text:
1775: Not Richard Carpenter, strong swimmer
Add comment July 21st, 2019 Headsman
20th [July 1775]. Mr. Carpenter was taken by the night Patrole — upon examination he had swum over to Dorchester and back again, was tried here that day and sentence passed on him to be executed the next day, — his coffin bro't into the Goal-yard, his halter [noose] brought and he dressed as criminals are before execution. Sentence was respited and a few days after was pardoned.
-from the diary of Boston selectman Timothy Newell
On or around this date in 1775, an immigrant wig-maker was faux-executed by the British garrisoned in a besieged Boston.
Richard Carpenter was not a figure of decisive importance to the onrushing American Revolution but the excellent and venerable blog Boston 1775 by J.L. Bell has made a wonderful little microhistory of the man by cobbling together his appearances across different sources from his first 1769 business advert until his 1781 death in a British prison hulk.
Carpenter swam across Boston harbor to escape to patriot lines, then swam back into Boston; the Brits who captured him naturally took him for an enemy agent who could have been hanged … but from multiple reports (sometimes with muddled dates) this fate was "merely" visibly prepared for him only to be abated shortly before execution. In Bell's speculation, hostilities were still not yet fully matured and "neither side had the stomach for such fatal measures. The executions of Thomas Hickey and Nathan Hale were still several months away."
For an extraordinary snapshot of this revolutionary everyman, click through the full series:
Richard Carpenter: barber and swimmer
"Carpenter was sentenced to be hanged this day"
Richard Carpenter "apprehended and confined in irons"
Richard Carpenter "Returned from his Captivity"
"Do something for one of my old Jail Mates"
"Onboard the prison ship at New York"
1721: Walter Kennedy - 2020
1661: Antonius Hambroek, defying Koxinga - 2018
1972: Misao Katagiri - 2017
1834: Catherine Snow, the last hanged in Newfoundland - 2016
1797: David McLane, an American traitor in Quebec - 2015
1683: Lord Russell, Whig martyr - 2014
356 BCE: Herostratus burns the Temple of Artemis - 2013
1798: Anthony Perry and Mogue Kearns, Protestant and Catholic - 2012
1915: Private Herbert Burden, memorial model - 2011
1986: Vice-President Paulo Correia and five others - 2010
1976: Lt. Col. Abu Taher - 2009
1944: Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, for the plot to kill Hitler - 2008
1776: Nathan Hale, with regrets
1780: Major John Andre, Benedict Arnold's handler
1777: A British spy, by Israel Putnam
1782: Captain Joshua Huddy
1781: Isaac Hayne, paroled prisoner of war
1780: Colonel Hamilton Ballendine, if that was his real name
1777: James Molesworth, in the words of the Founding Fathers
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,England,Espionage,Hanged,History,Massachusetts,Mock Executions,Not Executed,Occupation and Colonialism,Revolutionaries,Separatists,Spies,USA,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1770s, 1775, american revolution, boston, july 21, richard carpenter
1775: A robber under the apartments of Joseph Jekyll
Add comment April 11th, 2018 Headsman
We owe this date's entry to Joseph Jekyll, a young gentleman (kin to the late judge of the same name whom Alexander Pope had once teased as an "odd old Whig/Who never changed his principle or wig") who had just taken up residence in Paris in his 22nd year. Just a year later, he would be back in Albion's soul, bound for his life's calling as barrister, M.P., and celebrated wit.
Jekyll's correspondence with his father shows him consumed with a worldly young man's affairs, alternately French society (in whose salons he left a happy impression) and Europe's churn of news and rumors. But we catch a glimpse in one of his first letters of a scene to which, perhaps, young Jekyll soon became as inured as most Frenchmen: an exceptionally brutal execution right outside the window of his quarters.
What follows is from Jekyll's letter dated Ash Wednesday, April 12, 1775.
The police of this country is much commended, and deservedly; yet in Paris I was assured murders were so frequent that it is customary to see five or six bodies to be owned in the morning at a place called the Morgue, and there are nets on the Pont-neuf let down every night to receive persons thrown over by banditti. The morning we saw the Greve there was a gibbet erected. We inquired if there would be much crowd, and were told "No," for there was generally an execution every day.
The road from Paris hither is full of crosses, with inscriptions to perpetuate the infamy of some robber or murderer. We lodge in a beautiful place or square, and saw from our balcony yesterday evening a criminal broke on the wheel. He arrived at five o'clock in the evening, in a cart guarded by the marechaussee (who constantly patrol the roads). He was attended by a cordelier, and held in his hands two laths nailed together in the form of a cross. He had received the tonsure and unction, and, while he was undressing, the crowd around the scaffold (which was far from being great) sang a voluntary requiem. The executioner, a very spruce fellow in a bag and a bien poudre, extended the criminal's bare arms and legs on a St. Andrew's cross, which had two deep notches under the long bones of each limb; then with an iron crow, bent like the blade of a scythe, struck him nine violent blows, the last across the reins. [kidneys] Thus with two fractures in every limb, at each of which he cried out Mon Dieu! the agonising wretch was untied and thrown on the forewheel of a waggon elevated about four feet above the scaffold. The holy father drew a chair near him, and muttered something during his last gasps. At night the body was exposed in the neighbouring forest. Horrible and frequent as these executions are (for there are twelve more now in the chatelet here under the like condemnation), their effects are as insufficient as ours in England. The crime of the unfortunate creature we saw yesterday was burglary, as we learnt from his sentence, which is posted up at every corner in the streets.
2015: Mohammad Qamaruzzaman, militia commander - 2020
1827: Sarah Jones, firm infanticide - 2019
1730: A Natchez woman tortured to death at New Orleans - 2017
1947: Louise Peete, Tiger Woman - 2016
1945: Pvt. Benjamin Hopper - 2015
1859: The martyrs of Tacubaya - 2014
1944: Joseph Epstein, Polish Communist French Resistance hero - 2013
1612: Refried Edward Wightman - 2012
1705: Captain Thomas Green and two of his crew on the Worcester - 2011
1554: Thomas Wyatt the Younger, with the Queen's life in his hands - 2010
2003: Three ferry hijackers - 2009
1670: Major Thomas Weir, a Puritan with a double life - 2008
1721: Cartouche, French bandit
1721: Jean-Pierre Balagny, Cartouche lieutenant
1673: The effigy of Charles Alexis dit Dessessards
1781: Gaspard de Besse, social bandit
1755: Louis Mandrin
1768: Francesco Arcangeli, Winckelmann-Mörder
1783: Jacques Francois Paschal, rapist monk
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Broken on the Wheel,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,France,Gibbeted,Gruesome Methods,History,Known But To God,Public Executions,Theft
Tags: 1770s, 1775, april 11, joseph jekyll, paris
1775: William Pitman, for murdering his slave
Add comment May 12th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
On this date in 1775,* plantation owner William Pitman was hanged for murder in King George County, Virginia.
Pitman had a reputation as a brutal man and was no stranger to the Virginia courts; he had been making appearances since the 1750s. So perhaps it was not surprising that he got strung up eventually.
Virginia Gazette, Apr. 21, 1775
What is surprising, indeed perhaps unprecedented, is that the murder victim was one of his own slaves.
The Virginia Gazette, which published the sole surviving account of the incident, says that Pitman, "in liquor" and "in the heat of passion" lost his temper, "tied his poor negro boy by his neck and heels," and beat him with a large grapevine before stomping him to death.
Pitman can hardly have been the first, or the last, slaveowner to slaughter his own "property" but it was usually impossible to get a conviction because blacks were not allowed to testify against whites in court. In this case, however, two white people — Pitman's own son and daughter — sealed the case by giving evidence against their father.
The Gazette, writing on April 21, said Pitman had "justly incurred the penalties of the law" and said hopefully that the story might be "a warning to others to treat their slaves with moderation, and not give way to unruly passions, that my bring them to an ignominious death, and involve their families in their unhappy fate."
* Pitman's hanging "yesterday" is reported in the Saturday, May 13 issue of the Virginia Gazette — a different Virginia Gazette from the one quoted in this post, as it happens: three competing papers used this same branding; the report in this post's body on the circumstances of Pitman's conviction comes from Dixon and Hunter's Gazette, while the May 13 item establishing the hanging date is from Alexander Purdie's Gazette.
