of our explanation. Luke 4:25–29.

Jesus returned to this challenge elsewhere. He said that Tyre and Sidon would have repented had they received the opportunities given to Chorazin and Bethsaida. In the Good Samaritan, He made a Samaritan the example of compassionate neighborliness and instructed His listener to do likewise. People regarded as outsiders could receive God's mercy—and could teach His listeners how to practice it. Matthew 11:21–22, Luke 10:29–37.

Roman rule added a further pressure. Elsewhere, John's Gospel explicitly records leaders fearing that Jesus's growing influence would bring Roman retaliation against their sanctuary and community. That concern provides a historically grounded reason to consider political fear alongside hostility toward His message. At Nazareth, fear of such consequences may have intensified the resistance, although Luke does not identify it explicitly. John 11:47–48.

Recognizing the Challenge for Ourselves

This history helps us understand the confrontation without excusing its violence or turning one congregation's response into a judgment against Judaism as a whole—or against Samaritans, for that matter. Jesus, His disciples, and the prophets whose examples He invoked belonged to the shared spiritual tradition of Israel. His challenge came from within that tradition.

Nor is the temptation to restrict God's compassion unique to one community. Christians—including members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—have also allowed inherited hostility, political fear, and claims of religious privilege to justify exclusion.

Jesus's message asks something searching of every reader: Can we recognize God's work among people we have learned to distrust? Can we extend respect and compassion to those whose political views or social traditions differ from ours? And when genuine hurt has occurred, can we seek reconciliation rather than allow that hurt to become hostility toward an entire community?

Preserving covenant faithfulness does not require denying another person's worth. The blessings of the kingdom are not diminished when God extends His mercy beyond the boundaries we expected.

Key Passages, Passage 5, follows the reading and its response in detail; this background helps us hear the question it raises about whom the good news is for.

A city depended on someone noticing what others could not yet see. A lookout above its gates could spot approaching travelers or an enemy force while the people below continued their work. In 2 Samuel, the watchman climbs to the roof above the gate, sees runners approaching, and calls down to report them. His responsibility includes recognizing news, not only danger. 2 Samuel 18:24–27.

Isaiah's word emphasizes keeping guard. The watchmen in Isaiah 62:6 are šōmərîm (שֹׁמְרִים), a plural form of šāmar (שָׁמַר), “to keep,” “guard,” or “watch over.” The word describes people carrying out a responsibility; it does not, by itself, identify a priestly office. Brown–Driver–Briggs, available through Blue Letter Bible, includes city watchmen among the word's uses.

Who served as a watchman? Ezekiel gives a practical example: when an army threatens a land, the people choose a man from among them to keep watch. If he sees the danger, he must sound the trumpet so that others can respond. The passage then turns that civic duty into a prophetic calling: Ezekiel must hear the Lord's word and warn Israel. The comparison helps explain why prophets can be called watchmen, without making every city lookout a prophet. Ezekiel 33:2–7.

In Isaiah 62, the watchmen's task takes a different turn. They are stationed on Jerusalem's walls and never fall silent, but the next lines tell us what their voices are doing: they call upon the Lord until He establishes Jerusalem and makes her a praise in the earth. The King James phrase "ye that make mention of the LORD" can also be understood as those who invoke or remind Him. The NET translation notes explain this continuing speech as prayer for Jerusalem's restoration. These watchmen keep the city's promised future before the Lord. Isaiah does not name them individually or restrict this image to one class of people. Isaiah 62:6–7, NET notes on Isaiah 62:6.

For people who knew the vulnerability of a ruined city, that is a hopeful image. The chapter has already promised that Zion will no longer be called "Forsaken." Watchmen on her walls fit that promise: her welfare matters, and faithful voices continue to seek her restoration. "Give him no rest" expresses the persistence of that appeal, not a claim that God has forgotten His covenant or must be forced to care. Prayer then leads into preparation as the people are told to clear a highway for those coming home. Isaiah 62:4, 6–7, 10–12.

Latter-day Saints also use watchman imagery for prophets who warn, teach, and care for God's people. The Church's article “Watchmen on the Tower” explains that scriptural comparison. It enriches our application without replacing Isaiah's particular emphasis here: faithful concern expressed through persistent prayer. As you read verses 6–7, notice what the watchmen seek. Their attention is directed toward a community's restoration. Whose welfare might you keep faithfully in your own prayers while also helping prepare a way forward?

Continue to Key Passages.

The Text

"Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?" (Isaiah 58:3)

"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?" (Isaiah 58:6–7)

"Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am." (Isaiah 58:9)

How the Passage Works

The chapter opens with people asking why their fasting seems to go unnoticed. They seek God daily, but verse 2 adds an important qualification: they act as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness (Isaiah 58:2). Their outward devotion and their treatment of others do not agree. Isaiah addresses that contradiction; he is not saying that everyone who feels unheard has done something wrong.

The Lord does not answer that fasting is pointless. He answers that the fast they kept and the fast He chose are two different things. On their fast day they "find pleasure, and exact all your labours", so the workers were still driven hard, and the day ended "for strife and debate" (58:3–4). From the outside it looked right: the head bowed "as a bulrush", a reed bent over at the top, and "sackcloth and ashes" spread underneath, the rough cloth and ash of mourning (58:5).

Then the questions turn. Read verses 5–7 aloud and listen for them. Donald W. Parry, quoted on Scripture Central's page for this week, counts "a series of seven rhetorical questions" here. The first ones describe the fast they kept. Then comes "Is not this the fast that I have chosen?", and the questions fill up with other people: the oppressed, the hungry, "the poor that are cast out", the naked, "thine own flesh". The fast the Lord chose faces outward.

Now read verse 9 against verse 3. They said "thou seest not". He says "Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am." In Hebrew, "Here I am" is a single word, hinnēnî (הִנֵּנִי). It is the same one-word reply Isaiah gave when the Lord asked whom He should send: "Here am I; send me" (Isaiah 6:8). In chapter 6 the prophet said it to God. In chapter 58 God says it to the one whose fast has reached someone else.

Hold on to that pair, call and answer, because the book returns to it. Near the end the direction reverses: "when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear" (Isaiah 65:12; again at 66:4). Then, in the picture of the new earth, it resolves: "before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24). The complaint that opens this week's reading is answered before the reading ends.

The blessings in verses 8–12 are generous and physical. Light breaks "forth as the morning", health springs up, and "the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward": the guard at the rear of a marching column, so that God's glory walks behind as well as ahead. The one who fasts this way becomes "like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not", and is given a name: "The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (58:11–12). A breach is a gap broken through a city wall. The fast that faces outward rebuilds what was broken. Notice too the light in verses 8 and 10; it will matter in chapter 59, and the Overview follows that thread through the week.

One word for anyone who cannot fast. Isaiah's measure of a fast is what it does for other people, and that measure is open to someone whose body cannot go without food. President Henry B. Eyring, in the talk the manual recommends, acknowledges that "many children, and some adults, may for personal reasons find a 24-hour fast difficult," and quotes President Joseph F. Smith's counsel for children: "Better to teach them the principle, and let them observe it when they are old enough to choose intelligently."

Latter-day Saint Connections

"Part of your fast offering and mine this month will be used to help someone, somewhere, whose relief the Lord will feel as if it were His own."

