Feasts and Fasting in Biblical Perspective:
Food Is God’s Gift

by Irene Nowell, OSB
(from Liturgy: Journal of the Liturgical Conference 2.1 [1981] pp. 9-13)
The Liturgical Conference, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

“All look to you to give them food in due time. When you give it to them, they gather it, when you open your hand, they are filled with good things,” so the poets of Israel sang on their feast days (Ps 104:27-28), thereby expressing Israel’s primary attitude toward food. Food is God’s gift. The psalmists never ceased to marvel at God’s power to supply nourishment to all living creatures. Psalm 136, the litany that tells of Yahweh’s mighty works of love in creation and in history, ends with this most amazing work: “Give thanks to the Lord . . . who gives food to all flesh; his love endures forever” (Ps 136:25). Israel had no doubt that it was Yahweh who produced “bread from the earth, and wine to gladden human hearts, so that their faces gleam with oil, and bread fortifies their hearts” (Ps 104:14-15).

Acknowledging the Giver
There are two basic responses to this knowledge that food is a gift of God, and both are illustrated in the Old Testament. On the one hand, the people of God ate and drank in joy, giving thanks to God and celebrating Yahweh’s goodness. At the feast of Booths Israel is commanded: “Since the Lord your God has blessed you in all your crops and all your undertakings, you shall do naught but make merry” (Deut 16:15). On the other hand, in acknowledgement of trust in God and in petition for continued sustenance, Israel fasted. God’s people knew from the beginning that life is more than food, and that the one who has power to give life also has power to sustain it (cf. matt 6:25-34). In the journey through the wilderness God “let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, in order to show you that not by bread alone do human beings live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut 8:3).

Both responses, feasting and fasting, are based on the knowledge that food is gift. Both portray a relationship to God. The one who feasts does so in wonder and thanksgiving, praising God not only for life and sustenance but also for giving delight in the process. The one who fasts does so knowing that life is ultimately sustained not by human effort but by God’s care. Hoarding or consuming quantities of food at every opportunity is unnecessary (cf. Luke 12:16-21). God will not forget or abandon the one who trusts in God. Both feasting and fasting signify dependence on God and openness to the divine will; both express gratitude for past gifts and hope for God’s care in the future.

The abuses of feasting or fating all stem from a single fact: the failure to remember that food is God’s gift. Those who eat to excess suffer from the delusion that they sustain their own lives, and that the lives of all other creatures are insignificant. Those who fast only to win the acclaim of others or to force God’s hand also presume that they sustain their own lives. They flaunt their strength. By their actions they presume to control God.

Fasting: humility before God
The two basic biblical reasons for fasting are petition and penitence. The petition is always an acknowledgement of dependence on God. David fasted when the child born to him and Bathsheba became mortally ill, thinking, “Perhaps the Lord will grant me the child’s life” (2 Sam 12:22). The small band of people returning with Ezra from exile humbled themselves, i.e., fasted, to petition from God a safe journey. “For I would have been ashamed,” Ezra said, “for troops and horsemen to protect us against enemies along the way, since we had said to the king, ‘the favoring hand of our God is upon all who seek him’” (Ezra 8:21-22). Daniel fasts in order to gain understanding, and God sends Michael to tell him all that “shall happen to your people in the days to come” (Dan 10:14).

Penitence is an even more frequent reason for fasting. The phrase, “to humble oneself” (‘anah nephesh), which signifies fasting, conveys the attitude in which the fast is undertaken. The great day of atonement, Yom Kippur, is the only regular fast day prescribed in mosaic law. The people are “to humble themselves and do no work. Since on this day atonement is made for you to make you clean, so that you may be cleansed of all your sins before the Lord” (Lev 16:29-30). It is noteworthy that this solemn day of fast is accompanied by Israel’s other expression of trust in God’s ability and willingness to sustain them: a Sabbath rest. It is vain to rise early and work late. Life and its sustenance are gift from the Lord (cf. Psalm 127).

The fast at time of mourning seems to spring from the same thought. The mourner fasts in acknowledgement that lie is frail and not under human control. David and his court fast in mourning for Saul (2 Sam 1:12). Judith fasts in mourning for her husband (Jdt 8:4-6). After the fall of Jerusalem, the faithful mourn over the temple and the city that symbolized their life with God (Neh 1:4). The disastrous events of that fall are commemorated, according to Zechariah 8:19, by fast days in the fourth (cf. 2 Kgs 25:3-4), fifth (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8-9), seventh (cf. Jer 41:1-2), and tenth months (cf. 2 Kgs 25:1).

