Explain It Like I'm…

Isaiah was a prophet who lived a long time ago in a city called Jerusalem. His name means "the Lord is salvation." That is a big word for a simple promise: Jesus Christ will save us. In the last part of his book, Isaiah wrote about Jesus and about how we can follow Him.

Fasting helps people

Sometimes on Sunday, grown-ups and older children choose not to eat for a little while. That is called fasting. Isaiah taught that fasting is not just about being hungry. The Lord said the fast He wants is to "deal thy bread to the hungry" (Isaiah 58:7). When we fast, our family can give money called a fast offering. That money helps feed people who do not have enough. Fasting is a way to pray and a way to help someone else at the same time.

The Sabbath is a delight

Isaiah taught that Sunday can be a happy day. He called the Sabbath "a delight" (Isaiah 58:13). A delight is something that makes you glad. On Sunday we take the sacrament, spend time with family, and remember Jesus. We can find good things to do that make the Sabbath a happy, peaceful day.

Jesus is our light

Isaiah wrote, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1). Think of a dark room. When someone turns on a light, you can see where to go. Jesus is like that light. He helps us see the way back to Heavenly Father. When Jesus grew up, He stood in a synagogue and read Isaiah's words about Himself. He said He came "to heal the brokenhearted" and to help people who feel sad or trapped (see Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:16-21).

Jesus will come again

Isaiah saw a wonderful day when Jesus will come back to the earth. He said God will "create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17). Animals that used to be scary will be gentle, and there will be no more crying. It will be a time to "be glad and rejoice for ever" (Isaiah 65:18). We get ready by loving Jesus and keeping His commandments.

Question a parent could ask: How can our family fast to help someone who needs it?

Isaiah closes his book with nine chapters that bounce between hard truth and glorious hope. He calls out fake worship, names the sins that keep Israel from God, then promises that "the Redeemer shall come to Zion" (Isaiah 59:20). All of it points to Jesus Christ.

Fasting that actually does something

Israel fasted and then complained that God ignored them. The problem? They were fasting while treating people badly. So the Lord redefined the whole thing: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness... to deal thy bread to the hungry" (Isaiah 58:6-7).

Fasting was never meant to be just skipping meals and feeling holy about it. When you fast and pay a fast offering, your hunger turns into food for someone else. That is why the Lord promises those who fast this way that their "light" will break forth and healing will come (Isaiah 58:8).

Think about how easy it is to look righteous online or at church while being harsh to a sibling or ignoring the kid eating alone. Isaiah 58 says God notices the gap between our worship and our treatment of people.

The Sabbath as a delight, not a checklist

Isaiah calls the Sabbath "a delight" (Isaiah 58:13). Not a day of boredom or a list of "can't." When you turn "from doing thy pleasure on [His] holy day" and instead delight "in the Lord," Sunday becomes something you get to do, not have to do (Isaiah 58:13-14).

Sin separates, but the Intercessor saves

Isaiah is blunt: "your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isaiah 59:2). Then comes the turn. God "wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation" (Isaiah 59:16). An intercessor is someone who stands between two parties and brings them back together. No one on earth could bridge the gap sin creates, so the Lord became the Mediator Himself. That is the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Beauty for ashes

Isaiah 61 is the passage Jesus read in the Nazareth synagogue. He opened the scroll and read, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me... to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives" (Isaiah 61:1). Then He said, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). It was one of His plainest declarations that He is the Messiah.

The Messiah gives "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning" (Isaiah 61:3). When you feel broken, anxious, or stuck, this is what Christ offers: not a lecture, but healing.

Scripture Mastery Moment

Isaiah 58:6-7 is worth memorizing. It defines the fast the Lord chooses, "to loose the bands of wickedness... to deal thy bread to the hungry," and it connects your worship directly to how you treat people who are struggling. It is the doctrine behind fast offerings and the whole idea that faith shows up in action.

Where it all lands

Isaiah ends with hope: gathered Israel, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1), and the Second Coming, when God will "create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17). This week, notice one person around you who is carrying something heavy, and let your worship reach outward to them.

Isaiah closes his book with nine chapters that swing between rebuke and glory. He redefines fasting and Sabbath, exposes the sins that separate Israel from God, then pours out the promise of a Redeemer coming to Zion. Every thread points to Jesus Christ.

The Fast the Lord Chooses

Israel fasted and complained that God took no notice, all while exploiting workers and quarreling. The Lord answered by redefining worship itself in Isaiah 58:6-7: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness... to deal thy bread to the hungry."

Fasting detached from mercy is empty. Joined to mercy, it brings light and healing "like a spring of water" (Isaiah 58:11). This is the direct root of the Church's fast offering: voluntary hunger becomes food for someone in need. President Henry B. Eyring gathered examples of this in "Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?" (Ensign or Liahona, May 2015).