Purdie's May 13 edition further adds that when the sheriff came to fetch him on the fatal day, "Pitman made some resistance, but was soon overpowered; he behaved with decency at the place of execution, and attributed his unhappy fate to the effect of intemperate drinking."
1944: Oskar Kusch, Wehrkraftzersetzung U-boat commander - 2020
1899: Claude Branton, gallows photograph - 2019
1974: Leyla Qasim, Bride of Kurdistan - 2018
1868: Robert Smith, the last publicly hanged in Scotland - 2016
1543: Jakob Karrer, Vesalius subject - 2015
1625: Not Helene Gillet, beheading survivor - 2014
1936: Buck Ruxton, red stains - 2013
1388: Three evil counselors of Richard II - 2012
1730: James Dalton, Hogarth allusion - 2011
1641: Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford - 2010
1993: Leonel Herrera, perilously close to simple murder? - 2009
1916: James Connolly, socialist revolutionary - 2008
1786: Hannah Ocuish, age 12
1784: Richard Barrick, Massachusetts highwayman
1721: Joseph Hanno, "miserable African"
1721: Christiana Bell
1788: John Price Posey, "superlative villain"
1896: Four in New Mexico, in three different towns
1648: Alice Bishop
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Murder,Other Voices,Public Executions,USA,Virginia
Tags: 1770s, 1775, may 12, william pitman
1775: Joseph Skidmore, carrier
Add comment March 25th, 2016 Headsman
From the London General Evening Post, Dec. 15-17, 1774
Extract of a letter from Birmingham, Dec. 15.
On Sunday morning last Ann Mansfield, the widow of a soldier, and lately a servant to Mr. Richard Wilson of this town, on her return to her father, who lives at Cradley, near Stourbridge, was found on the road, about half a mile beyond Hales-Owen, barbarously murdered. It is supposed, from the circumstances under which she was found, that she had been also ravished: her hair was dishevelled, her handkerchief and cap torn off, and her under petticoat lay by her side.
When she set out from hence, she had a small bundle, containing a new pair of stuff shoes, one pair of pattens, a black silk handkerchief, with lace to trim it, and sundry other things of small value; a new black silk hat pinned to her side, and wore a black and a white cloak, over both of which she pinned a white hat; which were all taken away.
A strong suspicion prevails against the S———- carrier (behind whom she rode through Hales-Owen the night before) who not only that night delivered a woodcock and some light parcels in S———-, but sent on Sunday morning her two cloaks to her father by two chimney-sweepers, who were both stopped, in order to undergo an examination. — The carrier is also taken up.
This "letter" was printed in several English newspapers; sometimes abridged for space needs, in time it appears to have evolved with the progress of available facts and suppositions.
Here it is in the Leeds Intelligencer for Dec. 27:
On Saturday evening last, Ann Mansfield having left the service of Mr. Richard Wilson, was returning to her father, who lives at Cradley, near Stourbridge, and for that purpose had sent part of her things by the carrier, and intended to have accompanied him herself; but calling on her sister, who lives with Mrs. Horton, in Mount-Pleasant, was detained till near dark, when the mistress very humanely begged her to stay all night, as it was impossible for her to overtake the carrier; but neither Mrs. Horton's kindness nor her sister's persuasions could prevail, for she unhappily persisted in her design of going home; and what is very remarkable, on leaving the house complained (to make use of her own expression) or a sinking at her heart.
She had with her a small bundle, containing a new pair of stuff shoes, one pair of pattens, a black silk handkerchief, with lace to trim it, and sundry other things of small value; a new black silk hat pinned to her side, and one black and one white cloak, both of which she wore, and a white hat pinned over them.
Some time yesterday morning she was found murdered near the spot where the Darbys are now hanging. — She is supposed from the situation she was found in to be ravished, and that the villains who perpetrated the horrid fact stuffed something in her mouth to prevent her alarming the neighbours with her cries, as no wounds of consequence enough to cause her death appeared outwardly, but the skin is forced off her hands and fingers, as supposed by struggling.
When found, she had her hair dishevelled, her handkerchief and cap torn off, and every thing of value taken away. — She had only four-pence in her pocket, which she intended to give the carrier. She was carried to Hales-Owen church.
Two fellows are taken up on suspicion of committing the horrid crime, one of whom had a white cloak in his pocket, supposed to belong to the unfortunate young woman, and they are sent this morning for examination. It appears that the carrier before-mentioned waited for this poor young creature and took her behind him, and was met by many people; which getting wind the carrier was taken up, and it is feared is too justly suspected, as he greatly prevaricates.
However much embroidery affects this story, we have a sense of the event — and of the dangers of an unlit nighttime road.
That this attack was (quite deservedly) recognized as the most egregious crime handled at Shrewsbury's Lent 1775 assizes can be seen in the disposition of the sentences. This from Say's Weekly Journal of April 1, 1775:
At Shrewbury assizes the following persons received sentence of death, viz. John Parry, and William Roberts, capitally convicted last assize, for plundering a wreck; Joseph Skidmore, for the murder of Ann Chandler, in a lane near Hales-Owen; Edward Stol, for horse stealing; Jane Aston, for stealing household goods; Samuel Thomas and Philip Jones, for horse-stealing; and Jemima Asplin, for breaking out of gaol, after having received sentence of transportation at last county sessions. — A respite during his Majesty's pleasure was received for Roberts on Thursday; Aston, Thomas, Jones, and Asplin were reprieved; and Parry, Stol, and Skidmore, left for execution, the latter of whom suffered on Saturday last.
Just why the victim has become "Ann Chandler" instead of "Ann Mansfield" nor which a historian ought to prefer I cannot determine. But after Skidmore's March 25 hanging, and the April 1 execution of Parry, all the others condemned at the 1775 assizes were reprieved their death sentences.
Part of the Themed Set: Shropshire.
1865: Robert Cobb Kennedy, Confederate terrorist - 2020
1752: James Lowry, despotical nautical - 2019
Feast Day of St. Dismas, the penitent thief - 2018
1825: Louis August Papavoine, An Execution in Paris - 2017
1830: George Cudmore, posthumous book-binding - 2015
1851: Sarah Chesham, poisoner - 2014
1586: Saint Margaret Clitherow, pressed Catholic - 2013
1915: 22 Singapore mutineers - 2012
1887: William Jackson Marion, who'd be pardoned 100 years later - 2011
1843: 17 who drew the black beans - 2010
1997: Pedro Medina, en flambe - 2009
1977: Alphonse Massamba-Débat, Congolese Communist - 2008
1740: Not William Duell
1718: John "Jack Ketch" Price, former hangman
1749: Richard Coleman, solemnly declaring
1777: Rev. Benjamin Russen, child rapist
1779: James Hackman, sandwich wrecker
1746: Three Catholic servants
1799: Elizabeth Lavender, teenage Fairlight infanticide
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Hanged,Murder,Public Executions,Rape
Tags: 1770s, 1775, joseph skidmore, march 25, shrewsbury
1775: Thomas Jeremiah, Charleston's wealthiest free black
3 comments August 18th, 2010 Meaghan
On this day in 1775, Thomas Jeremiah, a free black man in the then-colony of South Carolina, was hung after being convicted of attempting to a slave insurrection.
The case against him was extremely weak, but he was tried/framed under the Negro Act of 1740 (in a slave court, although he was not a slave), wherein the defendant was considered guilty until proven innocent. South Carolina's own royal governor, William Campbell, called it a case of "judicial murder."
Very little is known about Jeremiah. He left no diary or letters behind, and most of his trial records have been lost. We know he was married but we know nothing about his wife, whether she was a slave or a free black like himself, or whether they had any children. We don't know how he became free or how he learned his trade. He is, in fact, so obscure that he doesn't even have his own Wikipedia entry.
What little we do know, however, suggests that he was a most extraordinary man: a fisherman and ship's pilot, one of less than 500 free blacks in the city of Charles Town (now called Charleston), Jeremiah had somehow managed to claw his way up and amassed a net worth of £1,000, or about $200,000 in today's money. He was one of the wealthiest free black men in North America, and certainly the wealthiest self-made one.