Frequently the motives of penitence and petition are combined in a day of fast. The people of Nineveh fast, even the animals fast, in order to win a reprieve from God. “Perhaps he will relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish” (Jonah 3:9). The Israelites in the time of Samuel return to the Lord, “fasting and confessing ‘We have sinned against the Lord’” (1 Sam 7:6), and the Lord grants them a major victory over the Philistines (1 Sam 7:7-14). The prophet Joel, after a great calamity of locusts and drought, calls for a return to the Lord with fasting. “Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing” (Joel 2:14).

Both penitence and petition, however, must be from the heart. “Rend your hearts, not your garments” (Joel 2:13). If the return to the Lord is mere lip service, and fasting mere formalism (cf. Isa 29:13-14), no amount of supplication will be successful. Jeremiah is told: “Do not intercede for this people. If they fast I will not listen to their supplication” (Jer 14:11). This indeed is the complaint of the people in Isaiah 58: “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Humble ourselves and you take no note of it?” (Isa 58:3).

The answer to that complaint forms the best description in the Old Testament of both the abuse of fasting and the ideal fast. The abuse is life-destroying. Those whose fast the Lord does not see fast for their own purposes and thereby diminish their own lives. They “bow their heads like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes” (Isa 58:5), but in their self-centeredness, they strike out at the lives of others. They drive their laborers, quarrel and fight, strike with wicked claw (Isa 58:3-4). Indeed, in place of food they devour each other.

The ideal fast, on the other hand, is selfless and thereby life-giving. Those who recognize that their own lives are gift from the Lord, have that trust in God that allows them to share their sustenance with others. Their fast consists in caring for the needy and freeing those oppressed by need and violence (Isa 58:6-7; cf. Tob 12:8). The result is beyond their hopes.

Those who fast, recognizing food as the gift of God, share in the power of its blessing. Their penitence is not in vain: “Your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you” (Isa 58:8). Their petition is answered: “You shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: ‘Here I am1” (Isa 58:9). Yet, the most paradoxical result of their fast, of relinquishing control of their own lives, is an increase of new life not only for others but also for themselves. “Your light shall break forth like the dawn . . . . The Lord will renew your strength, you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails” (Isa 58:8-14).

Feasting: a celebration of life
Feasting is also a celebration of food as gift, of life as gift. Banquets are held to mark the major stages in life. The wedding banquet is a prime example. Laban holds a great feast for the wedding of Jacob and Leah (Gen 29:22). Raguel celebrates the wedding of Tobiah and Sarah with a fourteen-day feast (Tob 8:19-20). In celebration of his choice of Esther as queen, King Ahasuerus gives a great feast for all his officials and ministers (Esth 2:18). Birth and birthdays are another reminder to celebrate life, another cause for banquets. Both Pharaoh and Herod give banquets for their birthdays (Gen 40:20; Mark 6:21). Abraham holds a feast on the day of Isaac’s weaning (Gen 21:8).

Other occasions also became celebrations of God’s gift of food and life. The harvest was a time of special thanksgiving. The people brought their gifts, saying, “I have now brought you the first fruits of the products of the soil, which you, O Lord, have given me.” Then, together with the aliens who lived in the land, they obeyed the command to make merry over all the good things the Lord had given them (Deut 26:10-11; cf. Deut 16:9-15). When life was threatened, its restoration was also celebrating with feasting. After the vindication of the Jews in Esther’s time “there was merriment and exultation, banqueting and feasting for the Jews” (Esth 8:17). Tobit held a feast to celebrate Tobiah’s wedding and also to rejoice over his son’s return and the restoration of his own sight (Tob 11:17-18; cf. Luke 15:22-24, 32).

Finally, people feasted simply because life was good. Job’s sons, for example, “used to take turns giving feasts, sending invitations to their three sisters to eat and drink with them” (Job 1:4). Life itself is a feast according to Proverbs: “Every day is miserable for the depressed, but a lighthearted person has a continual feast” (Prov 15:15).

All sharing of the gift of food implied a sharing of the life that it nourished. The evidence for this is the ritual of the covenant meal. Isaac and Abimelech feasted before swearing peace (Gen 26:30). A shared meal marked the peace sworn between Laban and Jacob (Gen 31:54). Moses and the seventy elders ate and drank to seal the covenant with God (Exod 24:11).

In less formal but no less significant situations hospitality was a sign of shared life. Abraham and Sarah made a feast for their three visitors at Mamre, a visit that resulted in a life-giving promise (Gen 18:1-15). Lot shared food also with two guests, and recognized his obligation to protect their lives (Gen 19:1-11). Ironically, it was they who protected his!