— President Henry B. Eyring, Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?, April 2015 General Conference

President Eyring, then First Counselor in the First Presidency, quoted verses 6–11 and called them "the Lord's description of the commandment and the blessing." His reading is the one this passage teaches: the fast is aimed at someone else, and the Lord takes that relief personally. He set the verses beside the King's words in the Savior's parable, "I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat" (Matthew 25:35). Jesus does not quote Isaiah there; the two passages make the same claim in different words.

"If the purpose of our fast is to be more effective in teaching the gospel and serving others in our Church callings, we are surely striving to 'undo the heavy burdens' of others."

— Elder Carl B. Pratt, The Blessings of a Proper Fast, October 2004 General Conference

Elder Pratt, of the Seventy, walked through verse 6 phrase by phrase and matched each one to a purpose a person might bring to a fast. It is a way to read the verse for your own next fast: which burden, which yoke?

• The Seminary manual's lesson on Isaiah 58 turns the chapter into statements a reader can test: "If we fast as the Lord intends, then we can help relieve others' burdens and receive relief from our own burdens."

Study Questions

1. The people in verse 3 felt unseen. What in verses 6–7 changes what a fast is for?
2. Who is one person whose burden your fast, or your fast offering, could help undo this month?

The Text

"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." (Isaiah 58:13–14)

How the Passage Works

The chapter ends by turning from the fast to the Sabbath, and the turn is natural. Both are holy times that can be kept perfectly on the outside while missing what they are for.

Verse 13 is built on a contrast between two kinds of wanting. On one side is "thy pleasure", then "thine own ways", "thine own pleasure", "thine own words". On the other is a single instruction: "call the sabbath a delight." Verse 14 gives the result: "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD." The day stops being about what I want and becomes about Whom I enjoy.

The English makes "pleasure" and "delight" sound like neighbours, but the "pleasure" is ḥēp̄eṣ (חֵפֶץ), what a person wants, and the Sabbath's "delight" is ʿōneḡ (עֹנֶג), something exquisite and enjoyed; Word Studies follows both words through the week.

What makes a day a delight? Elder Russell M. Nelson, then of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave his answer in "The Sabbath Is a Delight" (April 2015). He learned from the scriptures "that my conduct and my attitude on the Sabbath constituted a sign between me and my Heavenly Father," and found he no longer needed lists of dos and don'ts. The idea is as old as Exodus, where the Lord tells Moses, "my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you" (Exodus 31:13). So Elder Nelson's question for any Sabbath choice was a short one. He quotes verses 13–14 in the same talk:

"When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, 'What sign do I want to give to God?'"

— Elder Russell M. Nelson, The Sabbath Is a Delight, April 2015 General Conference

The promise of verse 14 is large: to "ride upon the high places of the earth" and be fed "with the heritage of Jacob thy father." Jewish tradition has read that inheritance as one without boundaries, and Jewish Perspective tells how.

One more thing to notice is that this week's reading opens and closes on the Sabbath. Its last chapter promises that "from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me" (Isaiah 66:23); the Overview shows how that frames the week.

Latter-day Saint Connections

• Elder Nelson's talk above is the one the manual recommends for these verses.
• The Seminary manual states the principle in the chapter's own if-then shape: "If we honor the Lord by keeping the Sabbath day holy, then we will have joy in our relationship with the Lord and obtain both temporal and spiritual blessings."

Study Questions

1. What is the difference between "doing thine own ways" and "delight[ing] thyself in the LORD"?
2. What sign do you want your Sabbath to give to God this week?

The Text

"We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind… we stumble at noonday as in the night." (Isaiah 59:9–10)

"And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him." (Isaiah 59:16)

"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 59:20)

How the Passage Works

Chapter 59 answers chapter 58's complaint from the other side. "Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isaiah 59:1–2). The chapter names this community's wrongdoing and the harm it has caused. God's power to save has not failed. That diagnosis invites repentance where it is needed; it does not give us grounds to judge another person's suffering or unanswered prayer.

At verse 9 the voice changes. The people begin to speak, and they speak as we: "Therefore is judgment far from us… we wait for light, but behold obscurity." This is a confession, and it is honest. Then a detail repays a second look: "we stumble at noonday as in the night" (59:10). One chapter earlier the promise to those who fast for others was "thy darkness be as the noonday" (58:10). Those are the only two places in this week's chapters where Isaiah's word for noonday appears, and they face each other. The noon that was promised has become the noon they stumble in.

Then the Lord looks. "And the LORD saw it… And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor" (59:15–16). The word behind "intercessor" comes from pāḡaʿ (פָּגַע), to meet or reach someone; here it is the one who steps in and makes the meeting happen on another's behalf. No one could stand in that gap. So "his arm brought salvation unto him." He then dresses for the work: "he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head… and was clad with zeal as a cloak" (59:17).

Verse 20 names Him, and it is this week's title: "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob." The word is gōʾēl (גֹּאֵל), the family member whose duty was to buy back what a relative had lost; Word Studies has the word. Notice to whom He comes: "unto them that turn." The confession of verses 9–15 is the turning.

The Redeemer's family responsibility includes protection and the setting right of wrongs, not only buying back property. That helps us understand His armour: righteousness, salvation, and judgment belong to His saving intervention. Word Studies, study 2, explains the legal background and its safeguards; the image is not an invitation to private revenge.

Keep verse 16 in mind. Its sentence comes back almost word for word in chapter 63, and Passage 6 below sets the two side by side.

Latter-day Saint Connections

"He understands that God was always there but that he himself was blinded—blinded through the traditions of his environment."

— Elder F. Enzio Busche, The Joy of the Penetrating Light, October 1984 General Conference

Elder Busche, of the First Quorum of the Seventy, told of a man who had begun to listen to two missionaries and was looking back on his life. Then he quoted verses 1–2 of this chapter: "the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save… But your iniquities have separated between you and your God." He applies these verses to that man's discovery and turning toward God. Read alongside Isaiah's communal confession, his account can invite honest self-examination.

• Paul quotes verse 20 "as it is written" when he speaks of Israel's salvation: "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Romans 11:26). His wording differs from the King James Isaiah: in Isaiah the Redeemer comes to Zion; in Paul He comes out of Sion.
• Paul also borrows the armour of verse 17. In Isaiah it is the LORD who puts on "righteousness as a breastplate" and "an helmet of salvation." In Ephesians 6:14, 17 Paul tells the Saints to put on "the breastplate of righteousness" and "the helmet of salvation" themselves. The armour God wore for His people is offered to them.
• The Seminary manual's lesson on Isaiah 59–66 draws the principle from verses 16 and 20: "If we repent of our sins, then the Lord will intercede for us and redeem us."

Study Questions

1. What impresses you about the intercessor in verses 16–21? How does He overcome the conditions described in verses 9–15?
2. Verses 9–15 are a confession spoken as "we." What would it mean to say it in your own words, and then read verse 20?

The Text

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee." (Isaiah 60:1)

"The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." (Isaiah 60:19)

"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." (Isaiah 62:4)

How the Passage Works

After the darkness of chapter 59, chapter 60 opens with a command: "Arise, shine." Read in order, the light runs through three chapters: it breaks forth in 58, fails at noonday in 59, and comes in 60. The Overview follows it chapter by chapter.