Himself a slaveowner, he had no reason to start a slave rebellion, but this didn't matter to those who convicted him. Jeremiah's life, trial and death are discussed in detail in J. William Harris's 2009 book, The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah: A Free Black Man's Encounter with Liberty. (This book review provides a good summary.)
2010 saw the publication of a second book, The World of Thomas Jeremiah: Charles Town on the Eve of the American Revolution.
Jeremiah was basically a victim of his own success. He had risen too high; he made the local white elites uncomfortable. As Harris noted, Jeremiah "did not need to gather arms or preach revolution to undermine slavery, because his whole life was a refutation of whites' basic justification for slavery."
Henry Laurens, a wealthy businessman, future Continental Congressman, slaveowner, and contemporary of Jeremiah's, stated he was "a forward fellow, puffed up by prosperity, ruined by Luxury & debauchery & grown to amazing pitch of vanity & ambition." He needed to be smacked down and he was, most severely.
In the spring and summer of 1775, revolution was fomenting everywhere. White "Patriots" wanted an opportunity to get out from under England, but they feared their slaves would use the conflict to try and get out from under them.
Nat Turner and Charleston's own Denmark Vesey — these immortal rebels lay years into the future, but their very prospect made slave rebellions an omnipresent fear among the white populace. It was jumpy. And when two slaves accused Jeremiah of trying to persuade them to rebel, it jumped.
Only a few months passed between Jeremiah's arrest and his execution. By that time he was a broken man, welcoming death. After he was hung, his body was cut down and burned to ashes.
Books about Thomas Jeremiah
2015: Khaled al-Asaad, Palmyra archaeologist - 2020
1885: Pedro Prestan, isthmus rebel - 2019
1648: Sultan Ibrahim the Mad - 2018
1746: Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, Jacobites - 2017
2013: Three publicly hanged in Karaj - 2016
1899: Armstead Taylor and John Alfred Brown, horribly - 2015
476: Basiliscus, victim of the fine print - 2014
1941: 534 Lithuanian Jewish intellectuals - 2013
2011: Li Lindong, truck driver - 2012
1634: Urbain Grandier, for the Loudon possessions - 2011
1944: Ernst Thälmann, German Communist - 2009
1848: Camila O'Gorman and Father Ladislao Gutierrez, for traditional family values - 2008
1822: The audacious Denmark Vesey
1855: The slave Celia, who had no right to resist
1814: Six slaves in Guyana
1887: Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel, the Haymarket Martyrs
1796: Jose Leonardo Chirino, Venezuelan slave revolt leader
1758: Francois Macandal, forgotten black messiah
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Businessmen,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Innocent Bystanders,Other Voices,Power,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Slaves,South Carolina,Torture,USA,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1770s, 1775, charles town, charleston, henry laurens, negro act of 1740, racism, slave revolt, slavery, thomas jeremiah, william campbell
1775: Maharajah Nandakumar, judicially murdered?
7 comments August 5th, 2010 Headsman
On this date in 1775, inconvenient Indian official Nandakumar (or Nand Kumar, or Nuncomar) was hanged on a forgery charge — all too conveniently inflicted at the very time he was accusing British Governor-General Warren Hastings of corruption.
Nandakumar and Hastings decidedly did not get along; the Indian believed he had been unfairly denied a plum career assignment.
He leveled in response an accusation that Hastings was taking payola in exchange for his appointments.
English pols involved in the administration of India, such as Philip Francis, John Clavering and George Monson, had their own rivalries with Hastings and wanted to pursue these charges. Instead, within weeks, Nandakumar was facing years-old forgery charges,* and two months after his trial, he was at the end of a rope.
Hastings' actual involvement in this circumstance is impossible to prove, but
Warren Hastings: not a man to be trifled with. (Portrait by Tilly Kettle.)
The certain facts are that Nand Kumar was Hastings's enemy, that [India's Chief Justice Elijah] Impey was Hastings's friend; that at a moment of grave crisis in Hastings's life, when Nand Kumar was the most eminent witness against his name and fame, that witness was arraigned on a charge that was very old, that had been suddenly converted from a civil to a criminal charge; that he was tried, found guilty, and executed. On the basis of that bare narrative of facts it would seem that if Hastings had nothing to do with the matter, he might almost as well have had as far as the judgment of posterity went. The thing was too apt, the conditions too peculiar not to leave their stigma upon the memory of the man who gained most by them.
This sort of questionable administration of the crown's possessions on the subcontinent would lead in 1781 to the Amending Act, an attempt to place India on an organizational footing more conducive to the confidence of an increasingly dubious public.
Parliamentarian heavyweight Edmund Burke would eventually weigh in on the hanged man's side, charging that Hastings had "murdered this man, by the hands of Sir Elijah Impey." In a report to the select committee established by the Amending Act (cited in this tome), Burke noted
that this Trial and Execution was looked upon by many of the Natives as political; nor does the Committee conceive it possible, that, combining all the Circumstances together, they should look upon it in the Light of a common judicial Proceeding; but must regard it as a political Measure, the Tendency of which is, to make the Natives feel the extreme Hazard of accusing, or even giving Evidence of corrupt Practices against any British Subject in Station, even though supported by other British Subjects of equal Rank and Authority. It will be rather a Mockery, than a Relief to the Natives, to see Channels of Justice opened to them, at their great Charge, both in the Institution and in the Use, and then Appeals, still more expensive, carefully provided for them, when, at the same Time, Practices are countenanced, which render the Resort to those Remedies far more dangerous than a patient Endurance of Oppression, under which they may labour.
Hastings was impeached for corruption in 1787 — it took Burke, who served as one of the prosecutors, two full days to read the 20-count indictment against him, though Burke's own attempt to add judicial murder to the bill of particulars was jettisoned — along with the now ex-Chief Justice Impey.
Both were acquitted, even though investigations had laid bare a sort of endemic, routine bakhsheesh: "the native offers because he thinks he is bound to do so, and the Englishman accepts because he fears to hurt the giver's feelings." Hastings acknowledged availing himself of donatives, generally arguing that it was the done thing, benefited the East India Company for which he worked, and everything stayed well this side of egregious.
The (lurid) conduct of this impeachment proceeding, and its effect for consolidating British imperial control away from the irregular hands of the British East India Company while generating a national mythology of missionary civilization, is the subject of a fascinating book, The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain.
Another record of the trial is available free from Google books; J. Duncan M. Derrett considers the facts of the forgery case (it "was not a judicial murder") in the collision of Hindu and English law in "Nandakumar's Forgery" in The English Historical Review of April 1960.
* He forged part of a will to recover a bad loan. All concerned appear to agree that this charge is factually accurate, which is, of course, a long way from explaining why the matter required immediate adjudication at this juncture.
Incidentally, while forgery could get you hanged in England, it was a much less serious offense under Hindu law.
Part of the Themed Set: The Empire Strikes Back.
1843: Sarah Dazley - 2020
1678: Thomas Hellier, "Groans and Sighs" - 2019
1939: Las Trece Rosas - 2018
1944: The Wola Massacre begins, during the Warsaw Uprising - 2017
1549: The Clyst Heath massacre, during the Prayer Book Rebellion - 2016
2008: Jose Medellin, precedent - 2015
1943: Red Orchestra members, in the Nazi Paradise - 2014
1993: Joseph Paul Jernigan, Visible Human Project subject - 2013
1623: Daniel Frank, the first hanging in the USA - 2012
1909: Georges-Henri Duchemin, matricide - 2011
1864: Romuald Traugutt and the January Uprising leaders - 2009
1676: Malin Matsdotter and Anna Simonsdotter, ending a witch hunt - 2008
1818: Alexander Arbuthnot and Richard Ambrister
1895: Charles Stokes, in the heart of darkness
1757: Admiral John Byng
1704: John Quelch, pirate
1803: Edward Marcus Despard, a patriot without a nation
1618: Walter Raleigh, age of exploration adventurer
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Hanged,History,India,Occupation and Colonialism,Pelf,Political Expedience,Scandal,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1770s, 1775, corruption, edmund burke, elijah impey, george monson, john clavering, nand kumar, nandakumar, nuncomar, philip francis, racism, tilly kettle, warren hastings
1775: Yemelyan Pugachev
4 comments January 10th, 2008 Headsman
On this date in 1775, the Russian Empress Catherine the Great had Cossack rebel Yemelyan Pugachev chopped to pieces in Moscow for sustaining a major insurrection whose effects would haunt Russia for decades to come.
