BibleInTonguesFasting in the Bible
Fasting in the Bible is going without food to turn toward God with urgency. From Esther's three-day fast to Jesus in the wilderness, it pairs hunger with prayer and humility rather than performance.
What fasting means across Scripture
Fasting almost never appears alone in the Bible. It travels with prayer, mourning, and a decision. In Joel 2:12 the LORD calls Israel to return "with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning" — the empty stomach is a sign of an emptied, attentive heart, not a magic technique.
Notice who fasts and why. Esther fasts before risking her life with the king (Esther 4:16). Ezra proclaims a fast at the river Ahava to humble the travelers before God and ask for a safe road (Ezra 8:21). In every case the food set aside makes room for something the person wants from God more than the next meal.
Scripture also warns against the opposite. In Isaiah 58 people fast yet keep oppressing workers, and God refuses that fast. The hunger is real; the heart is not engaged. That tension runs through the whole topic.
How the cited passages develop it
Isaiah 58:6 redefines the fast God chooses: not bowing the head like a reed, but to "release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free." Fasting that ignores the hungry neighbor in the next verse is hollow. God ties the practice to justice and mercy.
Jesus assumes his followers will fast — "when you fast," not if — but in Matthew 6:17 he tells them to anoint their head and wash their face so no one notices. The reward is from the Father who sees in secret, the exact opposite of the Pharisee in Luke 18:12 who announces, "I fast twice a week."
In Acts 13:2 the leaders at Antioch fast while serving the Lord, and it is during that fast that the Holy Spirit says, "Separate Barnabas and Saul for me." Here fasting clears space to hear God and confirm a costly decision before sending the two off.
Why Jesus' disciples were a special case
When John's disciples ask why Jesus' followers do not fast (Matthew 9:14), Jesus answers with a wedding: the friends of the bridegroom cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them. Fasting is fitting in certain seasons, not as a permanent badge.
He adds that "the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fail" — pointing past the cross. Fasting becomes the language of longing for someone absent, of waiting for what is promised but not yet held.
How to read and pray it this week
Read Isaiah 58 and Matthew 6:16-18 side by side. Ask what each is guarding against: Isaiah against fasting that ignores justice, Jesus against fasting that performs for an audience. Let those two warnings shape any fast you consider, before you decide on hours or meals.
If you fast, pair it with one concrete thing from Isaiah 58:7 — bread shared, a need met, a person no longer ignored. Keep it quiet, as Matthew 6:18 urges, and bring the hunger into prayer as Esther and the church at Antioch did, turning appetite into attention.
Verses
- 6Isaiah 58:6Read in context
“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?
- 12Joel 2:12Read in context
“Yet even now,” says the LORD, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”
- 16Esther 4:16Read in context
“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
- 17Matthew 6:17Read in context
But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
- 2Acts 13:2Read in context
As they served the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Separate Barnabas and Saul for me, for the work to which I have called them.”
- 3Esther 4:3Read in context
In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
- 13Psalms 35:13Read in context
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom.
- 3Daniel 9:3Read in context
I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
- 21Matthew 17:21Read in context
But this kind doesn’t go out except by prayer and fasting.”
- 29Mark 9:29Read in context
He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but by prayer and fasting.”
- 30Acts 10:30Read in context
Cornelius said, “Four days ago, I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing
- 23Acts 14:23Read in context
When they had appointed elders for them in every assembly, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they had believed.
- 51 Corinthians 7:5Read in context
Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
- 272 Corinthians 11:27Read in context
in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.
- 3Deuteronomy 8:3Read in context
He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the LORD’s mouth.
- 101 Samuel 1:10Read in context
She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.
- 1Ezra 10:1Read in context
Now while Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before God’s house, there was gathered together to him out of Israel a very great assembly of men and women and children; for the people wept very bitterly.
- 1Nehemiah 9:1Read in context
Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them.
- 31Esther 9:31Read in context
to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had decreed, and as they had imposed upon themselves and their descendants in the matter of the fastings and their mourning.
- 24Psalms 109:24Read in context
My knees are weak through fasting. My body is thin and lacks fat.
- 18Daniel 6:18Read in context
Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.
- 2Matthew 4:2Read in context
When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
- 16Matthew 6:16Read in context
“Moreover when you fast, don’t be like the hypocrites, with sad faces. For they disfigure their faces that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
- 18Matthew 6:18Read in context
so that you are not seen by men to be fasting, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
- 32Matthew 15:32Read in context
Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have continued with me now three days and have nothing to eat. I don’t want to send them away fasting, or they might faint on the way.”
- 18Mark 2:18Read in context
John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”
- 3Mark 8:3Read in context
If I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint on the way, for some of them have come a long way.”
- 37Luke 2:37Read in context
and she had been a widow for about eighty-four years), who didn’t depart from the temple, worshiping with fastings and petitions night and day.
- 25Luke 6:25Read in context
Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
- 33Acts 27:33Read in context
While the day was coming on, Paul begged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you wait and continue fasting, having taken nothing.
- 52 Corinthians 6:5Read in context
in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings,
- 12Philippians 4:12Read in context
I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
- 27Genesis 25:27Read in context
The boys grew. Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field. Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.
- 4Genesis 50:4Read in context
When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s staff, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
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