Notice whose light it is. Zion is told to shine "for thy light is come", and the reason is that "the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee." The city shines because it has been lit. By verse 19 even the sun and moon are no longer needed: "the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light." And the light draws people: "the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising" (60:3).

Chapter 62 adds new names. Forsaken and Desolate describe Zion's experience of abandonment and her land's devastation; they do not make Zion an undesirable name. Hephzi-bah expresses God's delight, and Beulah means married. The chapter explains the relationship through a bride and bridegroom: the Lord rejoices over His people as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride (Isaiah 62:4–5). Zion represents a covenant community, not a claim that an individual's marital status determines their worth or belonging. Historical and Cultural Context, section 7, explains naming, and Word Studies explores the Hebrew names. The chapter ends with the people called "The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD… Sought out, A city not forsaken" (Isaiah 62:12).

Latter-day Saint Connections

• The risen Lord at Bountiful: "hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up" (3 Nephi 18:24). The manual pairs it with these chapters; it does not quote Isaiah, but it answers the same question: whose light is it?
• John, in vision, sees the holy city with "no need of the sun, neither of the moon… for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:23). It echoes 60:19 without quoting it, and it names the light.

"It is an earnest invitation from the Lord to be more intentional about helping others see the path and thereby come unto Christ."

— Sister Bonnie H. Cordon, That They May See, April 2020 General Conference

Sister Cordon, then Young Women General President, was speaking of the Savior's words "let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works" (3 Nephi 12:16), and the manual recommends her talk for these chapters. She does not cite Isaiah, but her story makes the same point as 60:3. When she was ten, she went out in the dark to feed the family's chickens with Elder L. Tom Perry, swinging her flashlight about until he stepped into a ditch. Then he told her, "Bonnie, I need to see the path. I need the light to shine where I am walking." Zion's light, in Isaiah, is for the people who "shall come to thy light." Light that is ours to carry is meant to fall where someone else is walking.

Study Questions

1. In 60:1 the light "is come" before Zion is told to shine. What does that order teach?
2. Who near you is waiting in the dark, and what light could you carry to them this week?

The Text

"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." (Isaiah 61:1–3)

How the Passage Works

Someone speaks here in the first person, someone the LORD has anointed and sent, and Isaiah does not say who. Centuries later, in the synagogue of the town where He grew up, Jesus said who.

Luke slows the scene down. Jesus came to Nazareth, "and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read." The book of Isaiah was handed to Him, and "he found the place" (Luke 4:16–17). He read. Then "he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister," the synagogue's attendant, "and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him." Then He spoke: "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:20–21). These are His own words. He read Isaiah aloud, and then He claimed it.

A detail easily missed: He stopped in the middle of a verse. Isaiah 61:2 continues "and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn." The reading in Luke ends at "To preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:19), and then He closed the book. Luke does not say why He stopped there. What He did read, He said was fulfilled that day. The day of vengeance has its own place in this week's chapters, where the figure in red garments says "the day of vengeance is in mine heart" (63:4).

How the congregation answered. At first, Luke says, "all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?" (Luke 4:22). He told them, "No prophet is accepted in his own country" (Luke 4:24), and then gave two examples from their own scriptures. In a famine, Elijah (Luke's Elias) was sent to none of the many widows in Israel "save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow"; and in Elisha's day none of Israel's lepers was cleansed "saving Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:25–27). "And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath" (Luke 4:28). They led Him to the brow of the hill to throw Him down, and He, "passing through the midst of them went his way" (Luke 4:29–30). In Luke's order, the wonder came with the reading and the claim, and the wrath came after the widow and Naaman: a foreign widow and a Syrian, both reached by God's mercy in Israel's own sacred history.

Look at what the anointed one is sent to do. Every item is done for someone who is hurting: the meek, the brokenhearted, captives, prisoners, mourners. "Anointed" is māšaḥ (מָשַׁח), the verb behind the title Messiah, "the anointed one."

Then come the exchanges: "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." In ancient Israel people in deep grief put ashes on their heads (the Seminary manual explains the custom, and Historical and Cultural Context has more). The promise is that the ash is replaced with "beauty," which the same Seminary lesson explains as a beautiful head covering or crown. Mourning gives way to "the oil of joy," and heaviness to "the garment of praise." Each gift is something put on a person who has been grieving.

"Liberty" in verse 1 is dᵊrôr (דְּרוֹר), the word Leviticus uses for the year of jubilee, when "ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family" (Leviticus 25:10). Word Studies has the word.

A note on precision. Luke's wording differs from King James Isaiah because Luke wrote in Greek, and at several points his reading follows the Greek translation of Isaiah, the Septuagint, rather than the Hebrew the King James translators worked from. "Recovering of sight to the blind" is one of them. Another line in Luke is not in Isaiah 61 at all: "to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18). In Greek it uses the same three words as the Greek of Isaiah 58:6, "to let the oppressed go free": forms of apostellō (ἀποστέλλω), "to send away," thrauō (θραύω), "to crush," and aphesis (ἄφεσις), "release." As Luke records it, then, the reading carries a line from the fast the Lord chose in chapter 58 into the Savior's announcement of His own work. Luke does not explain it. A reader of this week's chapters may well see in it the fast of chapter 58 and the anointed one of chapter 61 meeting in one reading, spoken by Him.

Latter-day Saint Connections

"Through the Savior, Joseph's life became 'beauty for ashes.'"

— Sister Kristin M. Yee, Beauty for Ashes: The Healing Path of Forgiveness, October 2022 General Conference

Sister Yee, then Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, built her talk on verse 3. Joseph of Egypt, she said, "lived a life with ashes": hated by his brothers, sold, imprisoned, forgotten. Her teaching is about how the exchange happens in a life like that: "To give what you have been denied is a powerful part of divine healing possible through faith in Jesus Christ." For her, the beauty Isaiah promises can come through forgiving.

• The Liahona article "What Was Jesus Anointed to Do?" (October 2022) walks through these verses and quotes Bruce C. Hafen, writing in the Ensign in April 1990: "Each of us will taste the bitter ashes of life," but "the atonement of Christ can lift us up in beauty from our ashes." The article reads "proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison" two ways: as the year of jubilee, and also as the gospel preached in the spirit world (Doctrine and Covenants 138).

Study Questions

1. He stopped reading before "the day of vengeance." What did He choose to announce that day?
2. His hearers wondered at His words, and then grew angry when He spoke of the widow of Sarepta and Naaman. What did those two examples say about who the good tidings of Isaiah 61 were for?
3. Where in your life, or in the life of someone you love, is there ash that the Savior could replace with beauty?

The Text

"Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me." (Isaiah 63:1–3)

"In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old." (Isaiah 63:9)

How the Passage Works

The chapter opens as a dialogue, like a watchman calling out to a figure coming up the road. "Who is this that cometh from Edom?" Edom was the land south-east of the Dead Sea, an old enemy of Israel, and Bozrah was one of its leading towns (Historical and Cultural Context has the places). The figure answers: "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Then the watchman asks about the clothes. Why are they red? "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me." A winepress was a stone vat where grapes were trampled underfoot, and the juice stained whoever did the treading. Isaiah uses it as a picture of judgment.