Pugachev's Judgment, by Vasily Perov.
Pugachev's Rebellion was the most spectacular specimen in populous family tree of 18th century peasant uprisings.
Most such disturbances were local and fundamentally unthreatening. Pugachev's was neither.
The Cossack commander raised a revolt in the Urals in 1773, styling himself the long-lost tsar Catherine had overthrown a decade before.
Catherine was slow to see the import, but this hinterlands pretender set up a state-like bureaucracy and began issuing ukases as tsar — and one can readily discern from their content why he attracted a following:
We bestow on all those who formerly were peasants and in subjugation to the landowners, along with Our monarchic and paternal compassion … tenure of the land and the forests and the hay meadows and the fisheries and the salt lakes, without purchase and without obrok, and we liberate all the aforementioned from the villainous nobles and from the bribe takers in the city–the officials who imposed taxes and other burdens on the peasants and the whole people … [T]hose who formerly were nobles living on estates are enemies to Our power and disrupters of the empire and oppressors of the peasantry, and they should be caught, executed and hanged, they should be treated just as they, who have no Christianity, dealt with you peasants.
The insurrection speedily metastasized, and by the time a force sufficient to quash it was deployed, it had stretched itself from the Urals to the Volga.
Alexander Pushkin used the story of Pugachev's rebellion for The Captain's Daughter (text in English | Russian), which has been adapted to film several times — most recently in 2000.
Catherine the Great, for her part, was deeply shaken by the affair, and the "enlightened despot", while maintaining traffic with the era's liberal intellectual ferment, decisively turned against any reform to serfdom. Catherine's choice, reinforced by her successors, to uphold their security with nothing but repression maintained Russian serfdom until 1861 on a staggering scale — an anchor dragging down the economy just as industrializing western Europe opened a development gap whose effects persist to this day.
1848: Thomas Sale, game - 2020
1868: Heli Freymond, the last beheaded by sword in Switzerland - 2019
1917: Marguerite Francillard, seamstress and spy - 2018
1870: John Gregson, drunk and disorderly - 2017
1946: Laszlo Bardossy, former Prime Minister - 2016
1430: Ten men beheaded, and an eleventh man married - 2015
2013: Zhang Yongming, cannibal corpse - 2014
1879: Benjamin Hunter, in the Hunter-Armstrong Tragedy - 2013
1937: Martemyan Ryutin, for his affair - 2012
2010: An al Shabaab rebel commander - 2011
1645: William Laud, given to the devil - 2010
1934: Marinus van der Lubbe, for the Reichstag fire - 2009
1635: Ivan Sulyma
1849: Not Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1581: Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin and Alexander Briant
1925: Sidney Reilly
1919: Felipe Angeles
838: Babak Khorramdin
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Arts and Literature,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Dismembered,Execution,Famous,Gruesome Methods,History,Popular Culture,Pretenders to the Throne,Public Executions,Revolutionaries,Russia,Soldiers,Treason
Tags: 1770s, 1775, alexander pushkin, cossacks, january 10, moscow, peter iii, pugachev's rebellion, serfdom, ural mountains, volga river, yemelyan pugachev


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Day two of the 30th annual Boys Trip. Could not be better weather. Dunes are smooth and the beer is cold. About 20 rigs in camp and more to come. Should be a great weekend.
According to @agphd's pics that he sent us, conditions look like they are back to awesome out at Dumont!
These pics were taken Thurs night.
Very Nice Day Of Riding!
Saturday morning was raining for hours. At about 1pm it cleared up and has been great since.
It's a damp morning at Dumont with some low lying clouds and fog hanging over the dunes.
Not Letting The Weather Ruin The Weekends Fun!
There hasn't been much rain so far today, but the sand is a little damp.
The river crossing is still very easily passable, however the weather is turning ugly. Winds are picking up and expected to reach over 40 mpg gusts later today. A 1/2 inch of rain is predicted for later and it will likely rain until Saturday afternoon, but then it's supposed to clear up for the rest of the weekend.
Not Currently Rainy, River Crossing Is Fine!
New food vendor on the Row!!!!
No idea how the dunes are. So I checked all the boxes! Lol!


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Winnemem Wintu Chief: California WaterFix Is The Biggest Water Problem State Has Ever Faced
http://www.elkgrovenews.net/2017/05/winnemem-wintu-chief-california.html
Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk speaks at the March for Science in Sacramento this Earth Day. Photo by Dan Bacher. |
By Dan Bacher | May 8, 2017 |
Governor Jerry Brown receives largely fawning coverage from the mainstream media about his environmental policies as he jets off to climate conferences and other photo opportunities, but Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, can see right through his "green" facade.
Chief Sisk exposed the folly of Brown's "legacy project," the Delta Tunnels, at her speech at the "March for Science" on Earth Day 2017 before a crowd of 15,000 people at the State Capitol in Sacramento.
She pointed out how the tunnels, rather than achieving the co-equal goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration, would instead devastate salmon and other fish populations while doing nothing to supply clean drinking water for people in impoverished rural communities in the San Joaquin Valley.
"The California Water Fix is the biggest water problem, the most devastating project, that Californians have ever faced," said Chief Sisk. "Just ask the people in the farmworker communities of Seville and Alpaugh, where they can't drink clean water from the tap."
"The twin tunnels won't fix this problem. All this project does is channel Delta water to water brokers at prices the people in the towns can't afford," she stated.
Sisk said the Winnemem Wintu Tribe opposes the Tunnels for two main reasons.
"First, it will disrupt and destroy the sensitive nursery for fish and all aquatic life," said Sisk.
The San Francisco Bay-Delta is the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. It is not only essential to the health of salmon and steelhead populations, but is a crucial spawning ground, nursery and habitat for Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, Pacific anchovies, herring, sardines, California halibut, leopard sharks, sevengill and sixgill sharks, starry flounder, Dungeness crab and a host of other fish species.
Second, the state and federal governments are building the tunnels at such a large capacity — 35 miles long with a full capacity of 9,000 cfs — that "it would mean the death of the salmon," said Sisk. At times of low flows in the Sacramento River, 9000 cfs would amount to the entire flow of the Sacramento into the Delta.
"Why else would they build the tunnels that big?" asked Sisk. "It seems it would be a waste of money for the water contractors not to provide more water in the project."
She pointed out how modern science is just beginning to catch up with indigenous science, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
"Indigenous people were the first scientists," Chief Sisk emphasized. "Indigenous knowledge has been here since the beginning of time. It's not learned in a book or academic setting. It's learned in real time over time."
She gave the example of how indigenous people would make a net to scoop up salmon and other fish and move them upriver if the water was too shallow for them to ascend the stream.
"Traditional science goes against the tunnels," she said. "By the time modern science catches up with the traditional knowledge, the salmon will be destroyed, if the tunnels are built."
In fact, federal scientists largely agree with Chief Sisk's assessment that the tunnels will devastate salmon and other fish species — and disagree with Governor Brown's claim that "best scientific thinking" supports the construction of the tunnels.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has released a draft biological opinion documenting the harm the tunnels would cause to salmon, steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, other fish and wildlife species, and water quality. (www.dailykos.com/…)
An independent peer review panel found the NMFS findings are backed by comprehensive analyses, new data, and modeling. The panel further found NMFS used the "best available science" and produced evidence of "significant adverse impacts" to species and critical habitat, including unacceptable harm to salmon.
"If we follow the salmon, it will be good, the water will be good," she said. "We have to do a paradigm shift. Science has been here a long time — and indigenous people have had their knowledge for thousands of years, with the smallest footprints in the world."
The Tribe is currently engaged in an ambitious effort to bring back eggs from the McCloud winter-run Chinook salmon that are now thriving in the Rakaira River in New Zealand to repopulate the McCloud above Lake Shasta.
