John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 58:7

"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 58:7 (ASV)

Is it not to break your bread to the hungry? He goes on to describe the duties of love for our neighbor, which he had described briefly in the preceding verse; for, having previously said that we must abstain from every act of injustice, he now shows that we ought to exercise kindness toward the wretched and those who need our assistance.

Uprightness and righteousness are divided into two parts: first, that we should injure nobody; and second, that we should bestow our wealth and abundance on the poor and needy. And these two ought to be joined together, for it is not enough to abstain from acts of injustice if you refuse your assistance to the needy; nor will it be of much avail to render your aid to the needy if at the same time you rob some of that which you bestow on others.

You must not relieve your neighbors by plunder or theft. And if you have committed any act of injustice, cruelty, or extortion, you must not, by a pretended compensation, call on God to receive a share of the plunder. These two parts, therefore, must be held together, provided only that we have our love for our neighbor approved and accepted by God.

By commanding them to “break bread to the hungry,” he intended to take away every excuse from covetous and greedy men, who allege that they have a right to keep possession of that which is their own. “This is mine, and therefore I may keep it for myself. Why should I make common property of that which God has given me?” He replies, “It is indeed yours, but on this condition, that you share it with the hungry and thirsty, not that you eat it yourself alone.” And indeed, this is the dictate of common sense, that the hungry are deprived of their just right if their hunger is not relieved. That sad spectacle extorts compassion even from the cruel and barbarous. He next enumerates various kinds, which commonly bend hearts of iron to συμπάθειαν fellow-feeling or compassion, so that the savage disposition of those who are not moved by feeling for a brother’s poverty and necessity may be the less excusable. At length, he concludes—

And that you do not hide yourself from your own flesh. Here we ought to observe the term “flesh,” by which he means all humanity universally, not one of whom we can behold without seeing, as in a mirror, “our own flesh.” It is therefore a proof of the greatest inhumanity to despise those in whom we are constrained to recognize our own likeness.