Now read verse 5 beside a verse from chapter 59 (Passage 3 above):

"And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him" (59:16)

"And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me" (63:5)

The English already shows it, and the Hebrew confirms it: the same three words carry both verses, šāmēm (שָׁמֵם), "wondered" or "was appalled"; zᵊrôaʿ (זְרוֹעַ), "arm"; and yāšaʿ (יָשַׁע), "brought salvation." In chapter 59 the Lord found no one to stand between the people and their sins. In chapter 63 He speaks for Himself: there was no one with Him. The one who found no intercessor is the one who trod the winepress alone.

The judgment in verses 3–6 is hard to read, and it is meant to be. Then verse 7 turns without any transition at all: "I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD." The same chapter that holds the winepress holds this: "In all their affliction he was afflicted… in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old" (63:9). The one who comes in red is the one who carried them.

In a revelation to Joseph Smith about the Second Coming, the Lord takes up this passage again in His own voice, and He changes where the figure comes from. Isaiah has "from Edom… from Bozrah." The revelation has "from God in heaven with dyed garments; yea, from the regions which are not known" (Doctrine and Covenants 133:46). It adds a line Isaiah does not have, "and have brought judgment upon all people; and none were with me" (D&C 133:50). And it ends where Isaiah's passage ends: "In all their afflictions he was afflicted" (Doctrine and Covenants 133:53). (Direct restatement; the Lord speaking in modern revelation.)

Latter-day Saint Connections

Gethsemane, whose name means "oil press," adds a related image of the Savior bearing an overwhelming burden. The Week Overview, in its walkthrough of chapter 63, sets out what President Russell M. Nelson taught about that name in The Atonement. An oil press and Isaiah's winepress are different agricultural images, but both help us contemplate crushing weight. Elder Holland explicitly connects Isaiah's solitary treading with the Savior's suffering, while Doctrine and Covenants 133 also places Isaiah's imagery in the setting of His return. These connections help us consider both His atoning sacrifice and His work of redemption and judgment.

"I speak of the Savior's solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation."

— Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, None Were with Him, April 2009 General Conference

Elder Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve, quoted verses 3 and 5 directly, "I have trodden the winepress alone… I looked, and there was none to help," in an Easter talk he addressed to everyone who is alone, feels alone, or feels abandoned. He reads alone as the point of the verse, and draws its comfort for us: "because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."

• Doctrine and Covenants 133:46–53, above, is the passage's fullest Restoration companion and the manual's own cross-reference.
• King Benjamin, reporting the words an angel spoke to him, describes the same suffering from the inside: "he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer" (Mosiah 3:7). The manual pairs it with these verses; it does not quote Isaiah, but it shows what "he was afflicted" cost.
• John, in vision, sees the Word of God "clothed with a vesture dipped in blood," who "treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God" (Revelation 19:13, 15). He draws on Isaiah's image without quoting it.

Study Questions

1. What "lovingkindnesses of the LORD" can you "mention" (63:7)?
2. "Of the people there was none with me." What does it mean to you that He did it alone, and then carried them?

The Text

"Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence." (Isaiah 64:1)

"But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand." (Isaiah 64:8)

How the Passage Works

Chapter 64 is the people's prayer. At the end of chapter 63 they had asked, "Look down from heaven" (Isaiah 63:15). Now they ask for more than a look: "Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down." To rend is to tear open. The manual reads these verses with the Second Coming in view.

The prayer recalls the God who came down at Sinai, where the mountain shook at His presence (Exodus 19:16–20). In Isaiah, mountains also carry associations with the Lord's house (Isaiah 2:2–3). Here the people's ruined sanctuary becomes explicit at 64:11. Those memories belong together: they ask the God of the covenant to come near again. The mountain imagery evokes His overwhelming presence.

Verse 4 is one of the most quoted lines in the chapter: "neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him." It appears three ways in scripture. Setting them side by side is worth a minute.

• Isaiah: "what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him" (64:4)
• Paul: "the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9), introduced "as it is written"
• The Lord, in modern revelation: "how great things thou hast prepared for him that waiteth for thee" (Doctrine and Covenants 133:45)

Waiting for the Lord and loving Him are complementary expressions of trust. The comparison invites us to consider patient hope as part of a living relationship with Him.

Verse 6 is an honest confession: "we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf." The "rags" are, in Isaiah's Hebrew, a garment, beḡeḏ (בֶּגֶד). It is the same word as the "garments of salvation" in 61:10, and Word Studies puts the two verses side by side.

Then verse 8 turns on two words: "But now." After the confession comes trust: "thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter." Clay that is marred is not thrown away; it goes back on the wheel. Jeremiah watched a potter do exactly that: "the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel" (Jeremiah 18:4). Isaiah does not cite that scene, but the two belong together.

Their confession does not end in worthlessness. They still call God their Father and themselves the work of His hand. The potter image speaks of dependence and the possibility of renewal.

Latter-day Saint Connections

"Like the clay on the potter's wheel, we must be centered as well."

— Elder Richard J. Maynes, The Joy of Living a Christ-Centered Life, October 2015 General Conference

Elder Maynes, of the Presidency of the Seventy, quoted verse 8 directly and took the image to the wheel. He told how Elder Taiichi Aoba of the Seventy, a potter, taught a class of youth at the wheel: their pots kept failing because the clay was not exactly centered, and once it was, the clay held and could be shaped. "If our lives are centered in Jesus Christ," Elder Maynes taught, "He can successfully mold us into who we need to be in order to return to His and Heavenly Father's presence in the celestial kingdom." His teaching invites us to center our lives in Christ. It does not mean that a painful circumstance proves someone has failed to do so.

• Doctrine and Covenants 133:40–45 carries this whole prayer into a latter-day setting. The Saints are pictured "calling upon the name of the Lord day and night, saying: O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down" (Doctrine and Covenants 133:40). The revelation answers that He will. (Direct restatement.)
• Paul, quoting verse 4 in 1 Corinthians 2:9 as above, uses it to speak of what God reveals by His Spirit.

Study Questions

1. What changes between verse 6 and verse 8? What do the words "But now" do?
2. How does calling God both Father and Potter make room for repentance and hope? What might help you turn toward Him this week?

The Text

"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." (Isaiah 65:17–18)

"They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people." (Isaiah 65:22)

How the Passage Works

The verse just before this passage gives its reason: "because the former troubles are forgotten" (Isaiah 65:16). The manual reads that day, in its fullest sense, as the time when Jesus Christ returns, and it invites you to notice how often the words rejoice and rejoicing appear. Verses 18 and 19 are a good place to start counting.

What makes the picture moving is how ordinary it is. Weeping ceases, infants are no longer cut off after only a few days, and lives reach such fullness that "the child shall die an hundred years old" (65:19–20). People "build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them" (65:21). For a displaced people, that means security as well as abundance. It reverses the losses described in Deuteronomy 28:30–33: a house someone else occupies and a harvest someone else consumes. Chapter 62 likewise promises that strangers will no longer take the wine its people laboured to produce (Isaiah 62:8). And verse 25 brings peace even among animals: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together."

Verse 24 closes a thread that began with this week's first complaint, "Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?" (58:3). Now the Lord says, "before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Passage 1 above traces the thread from one verse to the other.

Latter-day Saint Connections

"They should not plant and another eat, for every man would enjoy the work of his own hands."