She pointed out the irony of the Tribe being required by federal officials to do testing of winter-run Chinook salmon that were transplanted from the Livingston Stone Fish Hatchery on the McCloud "so that scientists know that they are our fish. We already know that they are our fish," she stated.
She said California should take advantage of the opportunity to bring the salmon back, creating both a better environment and a big boon to the economy when salmon fisheries are robust.
"If we could change California back to a fish state, the waters will be cleaner," she noted. "I hope that as many people who are marching for science today would one day march for the salmon."
She encouraged people to attend the Winnemem Run4Salmon from September 9 through September 23. The event will begin at Sogorea Tea, a sacred burial site in Carquinez Strait in Vallejo, and conclude on the Tribe's ancestral river, the McCloud above Shasta Dam.
During the run last year, Chief Sisk said the Delta Tunnels, if built, will not only cause "more death and destruction" to already endangered salmon populations, but will "encourage and motivate" federal plans to enlarge the giant Shasta Dam that impounds the waters of the Sacramento, McCloud and Pit rivers.
"We consider Shasta Dam a weapon of mass destruction," explained Chief Sisk. "It has already taken our homes, sacred sites, burial sites, and stopped the salmon from returning to their historical spawning grounds."
"If these tunnels are built, Governor Brown's so called 'California WaterFix,' they will not only cause more death and destruction to the already endangered salmon, but they will encourage and motivate plans to enlarge Shasta Dam. An enlarged Shasta Dam will flood what remaining sacred sites, and cultural sites that we still use today," she concluded. (http://www.winnememwintu.us/2016/09/19/press-release-dams-dead-fish-tunnels-and-indians/ )
The Delta Tunnels project also threatens imperiled salmon on the Trinity and Klamath rivers, since Trinity River water is diverted from Trinity Lake to the Sacramento River watershed to supply San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness interests with subsidized water.
This year's run of Klamath River fall Chinook salmon is projected to be the smallest in history — 11,000 fish, about 10% of average for the last 3 decades — causing great hardship this year to the Yurok, Hoopa Valley and Karuk Tribes that have fished for salmon on the Klamath and Trinity rivers for thousands of years.
For details on this year's Run4Salmon, go to: www.facebook.com/...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Characterising signalling components mediating root architecture in Arabidopsis thaliana
Murphy, Evan (2016) Characterising signalling components mediating root architecture in Arabidopsis thaliana. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Our planet is growing rapidly in population and with that comes a demand for resources. To address issues in food security, scientists are looking to the underground parts of plants for novel mechanisms that will eventually lead to enhanced crop traits. Scientists are examining the underlying genetic frameworks to identify which genes play key roles in specific developmental processes. In this study we examined the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana as the roots are easily visualised, the genome has been sequenced, and there are many tools broadly available to work with. This thesis has used a multidisciplinary approach to uncover the signalling cascades revolving around the small signalling peptide RALF34, which is significantly involved in primary and lateral root growth. We have demonstrated, in the following chapters that RALF peptides are inherent to normative lateral root initiation, potentially regulated through shoot derived auxin. Furthermore, RALF4 and 34 peptides play a strong role in restricting primary root growth, and that together these peptides have an additive effect on cell elongation. Lastly, we identify several leucine-rich repeat receptor-like proteins, kinase proteins, and cell wall remodelling enzymes, which putatively play unique and diverse roles during primary and lateral root development. Taken together, this thesis provides novel and unique insights into new signalling pathways during root growth, which may in future aid in agronomic enterprises.
De Smet, Ive
Bennett, M.J.
Dawson, J.M.
Q Science > QK Botany > QK457 Spermatophyta. Phanerogams
Q Science > QK Botany > QK640 Plant anatomy
Murphy, Evan


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The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine or Eurasian wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia, North Africa, and the Greater Sunda Islands. Human intervention has spread its range further, making the species one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widely spread suiform. Its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability mean that it is classed as least concern by the IUCN and it has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. The animal probably originated in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene, and outcompeted other suid species as it spread throughout the Old World.
As of 1990, up to 16 subspecies are recognised, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length. The species lives in matriarchal societies consisting of interrelated females and their young (both male and female). Fully grown males are usually solitary outside the breeding season. The grey wolf is the wild boar's main predator throughout most of its range except in the Far East and the Lesser Sunda Islands, where it is replaced by the tiger and Komodo dragon respectively. It has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big-game animal for millennia.
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Welcome to Meadow Brook featuring new homes by Westbridge Builders set on half acre + estate lots starting in the $460s. Meadow Brook is a community designed for easy living with city amenities. Easy commuting to Charlottesville (to the west) and Richmond (to the east) makes Meadow Brook the perfect location. As you pass the stately entrance and drive down the country road, you feel you are arriving at a special place. The mountains in the distance frame the rolling farm fields and convey the feeling that rural life is exceptional. As you reach the community, the extra effort put into the design to maximize the uniqueness of the land is evident. Each phase of Meadow Brook takes advantage of the 94+ acres of common area by providing a heavily wooded buffer to make you feel the rural privacy you are looking for, while providing the amenities that make life simple. Come visit one of our Quick Move-in Homes today! Call 540-603-0083 for more information.
Get started on YOUR new home today!


2018 Wings of the World on cover plus a feature article inside of the Summer 2018 edition of Pen Woman Magazine, quarterly publication of National League of American Pen Women, Inc.
2018 Celebrating 120 Years of Pen Women coloring book for National League of American Pen Women, edited & designed by Lucy Arnold, plus 3 internal illustrations, front and back cover design and illustrations. Pen Woman Press, Washington D.C. © 2017, released 2018.
2016 Fora's Holiday used on Riverfront Art Gallery show post card for Showin' on the River exhibit. Medusa's Realm at Sunset published in Petaluma Post review of same exhibit.
2016 Festive Flock used as image on Marin MOCA poster for "Layers" art exhibit.
2013 Beautiful Beetles licensed for Campbell Bio 10th ed., Pearson Science Pub.
2004 Lucy's Letters, published as stickers by Mrs. Grossman's Paper Co.
2011 Invited Artist Presenter, Valley of the Moon Art Assoc., Sonoma, CA.
Click here for link to text of an interview with www.learntodo.co.uk online watercolor course.


Patricia Schor's talk that she delivered during the Camera Interactiva Creativity Lab during the Dutch Film Festival on 23 September 2015 is now available online at the Dis/Content blog.
The anthropologist and curator Nuno Porto conceives the museum as a mechanism of cultural contact, where "cultural contact is neither more nor less then to fight for the order of things." The public sphere is the arena that hosts institutions such as museums but also academia and the media where, artefacts, be them a film, an academic essay, a theatre play, a photograph, enter this fight for the order of things. Doing and reflecting about scholarship (but also about art) is therefore a political act that entails considering the order instituted by particular power arrangements and the terms of the fight; the order which we inhabit.
Who is entitled to represent and who is the represented? Who has access to resources tofight in the public arena? Who speaks and who is spoken about?
Not running the risk of subsuming scholarship to politics, it is fundamental to self-reflect the place of the academic and the intellectual in the public sphere and to negotiate this position critically. This requires awareness towards the economy of knowledge. It is often engagedscholarly practices that overlook the economy of privilege running through society. Engagement demands vigilance and intervention on the distribution of credits around the artefact of knowledge (a talk, an essay, a book, a research).
Who is paid and who is not, who is credited and who is not, who gains social capital, perspective of jobs and grants, public exposure and accolades, and who does not?


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Disgraced former MP Margaret Moran is spotted at the pub – despite being too ill to stand trial for fraud
Posted byadminlebanon November 27, 2012
Too ill to stand trial for fraud. . . but disgraced former MP Margaret Moran is spotted at the pub FIVE DAYS after missing court date because she was 'too depressed'
Ex-Labour MP was ruled too depressed to defend herself at expenses trialAs a result of her 'severe depression' she cannot be sent to jailMargaret Moran was convicted of 21 counts of fraud after unlawfully claiming 53,000 of taxpayers money
10:39 GMT, 26 November 2012
Disgraced former Labour MP Margaret Moran was spotted enjoying herself at a pub only five days after a judge ruled she was too depressed to stand trial.
