WELL, IF WE QUOTE SCRIPTURE... Yes. There is a very clear prophetic progression in the Tanakh: Yahowah rejects ritual sacrifice when the heart and conduct are corrupt → says what He actually desires is obedience, mercy, justice, and a broken/repentant heart → then Isaiah 58 does essentially the same thing to “fasting.” The key is that Yahowah did command sacrifices in Torah, so the prophets are not saying sacrifice itself was always illegitimate. They are saying: you cannot bribe Yahowah with religious ritual while continuing in violence, oppression, hypocrisy, and sin. “I don’t want your sacrifices while your hands are bloody” Isaiah 1:11–17 “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith Yahowah: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.” Then: “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me…” And Yahowah explains why: “Your hands are full of blood.” Then He tells them what He wants instead: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” That is enormous. He goes directly from: STOP BRINGING ME RELIGIOUS OFFERINGS to: STOP DOING EVIL AND START DOING JUSTICE. ----------------------------------------- Mercy over sacrifice Hosea 6:6 “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of Elohim more than burnt offerings.” Hebrew core: ChSD ChPTsTY WLA-ZBCh חסד חפצתי ולא זבח Essentially: “ChSD I desire, and not sacrifice.” ChSD — חסד carries loyal mercy, covenant kindness, loving faithfulness. And YSHWAAH himself quotes this verse. Matthew 9:13 “Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice…” Again in Matthew 12:7: “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” So YSHWAAH explicitly confirms the prophetic principle. ----------------------------------------- Obedience is better than sacrifice 1 Samuel 15:22 ShMWAL says to Shaul: “Hath Yahowah as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Yahowah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” That is almost the whole theology in one sentence: OBEYING YAHOWAH > PERFORMING RELIGIOUS RITUAL ----------------------------------------- Yahowah wants the broken heart Psalm 51:16–17 “For Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering.” Then: **“The sacrifices of Elohim are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O Elohim, Thou wilt not despise.”** So DWD says the sacrifice Yah actually wants is: the human heart broken open before Him. ----------------------------------------- “I hate your religious festivals” This one is brutal. Amos 5:21–24 “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.” Then: “Though ye offer Me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them…” Then He says what He wants: “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” ======================= Again: ritual rejected → justice demanded. ----------------------------------------- Micah asks the obvious question Micah 6:6–8 The prophet asks: “Wherewith shall I come before Yahowah…? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings…?” Then escalates ridiculously: thousands of rams? ten thousands of rivers of oil? my firstborn? Answer: “He hath shewed thee, O Adam, what is good; and what doth Yahowah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy Elohim?” There it is again: JUSTICE MERCY HUMILITY WALKING WITH ELOHIM —not buying Yahowah off with ritual. ----------------------------------------- THEN YAHOWAH DOES THE SAME THING WITH FASTING This is Isaiah 58, and you're right to call it almost a redefinition of fasting. The people complain: Isaiah 58:3 “Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and Thou seest not?” Basically: “Yahowah, we're fasting! Why aren't You impressed?” Yahowah answers: because on your fasting day you're still pursuing your own interests and oppressing others. Verse 4: “Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness…” Then Yahowah asks: Isaiah 58:5 “Is it such a fast that I have chosen?” Meaning: Is fasting merely bending your head down, putting on sackcloth, looking miserable, and skipping food? Then comes the answer. Isaiah 58:6–7 “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?” Then: “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…”** That is extraordinary. Yahowah takes: FASTING = “I didn't eat today.” and says: No. The fast I choose looks like: freeing people, breaking oppression, feeding people, housing people, clothing people. And THEN He says: Isaiah 58:8 “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning…” Isaiah 58:9 “Then shalt thou call, and Yahowah shall answer…” Isaiah 58:10 “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity…” So there is a massive pattern: SACRIFICE “I gave Yahowah an animal.” Yahowah: I WANT OBEDIENCE, ChSD, JUSTICE, AND YOUR HEART. FASTING “I deprived myself of food.” Yahowah: I WANT YOU TO REMOVE SOMEONE ELSE'S SUFFERING. That is the reversal. Ordinary religious fasting says: I suffer something for Yahowah. Isaiah 58 says the fast Yah chooses manifests as: YOU BREAK SOMEONE ELSE'S YOKE. And that ties directly into YSHWAAH's teaching: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” And: hungry → feed them thirsty → give drink stranger → receive them naked → clothe them sick/imprisoned → visit them — Matthew 25:35–40. So the prophetic thread is extremely consistent: Yahowah does not want religious theater replacing righteousness. He wants the person doing His Word. Mercy over sacrifice. Obedience over offerings. Justice over ceremony. Breaking yokes over looking holy while fasting. DOERS — not hearers only.