The chapter then reframes the Sabbath as "a delight" (Isaiah 58:13), a day to delight in the Lord rather than pursue our own pleasure.

💬 What is the difference between "delighting thyself in the Lord" and "doing thine own ways" on the Sabbath?

Sin Separates; the Intercessor Saves

Isaiah is direct: "your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isaiah 59:2). He catalogs a society where "truth is fallen in the street" (Isaiah 59:14).

Then the turn: God "wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation" (Isaiah 59:16). No mortal could mediate the gap sin opens, so the Lord provided the Mediator Himself. The title Intercessor names what the Atonement accomplishes. Paul taught that Christ "ever liveth to make intercession" for us (Hebrews 7:25), and modern revelation shows Him "pleading your cause" before the Father (D&C 45:3-5).

💬 What impresses you about the description of the Intercessor in Isaiah 59:16-21?

Beauty for Ashes: The Anointed One's Mission

Isaiah 61 is the passage Jesus read in the Nazareth synagogue, receiving the scroll and finding the exact words: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me... to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives" (Isaiah 61:1).

He read through "the acceptable year of the Lord," then declared, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). He came to give "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning" (Isaiah 61:3). Healing and liberation are the purpose of the gospel, not a side effect.

💬 How has Jesus Christ given you or someone you love beauty in place of ashes?

Arise and Shine: Gathering and the Millennial Reign

Isaiah 60-66 unfolds the last days in two movements. First, the gathering: "Arise, shine; for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1), as scattered Israel comes home and the Lord becomes "an everlasting light" (Isaiah 60:19). Zion even receives new names, Hephzibah and Beulah, reversing Forsaken and Desolate (Isaiah 62:4).

Second, the reign of Christ. "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17), a day when "the former troubles are forgotten" (Isaiah 65:16) and "the wolf and the lamb shall feed together" (Isaiah 65:25). The Tenth Article of Faith grows straight from this language: the earth "will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory."

💬 Why will the Savior's return be a day of rejoicing for you, and what can you do to prepare?

Isaiah 63 holds both movements together: the Lord comes "in red apparel" from treading the winepress alone (Isaiah 63:3), yet He is also "the Saviour" who "bare them, and carried them" (Isaiah 63:8-9). The same Lord who gathers will reign, and the same Lord who judges also comforts "as one whom his mother comforteth" (Isaiah 66:13).

Key Takeaways

• The fast the Lord chooses joins worship to mercy: feeding the hungry and freeing the oppressed (Isaiah 58:6-7).
• The Sabbath becomes "a delight" when we delight in the Lord rather than our own pleasure (Isaiah 58:13-14).
• Sin separates us from God, and only Jesus Christ, the Intercessor, can bridge that gap (Isaiah 59:2, 16).
• Isaiah 61, fulfilled by Jesus at Nazareth, defines His mission: healing the brokenhearted and freeing captives (Luke 4:21).
• The gathering of Israel and the millennial reign of Christ are two movements of one work, accomplished by the returning Lord (Isaiah 60:1; 65:17).

Isaiah 58-66 belongs to the final section of Isaiah, sometimes called the Book of Consolation (chapters 40-66), addressed to a covenant people facing exile and looking toward return. Isaiah ben Amoz prophesied in Jerusalem roughly 740-700 BC under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, as Assyria pressed Judah. His vision reaches far past his own crisis to the Messiah, the gathering, and the Millennium.

Worship That Reaches Outward

Isaiah 58 recasts Israel's two most inward acts, fasting and Sabbath keeping, as engines of compassion. Public fasts in Israel marked mourning and repentance, often with sackcloth and ashes; the Day of Atonement was the one fast commanded in the Law (Leviticus 16:29-31), a day to "afflict your souls." Isaiah 58 confronts a recurring distortion: treating the outward act as the point.

The fast God chooses is "to loose the bands of wickedness... and to let the oppressed go free" (Isaiah 58:6), and to "deal thy bread to the hungry" (Isaiah 58:7). Ritual detached from mercy is empty; ritual joined to mercy brings light and healing "like a spring of water" (Isaiah 58:11). This is King Benjamin's principle exactly: "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). It is also what the Savior demanded of Pharisees who tithed mint while neglecting "judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matthew 23:23).

The line from Isaiah's redefinition to the modern fast offering is direct: voluntary hunger funding another's need. President Henry B. Eyring drew on this chapter in "Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?" (Ensign or Liahona, May 2015). The Sabbath follows the same logic, becoming "a delight" when we turn from "doing thy pleasure" to delighting in the Lord (Isaiah 58:13-14).