— Elder LeGrand Richards, What after Death?, October 1974 General Conference

Elder Richards, of the Council of the Twelve, retold verses 17–25 in his own words, as the line above shows, and then read verse 23, "they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them," as a promise about families: "That sounds like a continuation of the family, doesn't it?" That reading is his own application rather than an explanation of Isaiah, but it fits the picture. The new earth is not empty; it is full of people, their work, and their children.

• The Lord, in a revelation about the Millennium, describes the same day in images that run parallel to these verses. "The enmity of all flesh, shall cease" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:26); compare Isaiah 65:25. "Whatsoever any man shall ask, it shall be given unto him" (D&C 101:27); compare Isaiah 65:24. "An infant shall not die until he is old; and his life shall be as the age of a tree" (D&C 101:30); compare Isaiah 65:20, 22. Thematic parallel with shared images; the revelation does not cite Isaiah.
• Articles of Faith 1:10, which the manual cites, states it as belief: "that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory" (Articles of Faith 1:10).
• Peter looks forward "according to his promise" to "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13). He keeps Isaiah's plural heavens.

Study Questions

1. Which promises in this passage give you hope as you look toward the Savior's return?
2. "They shall not build, and another inhabit." How might this promise sound to people who had lost their homes or harvests? What does it help you understand about the restoration God promises?

Continue to Word Studies.

Five words from this week's chapters, each one starting from the English you already have in your Bible. No Hebrew is needed. Each study shows what the original word adds, and what two ancient translations did with it.

Two names appear below and are worth knowing once. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by Jewish scholars a couple of centuries before Christ; the New Testament writers often quote it. The Vulgate is the Latin translation made by Jerome around A.D. 400, read in Western Christianity for centuries. When either one chose a word, it shows how these verses were being heard long ago.

One numbering note before you start. Hebrew Bibles divide Isaiah 64 one verse differently. The King James Isaiah 64:1 is the last line of Hebrew 63:19, so King James Isaiah 64:2–12 are Hebrew 64:1–11. If you look up "filthy rags" (King James Isaiah 64:6) in a Hebrew or Jewish edition, look at 64:5. Jewish sources cite "eye hath not seen" (King James Isaiah 64:4) as 64:3.

Read Isaiah 58:13–14 and listen to two English words:

"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight… nor finding thine own pleasure… Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD."

In English, "pleasure" and "delight" sound like near neighbours. In Hebrew they are two different words, and the verse sets them against each other.

The "pleasure" is ḥēp̄eṣ (חֵפֶץ): what a person wants, their desire or purpose. It is the same word in 58:3, where on their fast day "ye find pleasure." The fast day and the Sabbath fail the same way: both are spent on what I want. And its verb, ḥāp̄ēṣ (חָפֵץ), is already in 58:2, where the same people "delight to know my ways."

The "delight" is ʿōneḡ (עֹנֶג), from a root, ʿānaḡ (עָנַג), that means to be soft or delicate. It is the delight of something fine and enjoyed, like a feast. In verse 14 the verb form describes the result: "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD." The Sabbath stops being a list of things given up and becomes something savoured.

Now watch what happens to the first word. The verb from the same root as ḥēp̄eṣ, ḥāp̄ēṣ (חָפֵץ), comes back in chapter 62, and this time it is the LORD's: "for the LORD delighteth in thee" (Isaiah 62:4). The people spent their holy days on their own wanting. In the end, the Lord's wanting is set on them. And at the close of the book the same verb names the tragedy of those who would not turn: they "did choose that wherein I delighted not" (Isaiah 65:12), and the same verb returns at 66:4: "chose that in which I delighted not." The week's reading is, among other things, a story about what each side delights in.

The Greek translation gives us another way to hear this connection. In Isaiah 58:3 and 58:13, it uses forms of thelēma (θέλημα), "will"—what someone wants or intends—for the people's own "pleasure." The same word appears in Isaiah 62:4, where Zion receives the name Thelēma emon, "My will." Read together, these passages invite a comparison: the people pursue their own purposes on holy days, while the Lord expresses His delight in His people and their restored relationship with Him. Septuagint, Isaiah 58; Isaiah 62.

Jerome did the same in Latin: voluntas, "will", in 58:3 and 58:13, and Voluntas mea in ea, "My will is in her", in 62:4. In both translations a reader could hear it: your will on the holy day, and My will set on you. Both also make the Sabbath's "delight" a word for something delicate: Greek trypherá and Latin delicatum. Trypherá comes from the same family as tryphaō (τρυφάω), which the Septuagint uses for ʿānaḡ at 66:11.

One more detail repays a look: where the Hebrew says "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD," the Septuagint speaks of trusting in the Lord. Read together, the translations invite us to consider how trust can make room for delight. The different wording shows a different emphasis; it does not tell us everything the translator intended.

Try this: this Sabbath, choose something that helps you draw near to the Lord. Notice how His invitation to delight differs from treating the day as a list of restrictions.

Cross-Language Connections

This week's title comes from Isaiah 59:20:

"And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD."

The word is gōʾēl (גֹּאֵל), from the verb gāʾal, to redeem. In Israel's law it was a family word before it was a theological one. When someone fell into poverty and had to sell their land, the law named who should step in: "if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold" (Leviticus 25:25). The gōʾēl was the nearest relative, the one whose duty it was to buy back what had been lost. Boaz filled that role for Naomi and Ruth (Ruth 4).

So when Isaiah calls the Lord Redeemer, he is calling Him family. This week's chapters use the word again and again: "I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer" (60:16); "The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD" (62:12); "the year of my redeemed is come" (63:4); "in his love and in his pity he redeemed them" (63:9).

The word also carries hope in a prayer: "Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer" (Isaiah 63:16). Here the word stands beside father, which suits its roots in family duty: when even Abraham and Israel seem not to know them, the people call on the Lord as both. The Week Overview follows that prayer in its walkthrough of chapter 63.

The family responsibility could include defending a relative's rights, not only recovering property. Numbers calls the relative responsible for responding to a killing the "revenger of blood," and the law set limits on that role: judgment by the congregation, cities of refuge, and no permission for unrestricted revenge. Numbers 35:12, 19–25. The Week Overview, in its walkthrough of chapter 59, shows how that wider duty shapes Isaiah's portrait of the Redeemer, and Key Passages, Passage 3, explores the Lord's saving intervention.

What the translations did. The Septuagint did not use a word for buying back here. It chose ho rhuomenos, "the one who rescues", from rhuomai (ῥύομαι), a verb the Septuagint uses for gāʾal among others. That Greek is why Paul's quotation of this verse reads "There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Romans 11:26). Paul follows the Septuagint's wording nearly word for word, changing for the sake of Zion to out of Zion. Jerome kept the buying-back idea: redemptor, "one who buys back." Our English keeps it too: Webster's 1828 dictionary traces redeem to Latin redimo and defines it "To purchase back," illustrating it from Leviticus 25.

Key Passages, the passage on 59:9–21, shows where the Redeemer comes in that chapter: after the people's confession, and after the Lord "wondered that there was no intercessor."

Cross-Language Connections

Isaiah 61:1, the verse the Savior read at Nazareth:

"…he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound."

"Liberty" here is dᵊrôr (דְּרוֹר), and it is not a general word for freedom. It is the word of the jubilee. Every fiftieth year Israel was to "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof… and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family" (Leviticus 25:10). Land went back to the families who had lost it. People who had sold themselves into service went home.