The 57-year-old former MP cheated the taxpayer out of 53,000 in one of the worst cases of fraud to emerge from the parliamentary expenses scandal.
As a consequence of the judge's ruling on her mental health the former MP for Luton South will not be jailed nor receive a criminal record, despite her conviction of 21 counts of fraud earlier this month.
Out and about: Former MP Margaret Moran is pictured leaving a pub in Southampton only five days after she was deemed unfit to stand trial
Moran, who resigned in 2010, appeared to be enjoying a glass of wine with her husband at a pub in West End, Southampton, a few miles from their Hampshire home last week, despite being deemed too depressed to defend herself in court.
Ms Moran and her husband were also seen around 20 miles away at Lepe Country Park, where they spent an hour walking their dog.
Moran did not have to appear at Southwark Crown Court on November 13 nor enter a plea to the 15 charges of false accounting and six of using false information after a judge ruled her 'severe depressive disorder' meant she was unable to defend herself.
The charges included submitting 'bogus' invoices for more than 22,000 for goods and services which did not exist.
Up and running: Ms Moran did not have to appear at Southwark Crown Court to enter her plea in the case against her over her fraudulent expenses claims
Able to drink: Despite a judge ruling she was too fragile to defend herself in court, MP Margaret Moran appeared to enjoy a glass of red wine at the pub near her Hampshire home
Up for a walk: Ms Moran was later seen at Lepe Country Park, walking her dog with her husband
Between April 2004 and August 2008 she submitted fraudulent claims of around 60,000 – more than double that of any of the other four MPs who have been tried – of which she received more than 53,000.
The jury found that the case against 'broken woman' Moran, who earned a 64,766 salary as an MP, was 'proved'.
Mr Justice Saunders said he cannot 'punish her as such' through a prison sentence or fine. Instead, he can give her a hospital order, supervision order or absolute discharge. He adjourned his decision but indicated a supervision order is most likely. Meanwhile, Moran is being treated by psychiatrists at home in Southampton.
Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, added: 'The verdict does not feel like justice done.'
'Depressed': Margaret Moran is pictured leaving Westminster Magistrates Court after she was officially charged over her fraudulent expenses claims
The court heard how Moran, an MP from 1997 until her resignation in 2010, 'abused' the system of claiming parliamentary expenses, which was largely based on trust.
Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said MPs were permitted to receive expenses for a designated second home, but she had twice swapped the designation of her second home 'in a process known as flipping'.
She had exploited the system to 'kit out' homes in London, Luton and Southampton.
In 2006 she submitted a claim for 4,756.40 for replacement kitchen units for her second home, which was accompanied by an invoice from a firm called Elite Builders that was a 'complete forgery'. A year later, she submitted invoices for 14,805 and 1,823 for work in the name of Mandere Construction, but the bills were 'utterly false'.
In 2008, she 'flipped' her designated home to Southampton, which belonged to her then fianc and now husband Michael Booker.
She submitted false bills for 22,500 of building work at this property, including dry rot repairs, which was for work completed in the previous financial year, when she had already exhausted her parliamentary allowance, and when her designated second home was in Luton.
Margaret Moran spared jail for fiddling 53,000 in expenses and faces supervision order instead
Ex-wife of disgraced MP Chris Huhne arrives at court to stand trial over claims she took his speeding points
Two Crown Prosecution Service staff face fraud charges over alleged false claims for witness taxis worth 1MILLION
Founder of 370m collapsed hedge fund charged with raft of fraud charges
Pensioner accused of registering a mannequin as a candidate in a city council election is to face trial
Posted byadminlebanon November 27, 2012 Posted inNewsTags: consequence, crown, depression, disorder, glass, invoices, labour, margaret, mental, moran, result, southampton, taxpayers
UK floods wreak havoc on houses thought to be protected by state of the art 1.7million flood defences
A surprising view from a Tory MP – and ally of George Osborne – as mansion tax row rages


The Scriptures do not teach that fasting was a practice established by God. It was a religious practice adopted by the Jews to express their humility before God. This can be seen from the fact that fasting was not given by God as part of the Old Covenant or by Jesus as part of the New Covenant. There is little instruction regarding its use except in terms of the attitude one is to have when practicing it. Also, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever encouraged its use. When fasting was done with a humble heart it was accepted by God.
The Scriptures demonstrate that fasting (depriving oneself of food) as practiced by the Jews was an expression of their humble dependence upon God and was done for four purposes which are detailed in this article.
Fasting was similar to kneeling or lying prostrate before the Lord in that it was a physical expression of what was going on in the heart of the Jewish faithful.
It was normally done for a short period of time (sunrise to sunset) during the day for one day or more.
Fasting, therefore, is an option for the Christian believer if it is something that is meaningful for him or her and he or she desires to do it and if it is done with the right attitude and for the appropriate purpose.
Fasting does not move the hand of God. Faith in the Lord that is the basis of all prayer whether or not it is accompanied by fasting (rather than the practice of fasting itself) is what moves the hand of God in agreement with His will for the life of the believer.
Fasting is abstaining or denying oneself of food for a particular purpose. Fasting can be done to lose weight, cleanse your body, and the like. It can also be done for religious purposes.
Fasting for religious purposes was practiced in many cultures in the ancient Near East.
This is seen when King Darius the Mede who became king of the Babylonian empire fasted over the trouble that Daniel faced in the lion's den. How did he know to fast? It was part of his Babylonian religious culture.
Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting nor was entertainment brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.
Also, the Ninevites fasted when they heard Jonah's message of condemnation. Jonah did not tell them to fast as a result of his warning. They decided to do this on their own. Fasting was a practice they were familiar with in their pagan religion.
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.
This is just two examples that show fasting was part of the religious culture of many ancient societies as well as the Jews. Since, there is no Scriptural evidence that it was revealed by God or established by him, therefore, it must have been originated by man as a physical expression of humility before deity.
This is similar to kneeling before deity or prostrating oneself before deity which was also practiced by many ancient cultures. Physical expressions such as these that come from the heart of man have no positive or negative value before God. Their value comes from what kind of heart they express. If they express a humble believing heart before God, God is pleased by the humility they express and accepts them. God will also condemn them when they express pride. If they are done by pagans toward their false gods, they are condemned because they express an unbelieving rebellious heart.
The Old Testament and Jewish history demonstrate that the Jews observed three kinds of fasts.
The earliest "fast day" observed by the Jews was Yom Kippur. It is the only day which God himself established. Lev.16 reveals its establishment by God as part of the Mosaic Covenant.
29And this shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and do no work at all, whether it is your countryman or the alien dwells among you.
30For on that day the priest will make an atonement for you, to cleanse you so that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.
31It shall be a sabbath of rest to you and you shall humble your souls. It is a statute forever.
The Hebrew words translated "humble your souls" in v.29 and v.31 have been interpreted by some as meaning fasting. However, the Hebrew words do not mean fasting.
Also, the Hebrew words for "humbling your souls" is used in Ps.35:13 with the Hebrew word for "fasting" which shows that they did not mean the same thing.
Further support for this can be seen in the Septuagint translation of this. In the Septuagint, this Hebrew verb "humble" is translated into the Greek verb for "humble" and thus translated the same way as the English. It is not translated by the Greek verb for fast. This shows that the Jews translating the Septuagint knew that it meant humble oneself not fast.
29 And this shall be a perpetual statute for you; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall humble your souls, and shall do no work, the native and the stranger who abides among you.
30 For in this day he shall make an atonement for you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord, and ye shall be purged.
31 This shall be to you a most holy sabbath, a rest, and ye shall humble your souls; it is a perpetual ordinance.
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth, I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer returned to my own bosom.
Why have we fasted, they say, and you do not see it? Why have we humbled our souls, and you do not notice? Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and drive all your laborers hard.
In Psalm 35:13 above, it can be seen that the Hebrew cannot mean fasting when it is used with another Hebrew word which means "fasting." In Isa.58:3 the Hebrew refers to the heart attitude when fasting is practiced. This shows that the Hebrew "humble your souls" cannot mean "fasting." Since humbling yourself is the heart attitude associated with fasting, it is not surprising that it occurs with fasting. However, to say that fasting is implied in Lev.16:29 cannot be substantiated.
