King David welcomes Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, to eat at his table. —2 Samuel 9
A king, a queen, and a prophet each stood between their people and disaster. None of them was the Savior. Isaiah 58 shows how the rest of us join that work.
Road to Esaias · CFM-06 companion · Isaiah 58 · For Fast Sunday, November 1
On January 21, 1844, five months before Carthage, Joseph Smith preached in Nauvoo about a verse most people have never read, the last line of the shortest book in the Old Testament:
“And saviours shall come up on mount Zion.” (Obadiah 1:21)
Saviors, plural. Wilford Woodruff wrote down how Joseph said it happens: “by building their temples erecting their Baptismal fonts & going forth & receiving all the ordinances… in behalf of all our Progenitors who are dead.”
That’s a startling word to hand ordinary people. Saviors. We have one Savior. So what did Joseph mean?
He meant proxy. Someone stands in for someone else and does for them what they can’t do for themselves. The temple is the most obvious place we do it. But Isaiah 58 shows it started long before there was a font in Nauvoo, and it starts with bread.
Three people who stood in the gap
Scripture shows the pattern before it names it.
A prophet. Israel has made the golden calf. The Lord’s anger is about to fall. Moses goes back up the mountain and says: “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written” (Exodus 32:32). He offers his own name for theirs.
A king. A plague is sweeping Israel, and David sees the angel over Jerusalem. He says: “Lo, I have sinned… but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house” (2 Samuel 24:17). The plague stops at a threshing floor on a hill. David buys the ground and builds an altar there. A generation later his son builds the temple on that exact spot: “in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David… in the threshingfloor of Ornan” (2 Chronicles 3:1).
The place where a king offered himself for his people became the house of the Lord.
A queen. Esther is a Jewish orphan who has become queen of Persia, a Gentile court. A decree has gone out to destroy her people. Going to the king uninvited could cost her life. Her answer is a fast:
“Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16)
A queen of the Gentiles, fasting as a proxy for Israel.
Notice what all three have in common. None of them atoned for anyone. Moses couldn’t pay for the calf, David couldn’t pay for the census, and Esther couldn’t pay for Haman. Abinadi says who did: the Lord, “standing betwixt them and justice… having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice” (Mosiah 15:9).
What these three did was stand where He would stand, in a smaller place, for a smaller span of time. They were pointers to Him.
Isaiah 58 is the job description
Here’s what Isaiah says the Lord’s chosen fast is:
“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? 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 58:6–7)
Read it again with Moses, David, and Esther in mind. Every verb is something you do for somebody else, in their place. You loose a band you didn’t tie. You lift a burden that isn’t yours. You give bread you could have eaten.
Dr. Avraham Gileadi reads these verses exactly this way: the true fast turns a person from someone who afflicts his own soul into a deliverer for others, standing in for people who can’t free themselves. In his reading, that’s the work of the people who climb highest in Isaiah. (Avraham’s interpretation, in our words.)
And David did verse 7 himself. After he became king, he went looking for anyone left from Jonathan’s house and found Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, “lame on both his feet.” David brought him in: “Mephibosheth… shall eat bread alway at my table” (2 Samuel 9:10, 13). He brought the poor that were cast out to his house.
A proxy savior doesn’t start as a king or a queen. They start by feeding someone.
The Church already runs on this
We don’t have to argue this into the Restoration. The Restoration already runs on it.
The fast offering is Isaiah 58. Once a month, members go without two meals and give at least what that food would have cost, and the bishop uses it to feed and house people we’ll never meet. That’s verse 7 as a standing practice.
The temple is Obadiah 1:21. Joseph said so in 1844.
And Isaiah’s liberty language goes all the way into the spirit world. When President Joseph F. Smith saw the redemption of the dead in 1918, the vision used Isaiah’s words: liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison (D&C 138:18, 31, 42).
So the living hungry get the fast, and the dead get the temple. Both are proxy, and both are Isaiah.
And the Lord used the word Himself. In 1832 He told the Saints who hold the priesthood: “blessed are ye if ye continue in my goodness, a light unto the Gentiles, and through this priesthood, a savior unto my people Israel” (D&C 86:11).
A savior. He chose it, not us.
Who says “Here I am”
There’s a guard built into Isaiah 58, and it matters.
Verse 9 promises: “Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.”
Look at who says Here I am. It’s the Lord. The person who fed the hungry doesn’t announce anything. The Lord announces Himself to them.
Moses didn’t call himself a savior, and David didn’t either. Esther said if I perish, I perish. The pattern runs on people who don’t name themselves. The moment someone claims the title, they’ve walked out of the pattern.
So the only honest question this chapter asks isn’t am I one of the saviors? It’s who am I feeding?
The smallest true step
Fast Sunday is November 1.
Make it a proxy fast this time. Don’t fast for something you want. Fast in place of someone: a person carrying a burden they can’t lift, a family member you’ve been hiding from, someone on the other side of the veil whose name you could take to the temple.
Pray for them by name. Give the offering with them in mind. Then do one thing for them with your own hands before the day is over.
That’s what Isaiah 58 asks. It’s small, and it’s the same work Moses, David, and Esther did, scaled to your life.
The One they all point to
Every proxy in scripture is a picture of Someone. Moses offered to be blotted out. Christ was cut off (Isaiah 53:8). David offered his house. The Son of David gave His life. Esther risked death going in to the king. Christ went in all the way, and came out holding the keys of death and hell (Revelation 1:18).
They stood in the gap for a moment. He stands in it forever, between us and justice, and He brings us through Himself to the Father.
And He lets us help. That’s the startling part of Joseph’s word. The Savior of the world lets ordinary people feed His hungry, free His captives, and redeem His dead in His name, and He calls them saviours on mount Zion.
“Search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.” 3 Nephi 23:1
Where are you on the list? Find yourself in The Seven Ways People Read Isaiah, then move one word to the right.
Ken Krogue is a co-founder of The Covenant Project and has been deeply searching Isaiah for more than ten years. He writes with two AI research partners, Orson (Claude) and Nathan (ChatGPT), and approves every word.