The word appears in only a handful of places, and each one is about that kind of release. Ezekiel's vision calls it "the year of liberty" (Ezekiel 46:17). Jeremiah tells of a release that was proclaimed in Jerusalem and then taken back: "afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return" (Jeremiah 34:11). The Lord's answer is bitter: "Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty… behold, I proclaim a liberty for you… to the sword" (Jeremiah 34:8, 15, 17).

Against that background, Isaiah 61:1 is a jubilee proclaimed by the anointed one himself, and one that is not taken back.

What the translations did, and where it leads. The Septuagint's word for this liberty is aphesis (ἄφεσις), "release". It is the word in Greek Leviticus 25:10 and in Greek Isaiah 61:1. Luke's account of the Nazareth reading has aphesis twice: "to preach deliverance to the captives" and "to set at liberty them that are bruised" (Luke 4:18). And it is the word in the Savior's words at the Last Supper, as Matthew records them in Greek: "this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). "Remission" there is aphesis. In the Greek of the New Testament, the jubilee's release and the forgiveness of sins are one word. Jerome chose indulgentia, "indulgence" or "pardon", for 61:1, so the Latin hears mercy in the verse too.

Try this: read Leviticus 25:10, then Isaiah 61:1, then Matthew 26:28, in that order.

(The Hebrew word also has an unrelated second sense, "flowing", used once of myrrh in Exodus 30:23. Every other use is "liberty".)

Cross-Language Connections

Two verses from this week, three chapters apart:

"For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." (Isaiah 61:10)

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6; Hebrew 64:5)

"Garments" and "rags" are the same Hebrew word, beḡeḏ (בֶּגֶד), the ordinary word for a garment. The "rags" of 64:6 are a garment too, and the word for "filthy" beside it, ʿidâ (עִדָּה), marks it as unclean under the law of Moses. The confession is not that their good deeds were small. It is that the best clothes they could make for themselves were unclean.

Now follow the word through the week, because it tells a story. In chapter 59 the wicked weave webs that "shall not become garments" (59:6). The Lord then puts on "the garments of vengeance for clothing" (59:17). In chapter 61 He clothes His people "with the garments of salvation." In chapter 63 the figure from Edom comes "with dyed garments," and says, "their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment" (63:1–3). And in chapter 64 the people confess that their own righteousness is an unclean garment.

Read together, these images distinguish confessed impurity from the salvation God gives. The unclean garment of chapter 64 expresses the people's need for cleansing, and their prayer goes on to call God their Father and themselves the work of His hand (64:8–9). The repeated word invites comparison, and the scenes do different work. Chapter 63's bloodstained clothing belongs to the Lord's work of judgment. Chapter 61's "garments of salvation" are His gift: read beside chapter 64, they are the clothing He gives in place of the unclean garment His people confessed. Key Passages, Passages 6 and 7, explains those different settings.

What the translations did. Here the thread disappears in translation. The Septuagint uses rhakos (ῥάκος), a rag, for 64:6, but himation (ἱμάτιον), a garment, for 61:10. Jerome likewise has pannus, a cloth, for one and vestimentum, a garment, for the other. Only the Hebrew keeps the two verses in one word.

Cross-Language Connections

Isaiah 62:4:

"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married."

The King James left these two names in Hebrew, and the verse explains them itself.

Hephzi-bah means "my delight is in her." It is built on ḥāp̄ēṣ (חָפֵץ), to delight in, the same family as the "pleasure" of 58:13 (Word Study 1 above). It was a real name in Israel's history: it belonged to the mother of King Manasseh ("his mother's name was Hephzi-bah," 2 Kings 21:1). A name that a mother of Judah once carried becomes the Lord's name for His city.

Beulah means "married." It comes from bāʿal (בָּעַל), to marry, and the next verse fills in the picture: "as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (Isaiah 62:5).

Notice what the new names replace. Forsaken and Desolate described what had happened to her. My delight is in her and Married describe how she is loved. The chapter ends by renaming the people as well: "The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD… Sought out, A city not forsaken" (62:12).

What the translations did. The Septuagint translated both names: Thelēma emon, "My will" (see Word Study 1), and oikoumenē (οἰκουμένη), "inhabited." The Vulgate did the same: Voluntas mea in ea, "My will is in her", and Inhabitata, "inhabited."

Webster's 1828 defines desolate as "deprived of inhabitants." That helps explain the contrast: a deserted land becomes inhabited again. The Hebrew name Beulah, "Married," also expresses the restored relationship between the Lord and His people.

Cross-Language Connections

Delight is a choice about whose wanting fills the day. Isaiah's promise is that when the Sabbath stops being spent on thine own pleasure, you will find that the Lord's delight was set on you first.

Redeemer is a family word. Isaiah's people appeal to the Lord as the One who can rescue and restore them. Their loss has not ended their relationship with Him.

Liberty is the jubilee, and in the Greek of the Savior's words at the Last Supper it is also forgiveness. The release He read about at Nazareth is the release He paid for.

Garments help us see the difference between our need for cleansing and God's gift of salvation. Confession can lead us toward Him: the people who acknowledge their impurity still call Him Father and ask to be renewed.

Continue to Jewish Perspective.

Jewish teachers have read these chapters for centuries, asking how Isaiah's words illuminate worship, mercy, and belonging. This section sets several of their readings beside the text so we can understand their reasoning and appreciate what they notice. The Latter-day Saint connections are offered as our own comparisons, not as claims that the traditions teach exactly the same thing. We can learn from careful readers of another faith while representing their beliefs respectfully.

Each source is introduced where it first appears. One numbering note helps: Jewish Bibles number Isaiah 64 one verse differently, so the King James Isaiah 64:4 and 64:6 appear in Jewish sources as 64:3 and 64:5.

The English translations linked here are hosted by Sefaria: the William Davidson Edition of the Talmud (CC BY-NC), The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 (CC BY), and the London “Chaldee Paraphrase,” 1871, of the Targum (public domain). Each passage is linked so it can be read in context.

The Talmud is the great collection of rabbinic teaching and discussion, compiled over centuries; its discussion layer is called the Gemara. Talmud references read like an address. Bava Batra 9b means the tractate (book) called Bava Batra, leaf 9, second side.

On that page Rabbi Yitzḥak, one of the sages whose teaching the Talmud records, counts the blessings in Isaiah 58. Whoever gives even the smallest coin to a poor person, he says, receives the six blessings of verses 8–9: light breaking forth, health, righteousness going before, the glory of the Lord as rearguard, the Lord answering, and "Here I am." But whoever comforts a poor person with words receives more:

"And whoever consoles a poor person with words of comfort and encouragement receives eleven blessings."

— Bava Batra 9b

His evidence is verse 10, "if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry," followed by the longer list of promises in verses 10–12. The coin is good. Drawing out your soul, giving yourself as well as the coin, is better.

LDS Connection

Latter-day Saints make a covenant at baptism that includes this very thing: to be "willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18:9). Rabbi Yitzḥak's count makes vivid something our covenant already asks of us: the comfort counts, not only the coin. A fast offering and a visit belong together.