The Intercessor Whose Own Arm Brings Salvation

Isaiah 59 states the human problem precisely: "your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isaiah 59:2). In a society where "truth is fallen in the street" (Isaiah 59:14), God "wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation" (Isaiah 59:16). No mortal could mediate; the Lord became the Mediator Himself, then sealed an everlasting covenant: "The Redeemer shall come to Zion" (Isaiah 59:20).

The title Intercessor names the mechanism of the Atonement across dispensations. Paul: Christ "ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). Modern revelation dramatizes it: "Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him" (D&C 45:3-5). Abinadi models the Christ-centered reading these chapters invite, quoting Isaiah's Servant before King Noah and expounding it as prophecy of the Messiah's atonement (Mosiah 14-16).

The Anointed One at Nazareth

First-century synagogues followed a reading cycle in which a member could be invited to read from the Prophets. Luke 4 records Jesus receiving the scroll of Isaiah in His hometown and finding Isaiah 61:1-2. He read through "the acceptable year of the Lord," stopping before "the day of vengeance," because the day of mercy had arrived and judgment would wait. That He located the exact passage and applied it to Himself, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21), was a deliberate messianic claim. The Anointed One came "to bind up the brokenhearted" and give "beauty for ashes" (Isaiah 61:1, 3).

Zion's New Name and the Covenant Marriage

In the ancient Near East a change of name signaled a change of destiny, as Abram became Abraham and Jacob became Israel. Isaiah 62 gives Zion the names Hephzibah, "my delight is in her," and Beulah, "married," reversing the shameful Forsaken and Desolate that fit a conquered city (Isaiah 62:4). God rejoices over Zion "as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride" (Isaiah 62:5). The covenant is portrayed as joyful marriage, drawing on treaty language of mutual belonging familiar across the region.

This covenant glory arrives through gathering. "Arise, shine; for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1) calls scattered Israel home while darkness covers the earth, until "the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light" (Isaiah 60:19). President Russell M. Nelson has taught that this gathering is the most important work on earth today, echoed in the invitations of 1 Nephi 22:3-12 and D&C 14:9.

The Winepress and the Renewed Earth

Ancient winepresses were rock-cut basins where workers trod grapes barefoot, staining their garments crimson. Isaiah 63 uses this everyday image for the Second Coming: the Lord comes from Edom in red apparel, treading the winepress alone, "of the people there was none with me" (Isaiah 63:3). Latter-day revelation adopts the identical picture (D&C 133:46-51). Yet the same chapter remembers the Lord as "the Saviour" who "bare them, and carried them" (Isaiah 63:8-9).

Isaiah 64 answers with the humble prayer of a dependent people: "we are the clay, and thou our potter" (Isaiah 64:8). God's reply unveils the Millennium: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17), when infants no longer die young, people inhabit the houses they build, and "the former troubles are forgotten" (Isaiah 65:16). The Tenth Article of Faith grows directly from this language. The book ends with all flesh gathered to worship and comforted "as one whom his mother comforteth" (Isaiah 66:13).

Isaiah's name means "the Lord is salvation," and his closing chapters hold both edges of that salvation together: the Christ who intercedes and the Christ who reigns are one Lord. This week, trace every title given to the Redeemer across these nine chapters and consider which one meets your present need.

Isaiah 58-66 forms the culmination of the so-called Book of Consolation (Isaiah 40-66), composed for a covenant community oriented toward exile and return. Isaiah ben Amoz ministered in Jerusalem circa 740-700 BC under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah amid Assyrian pressure. The Restoration's canon treats these chapters as more than historically situated poetry: nineteen chapters of Isaiah appear in the Book of Mormon, and the resurrected Christ commanded, "great are the words of Isaiah" (3 Nephi 23:1). The analytical threads below trace how the section coheres doctrinally.

Cultic Interiority Turned Outward

Isaiah 58 executes a deliberate inversion of Israel's most interior acts. Public fasts marked mourning and repentance, typically with sackcloth and ashes; the sole fast commanded in the Law was the Day of Atonement, when Israel was to "afflict your souls" (Leviticus 16:29-31). The rhetorical force of Isaiah 58 lies in redefining the referent of that self-affliction: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness... to deal thy bread to the hungry" (Isaiah 58:6-7).

The covenant reward is sensory and hydrological, "thy light shall break forth as the morning" and waters "like a spring... whose waters fail not" (Isaiah 58:8, 11), imagery that reappears in the everlasting-light motif of chapter 60. The structural pairing of fasting with Sabbath in the same chapter (Isaiah 58:13-14) is not incidental: both are acts of self-denial reoriented toward delight, "call the sabbath a delight," so that consecration and joy converge. This ethical reading anchors a distinctively Latter-day Saint praxis, the fast offering, in which abstinence is monetized into welfare, the applied logic President Henry B. Eyring illustrated in "Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?" (Ensign or Liahona, May 2015). The prophetic critique is continuous across dispensations: Mosiah 2:17 collapses service to neighbor into service to God, and Matthew 23:23 indicts scrupulous ritual that omits "judgment, mercy, and faith."