As we have seen, Jesus never commanded fasting, nor did he teach it was a part of the new covenant he was bringing.
In Zechariah 8, the Old Testament names four other annual minor fast days the Jews instituted after the destruction of Jerusalem when they were in exile in Babylon.
19 "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth will become to the house of Judah joy and gladness and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.
These four fast days were considered by the Jews as minor fast days along with the fast of Esther, which was connected with the Feast of Purim.
Of those fast days, the only day that was established by the Lord was Yom Kippur. Although, the Jews practiced fasting as a part of Yom Kippur, as we saw, the Lord did not make fasting a part of it.
This means that the obligation to fast on these Jewish fast days came from the Jewish teachers not the Lord.
Many times in the history of Israel, as we shall see, the Jewish leadership declared a fast to pray and ask for the Lord's help or to express their grief and mourning for tragedy that had struck their nation.
Jewish people also fasted privately in times of personal crisis or mourning. This is seen in the Old Testament when David prayed and fasted to the Lord to spare his son which will be studied later in this article.
At the time of the New Testament, the Pharisees and other Jews were fasting twice a week. It is logical to assume that there was not a crisis each week in the lives of these people. It was private fasting probably for the troubles of Israel in the past, or in the present, or for sin in one's life.
v.10 Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican.
v.11 The Pharisee stood and prayed this to himself, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men who are swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
V.12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
This kind of private fasting which is not related to a crisis in the life of a Jew was not encouraged later by the rabbis although at the time of Christ, it seems to have been encouraged by the Pharisees.
This kind of private weekly fasting is not condemned by God or Jesus, but it is not encouraged by them either. Jesus exhorts them to do this kind of fasting with pure hearts, but as we shall see, Jesus did not practice this kind of fasting.
Fasting for the major fast days of Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av went from sunset the first day to sunset the next day (a 24 hour period). Fasting for minor fast days and fasting in the time of crisis went from sunrise to sunset of one day.
Jesus' ministry and teaching reflected the Jewish practice of fasting, but not the private weekly ritual fasting of the Pharisees.
There is nothing in the Gospels that demonstrate that the Lord and his disciples did not practice the public fasting of the Jews that were being practiced at that time. When major and minor fasts came around each year Jesus and his disciples participated as all good Jews would.
What Jesus and his disciples did not participate in was the weekly private ritual fasting that the Pharisees did and led the people to do. Apparently John the Baptist did participate in that kind of fasting as seen in the passage below.
In Luke 5:33-39, Jesus explains why his disciples did not participate in the weekly private fasting, how after his death, his disciples would participate in the private fasting that comes in a crisis, and that fasting was not a part of what Jesus was establishing as the new covenant. The parallel passages are Matthew 9:14-17 and Mark 2:18-22.
v.33 And they said to him, "Why do the disciples of John fast and pray, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but yours eat and drink?
In Luke 5:33-39, Jesus is asked why his disciples do not "fast and pray" like the disciples of John the Baptist's and the Pharisees.
Notice first, that fasting is not mentioned by itself, but with prayer. This shows that with the Jews fasting accompanied prayer.
Second, this question concerns the fasting practise of the Pharisees which John the Baptist and many others were practicing. This was the weekly private ritual fasting which was done two days a week.
Third, Jesus and his disciples did not do this because Jesus obviously felt it was not necessary nor a regular part of the Christian life. He does not condemn it, but he does not encourage it or practice it either.
2.3.2 Jesus taught that after he was gone, desperate circumstances would come when his disciples would have a reason to fast and pray.
v.34 And he said to them, "Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
In his answer, Jesus says that in the future there would be a time when his disciples would "fast and pray." This implies that the desire or need for fasting comes under certain circumstances, which presently did not exist, but would exist in the future.
Jesus moves from their concern for the weekly private ritual fasting to the real purpose of fasting both private and public which is fasting and praying in a crisis or when there is a serious need.
Jesus says that their present situation was similar to a wedding feast. While the bridegroom was there, it was a time of celebration where the guests rejoice and feast. It was not a time of crisis.
Jesus' death would unleash persecution and the attack of the world (Jn.15:18-25) and there would be the necessary humble dependence on God as they called to him in their sorrow and seriousness.
Jesus is implying that there is no reason for the private ritual fasting that they were practicing and there was no need for private fasting in a time of crisis. He and his disciples are not in a crisis. He is here doing his ministry and he is in control. It is a time of rejoicing in his physical presence. A crisis is coming for his disciples when he is gone, but is not here yet.
2.3.3 Jesus taught that the Jews' central concern about fasting was part of their old ways of doing things, but not a part of the new covenant that he was bringing.
Then in 5:36-39 Jesus tells a parable teaching them that practices like fasting were a part of the old way of doing things and that Jesus was bringing a new way. The new way he was bringing could not be mixed with the old way. It was fresh and new. Their focus on fasting showed they were too focused on the old way of doing things.
v.36And also he spoke a parable to them, "No man puts a piece of a new garment upon an old one. Otherwise, the new will tear and the piece from the old will not match the new.
v.37And no man puts new wine into old wineskins because the new wine will burst the skins and be spilled and the wineskins will ruined.
v.38But new wine must be put into new wineskin.
Jesus is not condemning fasting, but was saying that it was not part of the new covenant. Remember, fasting was not part of the old covenant God gave either. It was added by the Jews to the old covenant and was part of their traditions.
Jesus says that they are focusing on the wrong issues. The new covenant is different. It is about spiritual realities, not physical ones. It will be defined by Paul as faith, hope, and love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Jesus here is not saying that believers cannot fast, but that fasting is not part of the covenant he is giving. It is not a "Biblical practice" of the new covenant as prayer is.
We have seen that in the Scriptures fasting is not established by God nor did God make fasting a part of the Mosaic Covenant. It, therefore, must have originated with the Jews themselves and possibly from the cultures around them. However, when they did it to express their humble dependence upon God as they sought his help in prayer, the Lord accepted it.
Fasting was very meaningful to the Jews and when done with the right attitude the Lord accepted it.
This demonstrates that fasting is a choice OT or NT believers could make at the appropriate time for the appropriate purpose if it is meaningful to them.
If God does not command a practice, then it is an option, a free choice of the believer both in the OT and the NT.
If fasting is meaningful and important to a believer and he wants to practice it and he does it out of humble dependence on the Lord, then it will be accepted by the Lord. However, if it is not a meaningful practice for a believer, it should not be imposed upon him legalistically. He does not have to practice it at all.
Prayer is talked about often, yet fasting does not appear at all in the epistles.
I believe it is because fasting was emphasized by the Jews being part of their culture whereas it was not so much part of the culture of the Gentiles and thus was not emphasized by the apostles.
It obviously was not an important issue in the churches. It does not mean that it didn't exist, but most likely was not a regular part of their spiritual experience that needed exhortation or encouragement. It definitely was not commanded as a normal part of the Christian experience.
The Scriptures demonstrate four purposes for fasting as practiced by the Israelites and Jewish-Christians. These four purposes can be seen in both the public and private fasting of the Jews in the Old and New Testaments.
4.1 The first purpose of fasting was to give physical expression to the grief, mourning, and sorrow that had filled the hearts of the Israelites.
4.2 The second purpose of fasting was to give physical expression to the Israelites' sorrow over their sins and their appeal to the Lord for his mercy.
4.3 The third purpose of fasting is to give physical expression to the believer's humble dependence on God as he or she desperately sought his help through prayer in a time of crisis or earnestly sought his help in a time of serious need.
4.4 The fourth purpose of fasting was to give physical expression to the believer's humble dependence on God as he or she earnestly sought his help in furthering the spread of his kingdom.
Fasting was never for the purpose of penance or simply denying oneself. God is not and has never been interested in self-denial for the purpose of self-denial. Denying self has always been encouraged in following the Lord in service and morality and turning away from selfishness and sin, never for its own sake.
Fasting was an expression of sorrow and grief for the Jews. It was a cultural practice to fast during this time.