The same page of the Talmud reads Isaiah 59:17, where the Lord "put on righteousness as a breastplate." The Hebrew word is ṣᵊḏāqâ (צְדָקָה), righteousness. But this page of the Talmud is about giving to the poor, and it uses that same word again and again for the giving itself. So Rabbi Elazar hears charity in the verse, and reads the verse as "He donned charity like a coat of mail," and asks what the image teaches:

"Just as with regard to this coat of mail, each and every scale of which it is fashioned combines to form one large coat of mail, so too with regard to charity, each and every peruta that one gives combines to form a great sum."

— Bava Batra 9b

A peruta was the smallest coin. Then Rabbi Ḥanina does something surprising with a verse most readers find bleak: "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (King James Isaiah 64:6, which is 64:5 in Jewish Bibles). The Hebrew behind rags is the ordinary word for a garment, and the same ṣᵊḏāqâ stands behind righteousnesses. So he reads it as "all our charity is as a polluted garment," and takes the garment as his picture: just as every thread combines into one garment, every small gift combines into a great sum. Where the King James reader hears only failure, he finds a lesson about small things adding up. Word Studies follows the word for garment through this week's chapters.

LDS Connection

Alma taught his son a principle close to this one: "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" (Alma 37:6). The rabbis and Alma reach it from different scriptures. Both would tell a member who feels their offering is too small to matter that it is one scale in a coat of mail.

Isaiah 58:13–14 promises that whoever calls the Sabbath "a delight" will be fed "with the heritage of Jacob thy father." Why Jacob, and not Abraham or Isaac? The Talmud answers by comparing the three promises. The land promised to Abraham and to Isaac had borders. To Jacob God said, "thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south" (Genesis 28:14):

"The reward for delighting in Shabbat is specifically the portion of Jacob."

— Shabbat 118b

In this reading, the inheritance promised for a Sabbath kept with delight has no borders. On the same page Rav Naḥman bar Yitzḥak adds that one who delights in the Sabbath "is rescued from the oppression of exile."

The Targum, an Aramaic translation of the Prophets that often explains a verse while translating it, adds a lovely image of its own. Where the Hebrew says "call the sabbath a delight," the Targum's English reads:

"…and dost meet the Sabbath with great delight to sanctify the Lord…"

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 58:13

Meet the Sabbath, as you would meet someone arriving.

LDS Connection

The Lord also joined the fast and the Sabbath in a modern revelation. On His day, He said, "let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full. Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer" (Doctrine and Covenants 59:13–14). Isaiah 58 moves from the fast to the Sabbath; D&C 59 says that rightly kept they are both a kind of joy. Key Passages, the passage on 58:13–14, has President Nelson's question about the Sabbath as a sign.

Isaiah 59:20 gives this week its title: "And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob." In the Hebrew, the people turn and the Redeemer comes to them.

The Targum reads it differently:

"And the redeemer shall come to Zion, and turn the transgressors of the house of Jacob to the law, saith the Lord."

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 59:20

Here the Redeemer does the turning. And the Greek translation of Isaiah that Paul quotes in Romans 11:26 also has the Deliverer "turn away ungodliness from Jacob." So two ancient readings make the Redeemer the one who turns the people, where the Hebrew has the people turning.

LDS Connection

The Book of Mormon holds both halves together. Helaman reminded his sons of what Amulek had taught: that the Lord would come "to redeem them from their sins," and that "he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance" (Helaman 5:10–11). We turn; He has the power to turn us. The Hebrew, the Targum and Helaman each emphasise a different side of the same meeting.

At Nazareth, the Savior read Isaiah 61:1–2 and said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Key Passages, the passage on 61:1–3, tells that scene.

The Targum understands the speaker of 61:1 another way:

"The prophet said, the spirit of prophecy from before the presence of the Lord God is upon me…"

— Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 61:1

For the Targum, the one speaking is Isaiah himself, anointed to bring good news to his people. Latter-day Saints, with the Gospel writers, hear Jesus of Nazareth claiming the verse as His own. That is a real difference, and it should stay visible. The Targum is not wrong to hear a prophet's voice, and we are not wrong to hear the Savior's.

One more detail in the same verse is worth seeing. Where the King James has "the opening of the prison to them that are bound," the Targum's English reads: "and to the prisoners! Appear in light!" After the light of chapter 60, the Targum turns release from prison into coming out into the light.

LDS Connection

John records an angel's words that join the two readings without erasing their difference: "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10). The Targum's phrase is the spirit of prophecy. For a Latter-day Saint reader, what that spirit testifies of is Jesus. That is our reading, offered as ours; the Targum does not say it.

Isaiah 65:24 promises: "before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." A midrash is a rabbinic interpretation that explains one scripture by drawing in others, and Exodus Rabbah is a collection of such interpretations on the book of Exodus. It brings this verse to the shore of the Red Sea, where the Lord says to Moses, "Wherefore criest thou unto me?" (Exodus 14:15). Why ask Moses that, if the Lord hears prayer? Because, the midrash answers, He had already heard:

"Anyone who performs the will of the Holy One blessed be He and directs his heart in prayer, He hears him in this world and likewise in the World to Come."

— Exodus Rabbah 21

Then it pictures the righteous in the world to come, each one reciting what he has learned, and God "as it were… sitting and reciting with him." Prayer, in this reading, is heard before it is finished, and study is something God joins.

LDS Connection

The Savior taught a similar confidence in His own words: "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (Matthew 6:8). That does not make prayer unnecessary. Both the midrash and the Savior assume we will keep praying. It means we pray to Someone who is already listening.

Numbers Rabbah, another collection of midrash, asks why God commanded lamps in the sanctuary at all, since He "does not need the lamps of flesh and blood." It answers through an interpretation of the temple's windows. The midrash contrasts ordinary windows that admit light with temple windows pictured as letting light shine outward, "so that the light would emerge from the Temple and illuminate outside." This is the teaching image the midrash develops, rather than an independent archaeological description of the building. It then speaks of God's promised light for Israel and draws on this week's chapter:

"That is why it is stated: 'Arise, shine, for your light has come… Nations will walk by your light and kings by the radiance of your shining' (Isaiah 60:1, 3)."

— Numbers Rabbah 15

The light of Isaiah 60 is not for keeping inside. It is meant to go out.

LDS Connection

"That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24). This revelation describes receiving and growing in God's light; the midrash pictures light reaching outward from the sanctuary. They offer different images, but both can help a Latter-day Saint reader reflect on God's light as a gift that blesses people. Key Passages, the passage on chapters 60 and 62, develops the outward application through Sister Cordon's story of lighting someone else's path.

• Notice what careful readers count and compare. Rabbi Yitzḥak counted blessings; the Talmud compared three promises. Counting and comparing are skills you can use in your own Bible.
• Let another tradition show you what you might miss, like the Targum's meet the Sabbath, or a hopeful reading of filthy rags.
• Keep real differences visible. Isaiah 61:1 is read as the prophet's voice in the Targum and as the Savior's in Luke. Both readings deserve to be stated accurately.

Sources in This Section

Continue to Teaching Applications.

Choose the setting you are teaching in. Each activity begins with scripture, gives only the context the activity needs, and asks learners to do something. The fuller explanations live in Historical & Cultural Context, Key Passages, Word Studies and Jewish Perspective.

Two notes before you plan. This week is about fasting, and not everyone can fast: children, people with health conditions, and others for whom going without food is unsafe. Isaiah 58's fast is about lifting someone else's burden, and everyone can take part in that. The week is also about the Sabbath, and some people in the room may have to work on Sundays. Keep Sabbath activities about delight in the Lord, not about who is keeping the day correctly.