Forensic Intercession and the Grammar of Atonement

Isaiah 59 supplies the theological hinge. The diagnosis is separation, not divine incapacity: "your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isaiah 59:2). The social catalog, "truth is fallen in the street" (Isaiah 59:14), establishes that the covenant breach is total and self-inflicted. The resolution is startling in its solitude: God "wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him" (Isaiah 59:16). The absence of any qualified mediator forces the divine self-provision of one, culminating in the covenant guarantee, "The Redeemer shall come to Zion" (Isaiah 59:20).

The title Intercessor functions as a technical term for the atoning mechanism and generates a cross-dispensational web. The epistle to the Hebrews renders it in cultic-priestly grammar: Christ "ever liveth to make intercession" (Hebrews 7:25). The Doctrine and Covenants renders it in forensic-juridical grammar: "the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him" (D&C 45:3-5). The Book of Mormon supplies the exegetical warrant, for Abinadi, quoting the Servant song before King Noah's court, reads Isaiah's interceding sufferer as the Messiah who effects atonement and resurrection (Mosiah 14-16). The Restoration thus treats Isaiah 59:16 not as isolated hope but as one node in a coherent doctrine of mediation.

Prophetic Type and Messianic Self-Identification

Isaiah 61:1-2 receives its definitive fulfillment in Luke 4. The mechanics matter: first-century synagogue practice invited a reader to expound from the Prophets, and Jesus, handed the scroll, located the precise passage and read only through "the acceptable year of the Lord," halting before "the day of vengeance." The redaction is exegetically loaded: the era of mercy is inaugurated while judgment is deferred, a distinction the section itself preserves by separating chapter 61's healing mission from chapter 63's winepress. His declaration, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21), constitutes one of the most explicit messianic self-identifications in the Gospels. The mission itself, "to bind up the brokenhearted... beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning" (Isaiah 61:1, 3), defines redemption as restorative rather than merely propitiatory.

Onomastic Covenant and Nuptial Restoration

Isaiah 62 deploys the ancient Near Eastern convention whereby a new name marks altered status or destiny, the pattern of Abram/Abraham and Jacob/Israel. Zion's shameful designations, Forsaken and Desolate, appropriate to a depopulated conquered city, are reversed to Hephzibah ("my delight is in her") and Beulah ("married"): "for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married" (Isaiah 62:4). The nuptial figure, "as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (Isaiah 62:5), imports covenant-treaty language of mutual belonging into the God-Israel relationship. This covenantal reversal is enacted historically through the gathering of chapter 60, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come" (Isaiah 60:1), where the Lord Himself becomes "an everlasting light" (Isaiah 60:19). President Russell M. Nelson's teaching that the gathering is the paramount work of the present day locates the modern Church within this Isaianic trajectory, consonant with 1 Nephi 22:3-12 and D&C 14:9.

Eschatological Convergence: Winepress and New Creation

The section holds judgment and comfort in deliberate tension. Isaiah 63 draws on the viticultural realia of rock-cut winepresses, where treaders' garments were stained crimson, to render the Second Coming: the Lord comes from Edom in red apparel, "I have trodden the winepress alone" (Isaiah 63:3). Modern revelation appropriates the image with near-verbatim fidelity, the Lord's "apparel red" as sign of "the day of vengeance" (D&C 133:46-51), demonstrating the Restoration's typological continuity with Isaiah. Yet the same chapter names the Redeemer as the "Saviour" who "bare them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isaiah 63:8-9), refusing to sever judgment from mercy.

The confessional prayer of Isaiah 64, "we are the clay, and thou our potter" (Isaiah 64:8), yields to the new-creation oracle: "I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered" (Isaiah 65:17), with the millennial vision of restored longevity and predator-prey reconciliation, "the wolf and the lamb shall feed together" (Isaiah 65:25). The Tenth Article of Faith, affirming that "the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory," is a direct Restoration codification of this Isaianic hope. The book's coda universalizes the covenant, gathering "all flesh" to worship and comforting Zion "as one whom his mother comforteth" (Isaiah 66:13), so that the maternal and nuptial figures frame the whole with divine tenderness.

Further study might profitably map the section's christological titles, Intercessor, Anointed One, everlasting Light, Saviour, winepress-treader, against their New Testament and latter-day reappropriations, testing the hypothesis that Isaiah 58-66 supplies a single, internally consistent portrait of the Redeemer whose first and second comings are two acts of one covenant fidelity.