What does the Bible say about fasting? Fasting is mentioned in the Bible more than seventy different times. Moses was the first person mentioned in the Bible to fast. Jesus, Elijah, and Moses all conducted forty-day fasts. The city of Ninevah held a three-day community-wide fast. Paul indicates that he fasted often. Daniel fasted once for ten days and another time for twenty-one days.
Fasting is the discipline of voluntarily abstaining from food for a set period of time. It’s an act of personal devotion between the believer and God. Fasting is closely related to prayer, mourning, and penitence. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, indicated that God rewards fasting.
There are well over seventy Bible verses related to the discipline of fasting. I am sharing 31 of them in this quick article.
Forty-Day Fasts In The Bible
Exodus 34:28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
I Kings 19:7-8 And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
Matthew 4:1-2 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
Forty-day fasts are serious business. A forty-day fast should not be taken lightly.
The Ezra Fast
Ezra 8:21 There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.
Ezra 8:23 So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.
Fasting In Short Durations
Fasts can be for a day or less. Here are a few examples of short fasts.
Judges 20:26 Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord.
I Samuel 7:6 When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.
II Samuel 1:12 They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
What Does The Bible Say About Fasting And Prayer
Fasting and prayer are mentioned together often.
Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
Psalm35:13-14 Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered, I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother.
Acts 14:23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
Daniel 9:3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
Luke 2:36-37 Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow [a]of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
Mark 9:29 So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”
What Did Jesus Say About Fasting
Fasting doesn’t appear to be one of our Master’s favorite subjects.
Matthew 6:17-18 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
Luke 5:33-35 Then they said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?” And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”
What Does The Bible Say About Hypocritical Fasting
Yes, our motives are important.
Matthew 6:16 Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
Luke 18:11-13 (NASB) The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
What Did The Prophets Say About Fasting
Fasting appears to be a way in which judgment was averted (article I wrote on judging others).
Joel 1:14 Consecrate a fast, Proclaim a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of the Lord your God, And cry out to the Lord.
Joel 2:12-13 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
Jonah 3:4-6 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, removed his robe from himself, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the dust.
Zechariah 8:19 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.”
What Does The Bible Say About Fasting In The Psalms
The Psalms are fairly silent when it comes to fasting.
Psalm 69:10 When I wept in my soul with fasting, It became my disgrace.
Psalm 109:24 My knees are weak from fasting, And my flesh has grown lean, without fatness.
Bible Verses About The Daniel Fast
The Daniel Fast is the most popular fast of all.
Daniel 1:12-16 “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.
Daniel 10:2-3 In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.
What Does The Bible Say About Fasting In The New Testament
Fasting is mentioned far less in the New Testament than in the Old Testament.
I Corinthians 7:5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
II Corinthians 6:4-6 But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much [a]patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love,
II Corinthians 11:27-28 …in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
Acts 10:30-31 So 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, and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God.
Fasting Is More Than A Hunger Strike
Fasting is important and we as Christians should practice it regularly. It’s more than a hunger strike, however. There is some hokey information being passed around at many churches. Some of which is being passed off as Biblical is simply ecclesiastical folklore.
I encourage you to search the scriptures when it comes to fasting. A hefty dose of skepticism is highly encouraged in most situations when fasting is taught.
Dig into the Bible when it comes to fasting and then test any sermon against what the Word says.
Isaiah 58 might be the most important fasting chapter in the Bible. I didn’t include it in this post because it needs to be read in context. Please take some time on your own and read that brilliant chapter over and over again.
Doxology
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.