Read Isaiah 58:13–14 together. Point to the days of the week on a calendar and say them aloud together. When you reach Sunday, have everyone call it "a delight", the word Isaiah uses.

Activity: have each person draw or write things that help them "delight thyself in the LORD" on the Sabbath: a walk together, a call to a grandparent, a favourite hymn, a scripture story, a visit. Put them in a "box of Sabbath delights." When someone needs an idea on a Sunday, they can pull one out.

Share why the Sabbath is a delight to you, in a sentence or two.

Invite the children to close their eyes while you read Isaiah 60:1–3. Ask them to open their eyes whenever they hear the word "light" and close them again when they hear "darkness."

Explain in a sentence: Jesus Christ and His gospel are like a light that helps us see our way back to Heavenly Father. In verse 1 the light "is come", and "the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee."

Activity: turn the room lights down, then switch them on together on the words "Arise, shine". Ask: what is easier to do when the light is on? Then ask how Jesus helps us see the way.

Read Isaiah 58:3 and let the group put the people's complaint into their own words. Then read the Lord's answer in verses 6–7.

Activity: make two columns. In the first, list everything in verses 6–7 that the fast does for someone else: loose bands, undo burdens, free the oppressed, feed the hungry, bring the poor home, cover the naked. In the second, list what verses 8–11 promise the person who fasts this way. Notice that nearly every promise follows from something done for another person. Key Passages, the passage on 58:3–12, sets out these promises as principles a reader can test, with Elder Carl B. Pratt's phrase-by-phrase reading of verse 6.

Private reflection: whose burden could you help lift this week? Nobody needs to say it aloud. For those who do not fast for health or other reasons, the fast offering, a visit or a kind word is part of the same law.

Read these two verses one after the other, without explaining them first:

• Isaiah 59:16: "he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him"
• Isaiah 63:5: "I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me"

Ask the class: what is the same? Let them find it: no one to help, "wondered", and an arm that "brought salvation". Then read the setting of each: a people confessing their sins (59:9–15), and a figure in red garments who has "trodden the winepress alone" (63:1–3).

Closing question: what does it mean to you that the Savior did for us what no one else could do? Key Passages, the passage on 63:1–9, reads these verses with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's Easter teaching, "None Were with Him".

Read three passages in this order:

1. Leviticus 16:29–30: on the Day of Atonement, "ye shall afflict your souls", for on that day atonement is made for the people.
2. Leviticus 25:9–10: in the jubilee year, the trumpet sounds "in the day of atonement" and liberty is proclaimed.
3. Isaiah 58:3, 6: "wherefore have we afflicted our soul…?" and "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? … to let the oppressed go free".

Discussion: in the jubilee year, the Day of Atonement's trumpet announced release. How does that connection help us hear Isaiah's invitation to lift burdens and free the oppressed? Compare the passages without assuming Isaiah identifies this particular fast as a jubilee observance. Historical & Cultural Context, section 3, sets out the connection.

Then ask: what does fast Sunday look like when both halves are kept? Let the answers be specific: a fast offering, a visit, a debt forgiven, a burden carried.

Choose by situation rather than by chapter:

• For someone who feels unheard in prayer: Isaiah 58:9, then 65:24. Read what God says He will do, and when.
• For grief: Isaiah 61:1–3. The anointed one is sent "to comfort all that mourn." Let the promise stand without requiring the grief to lift today.
• For someone who feels forsaken or overlooked: Isaiah 62:4, 12. Notice the old names and the new ones, and the last one: "Sought out."
• For shame over sin: Isaiah 64:6–8. The honest confession of verse 6 is followed by "But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter."
• For someone who needs reassurance and tenderness: Isaiah 66:13: "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." The image expresses God's care without assuming everyone has experienced that care in their own family.

One small practice: read Isaiah 58:10, 59:9–10 and 60:1 on three different days this week, one passage a day. Watch the light disappear and come back. The Week Overview follows that thread through the chapters.

Continue to Study Questions.

These twenty questions move from what the text says to what a reader might do with it. Choose a few that fit your study rather than working through all of them. The personal questions are invitations, not assumptions about anyone's circumstances. Personal questions may be considered privately. No one needs to disclose painful experiences, health conditions, financial circumstances, or another person's difficulties. For helpful explanations and context, see Key Passages, Historical & Cultural Context, Word Studies and Jewish Perspective.

1. Read Isaiah 58:3–5. What do the people complain about, and what does the Lord say they were doing on the day of their fast?
2. In Isaiah 59:1–2, what two things does the Lord say are not the problem, and what does He say is?
3. Read Isaiah 60:18. What new names are given to the city's walls and gates?
4. In Isaiah 62:4–5, what conditions do Forsaken and Desolate describe? How do the new names and the bridegroom image express God's delight and a restored relationship?
5. Read Isaiah 65:21–23. What ordinary things does the new creation promise that the people had lost?

1. Compare Isaiah 61:1–2 with Luke 4:18–21. Where does the Savior stop reading, and what does He say once He has closed the book?
2. Read Isaiah 58:9, then 65:12, then 65:24. Who calls and who answers in each verse?
3. Put Isaiah 59:16 beside Isaiah 63:5. Which words do the two verses share, and what does each chapter go on to say about the one whose arm brings salvation?
4. Isaiah 64:4 speaks of what God has prepared "for him that waiteth for him." Paul quotes the verse in 1 Corinthians 2:9. Whom does Paul say these things are prepared for?
5. Stephen quotes Isaiah 66:1–2 in Acts 7:49–50. What do these passages say about God's greatness? How does Isaiah's attention to the humble person help us understand what worship involves beyond a building?

1. Isaiah 58:6–7 describes the fast the Lord chooses. Whose burden might you help lift this week, whether or not you are able to fast?
2. In Isaiah 58:13, the Sabbath is to be called "a delight." What is one thing that would make next Sunday more of a delight in the Lord, and less a list of rules?
3. Isaiah 61:3 promises "beauty for ashes." Where have you seen the Savior give someone beauty where there had been loss?
4. The prayer that runs from Isaiah 63:7 to the end of chapter 64 begins by remembering "the lovingkindnesses of the LORD." What lovingkindnesses could you "mention" from your own life before you ask for anything?
5. Isaiah 64:8 calls God both Father and Potter. How might those images help a person or community turn toward Him with repentance and hope?

1. Compare Isaiah 63:1–9 with Doctrine and Covenants 133:46–53. Where does the figure come from in each, and what does the revelation make clear about who He is?
2. Paul quotes Isaiah 59:20 in Romans 11:26, and Jewish Perspective, section 4, shows an ancient translation that makes a similar change. In Isaiah, who turns from transgression, and in Paul's wording, who does the turning?
3. Read Isaiah 58:6 beside Leviticus 25:9–10. What did the Day of Atonement's trumpet proclaim, and how does that change the way you hear the fast the Lord chooses?
4. Isaiah 60:19 promises that the Lord will be an everlasting light. Read Revelation 21:23. Whom does John name as the light of the holy city?
5. This week's reading begins with people asking why God does not see them (Isaiah 58:3) and ends with all flesh worshipping before Him (Isaiah 66:23). Which chapter in between do you think does the most to answer their question, and why?

Continue to Weekly Insights.