In contrast, food must be refused if the sharing of life is impossible. Tobit alone of all his kindred refused to eat the food of heathens (Tob 1:10). The young men with Daniel will not defile themselves with food from the royal table (Dan 1:8-16). Paul reasserts this truth for the early Christians: “Do not those who eat the sacrifices share in the altar? . . . I do not want you to become sharers with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and likewise the table of demons” (1 Cor 10:18, 20-21). The table at which Christians do eat, however, is a sharing of life. “Is not the cup of blessing we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, many though we are, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor 11:16-17).

In all these feasts that celebrate and share life, food is seen as the gift of God that nourishes the life God gives. The recognition of God’s gift of food begins with creation (Gen 1:29-30; 2:8-9, 16). The abuse of that gift, the theft of what had not yet been given, is a fitting symbol in the creation story for the sin that brings death (Gen 3:1-19). Throughout biblical history the sinful abuse of food continues. Solomon’s extravagant daily provisions (1 Kgs 5:2-3) were bought at the price of forced labor (1 Kgs 4:7-19; cf. 1 Kgs 12:4). Amos castigates the rich for living in luxury while the poor starve (Amos 4:1; 5:11; 6:4-6). Isaiah calls woe upon those who demand strong drink and yet do not regard the work of the Lord 9Isa 5:11-12). Food that becomes an end in itself, which is not seen as a gift, is like fasting that becomes an end in itself: it destroys life. “They had not given over their craving, and their food was still in their mouths, when the anger of God rose against them and slew their best people, and laid low the young of Israel” (Ps 78:30-31).

But God is not to be defeated by human weakness. The giver of life promises a new creation; the Lord will continue to sustain the life of God’s people. “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines” (Isa 25:6). Abundance of food and drink becomes a symbol for the messianic age. “Days are coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the reaper, and the vintager, the one who sows the seed; the juice of grapes shall drip down the mountains, and all the hills shall run with it” (Amos 9:13). “On that day, the mountains shall drip new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk. Then shall you know that I, the Lord, am your God” (Joel 4:18, 17). There is hope for a great feast in the future to mark the beginning of new life.

Feasting and fasting with the poor
The Old Testament situated both fasting and feasting in the context of one basic trust: It is God who gives life; it is God who gives food. Belief in that fact preserved a balance of fasting and feasting in the people’s life. Failure to remember that fact led to legalism in fasting and to excess in feasting.

This primary assertion concerning food as gift and God as giver continues to appear in the New Testament. The teachings of Jesus, however, lead to the paradoxical situation in which fasting and feasting flow together. In the Jewish tradition disheveled hair, sackcloth and ashes were a sign of fasting. Jesus calls for the outward signs of feasting to continue during a fast, for groomed hair and clean face to conceal the fast that goes on within. Thus he strikes a mortal blow at legalism and ostentation (Matt 6:16-18).

In answer to an objection from the disciples of John, Jesus excuses his disciples from fasting as long as he is with them. When he is taken away, they will fast (Mark 2:18-20 par.). This too is a paradoxical situation. When he is taken away he leaves a feast behind him, a covenant meal—a pledge of the future banquet. His followers fast because he is gone, yet feast because he is present. They find him in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:30-31).

Caught in this moment of waiting, however, his disciples may not forget the lessons of the Old Testament. Fasting is a sign of trust in God (cf. Luke 12:16-31) and must result in the sharing of life with others (cf. Matt 6:1-4; Luke 12:32-34). So to the feasts that celebrate life, the poor and the needy must be invited (Luke 14:12-14). They who cannot repay remind us of our dependence. The sharing of life is again extended. The food that is the gift of God nourishes the life that is the gift of God. Caught in this moment of waiting, the disciples of Jesus fast and feast with the poor.

Yet there is a surprise hidden in the plan of God. “This is the fasting that I wish, says the Lord: Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked” (Isa 58:6-7). “Invite those who cannot repay,” says Jesus (Luke 14:13). Yet when the Son of Man comes in his glory he will say, “It was I who was hungry and you gave me food, I who was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me” (Matt 25:35-36). Although fasting and feasting seemed to be shared with those who could not repay, the master claims, “As long as you did it for one of my least ones, you did it for me” (Matt 25:40). “It will go well with those servants whom the master finds faithful on his return. I tell you, he will put on an apron, seat them at table and proceed to wait on them” (Luke 12:37).

The challenge in this vision is clear. The giver of life promises a banquet as life’s fulfillment. The banquet is gift, but it is given only to those who understand its meaning, to those who recognize already that their lives and their sustenance depend solely on God’s love and care. They have the courage to fast who know that tomorrow God will again provide. They have the courage to feast, to celebrate life, and to share their feasting with the poor who know the biblical truth that God provides food for all creatures (Pss 104:27; 136:25; 145:15-16). Why, then, are so many people hungry?