4.1.1 The sons of Israel fasted as they mourned for those the Benjamites had killed in their civil war.
24And the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day.
25Benjamin went out against those from Gibeah the second day and destroyed eighteen thousand men of the sons of Israel. All these were armed with swords.
26Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept and sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
4.1.2 When David and his men heard of the death of Saul and Jonathan, David's friend in battle, they tore their clothes, lamented and fasted.
13And they took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days.
12And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan, his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they were killed by the sword.
4.1.3 David fasted as he mourned the death of Abner, who had been the commander and chief of Saul's army, but had turned to help David take back his throne over Israel.
31And David said to Joab and to all the people that were with him, "Tear your clothes and put on sackcloth and mourn in front of Abner. King David himself followed the bier.
32And they buried Abner in Hebron and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner and all the people wept.
33And the king lamented over Abner, and said, "Should Abner die as a fool dies?
34 Your hands were not bound nor your feet put into chains. You fell as a man falls before wicked men. All the people wept again over him.
This purpose for fasting is not applicable to the believer after Jesus' death on the cross. As Christians we have been encouraged by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 not to grieve over the death of fellow-believers as unbelievers do because we have hope that they will be with the Lord. We also know that if an unbeliever dies, he is in the hands of God and we must accept God's will regarding his judgement. We will grieve which is normal and expresses our love, but the grieving that fasting entails is simply not necessary. We may not eat out of sorrow, but it is not fasting as practiced by the Jews.
4.2 The second purpose of fasting is to give physical expression to the Israelites' sorrow over their sins and their humble appeal to the Lord for his mercy.
When the Israelites realized that they had sinned against the Lord and what that meant in their lives, they fasted and prayed to the Lord for mercy.
4.2.1 The Israelites fasted and mourned over their sin as Samuel prayed for them.
The Israelites had turned back to the Lord from worshipping idols and sinning against him. And Samuel called them to gather at Mizpah so he could interecede to the Lord for them.
3 Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying ,"If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts to the Lord and serve him only and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.
4 Then the children of Israel put away Baals and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only.
5 Then Samuel said, "Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray for you to the Lord.
6 They gathered to Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day, and said there, "We have sinned against the Lord." And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.
4.2.2 Ahab fasted and humbled himself before the Lord after he was rebuked by Elijah for his sin against the Lord.
20And Ahab said to Elijah, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" And he answered," I have found you because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord.
21Behold, I will bring disaster upon you and will take away your posterity and will cut off from Ahab every male bond or free from Israel.
22And will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah because of the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger and made Israel sin.
27And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went around meekly.
4.2.3 Joel rebukes Israel to repent before the Lord, fasting and crying out to the Lord for mercy.
13Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests. Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come and lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
14Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry to the Lord.
15Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty it shall come.
12 "Therefore also now," says the Lord, "Turn to me with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.
13 And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and relenting of evil.
14 Who knows if he will return and relent and leave a blessing behind him, even a grain offering and a drink offering to the Lord your God?
15Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly.
4.2.5 The Lord rebukes the Israelites and says that because of their sins, he will refuse to listen to their cry when they fast.
The Lord brought a drought on the land of Israel because of their sin. The Jews pleaded with the Lord to turn back to them and not forsake them. But it was too late, the Lord rejected their pleas.
10Thus says the Lord to this people, "Thus have they loved to wander. They have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord does not accept them. He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.
12When they fast, I will not hear their cry and when they offer burnt offering and a grain offering, I will not accept them, but I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence.
4.2.6 The Israelites declared a fast as they humbled themselves and listened to the Word of the Lord proclaimed.
9Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.
10Then Baruch read from the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the New Gate of the Lord's house, to all the people.
4.2.7 Daniel fasted and prayed in the name of Israel, confessing their sins before the Lord.
of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
5 we have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and from your judgments.
4.2.8 Nehemiah fasted and wept over the suffering of his people in Jerusalem because of their sins against the Lord.
In this passage, Nehemiah who is living in the Susa, the capital of the Persian empire, hears that the Jews living in Jerusalem were in gretb distress and suffering. He is deeply distraught over the bad news and humbles himself before the Lord and fasts and prays for their deliverance.
5And said, I beseech you, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and mercy for those who love him and observe his commandments.
6Let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open, that you might hear the prayer of your servant which I am praying before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against you. Both I and my father's house have sinned.
7We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which you commanded your servant Moses.
4.2.9 Israel repented, fasting and confessing their sins before the Lord.
1Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloth, and dirt upon them.
2The descendents of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
3And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God for one quarter of the day and for another fourth they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God.
This purpose for fasting is not needed for the believer in Jesus Christ because Jesus bore our sins on the cross and showed us the ultimate mercy in him. We do not need to plead for the Lord's mercy we have already received it in Jesus.
Who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
4.3 The third purpose of fasting is to give physical expression to the believer's humble dependence on God as he or she desperately prays for his help in a time of crisis.
4.3.1 David fasted and prayed to God for help from his enemies.
2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They also surrounded me with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause.
4 For my friendship they became my adversaries, but I give myself to prayer.
21 But you, O God the Lord, help me for your name's sake because your mercy is good, deliver me.
23 I am passing like the shadow when it declines. I am tossed up and down as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh fails of fatness.
4.3.2 David prayed and fasted to the Lord that he would not take the life of his son.
16 David therefore sought God for the child. David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the earth.
17 The elders of his household arose and went to him to raise him up from the earth, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
18 It came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died.
After David's child died, David began to eat again. This startled his servants and they questioned him. His answer brings out the reason and purpose for fasting which is to move the hand of God in desperate prayer.
21 Then his servants said to him, "What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while the child was alive, but when the child was dead, you rose and ate bread".
22 And he said, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me so that the child may live?
4.3.3 Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast as he sought the Lord in prayer for protection from an invading army.
1 It came to pass after this also, that the sons of Moab and the sons of Ammon and with them the Meunites came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
3 And Jehoshaphat was afraid and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4 And Judah gathered themselves together to ask the help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
4.3.4 Ezra and the people of Israel prayed and fasted for the Lord's help when they were filled with fear of their enemies.
21 Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him a safe journey for us and for our little ones, and for all our possessions.
22 For I was ashamed to request of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way because we had spoken to the king, saying, "The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.
23 So we fasted and sought our God for this and he listened to us.
4.4 The fourth purpose of fasting is to give physical expression to the believer's humble dependence on God as he or she earnestly seeks his help in furthering the spread of his kingdom.
4.4.1 Anna the prophetess earnestly fasted for the Lord to bring his messiah and kingdom.
37 And she was a widow for about eighty-four years. She never departed from the temple and served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
38 And coming up at that moment she gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna was an OT believer who was obviously committed to the Lord. Luke tells us that she worshipped (literally "served" Greek – latreuw) in the temple night and day never leaving. She served in the temple and spent her days and nights fasting and praying before the Lord.
Anna's fasting displayed her humble dependence on the Lord as she earnestly seeks his help in furthering the spread of his kingdom. This can be seen in the phrase "those who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem." Her deep concern was the redemption of Israel by the coming messiah. She went to those who were like her awaiting the messiah. They were committed to praying and seeking God to move his divine hand and bring the messiah to his people to redeem them from their distress and set up his kingdom.
4.4.2 Saul fasted when he was blinded by the Lord.
In Acts 9, the Lord Jesus appears to Paul on the Damascus Road and calls him into a ministry of preaching to the Gentiles. Paul is blinded by the experience. For three days following, Luke tells us that he didn't eat or drink.
9 And he was three days without sight and he neither ate nor drink.
Paul must have been deeply troubled by the vision of the one whose followers he had been persecuting and the one he consider a blasphemer. Yet, this Jesus not only forgave him, but called him as his ambassador. But, Jesus did blind him possibly to express his displeasure over Paul's persecution of believers and to humble him.
Paul's fasting was obviously an expression of the deep sorrow he felt over his sin against Christ. Yet, Paul must have also grasped the serious nature of the mission Jesus had given him. He must have prayed to the Lord for help in this divine calling.
His fast stops when Ananias comes to him and he receives his sight back.
18 And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales and he received sight and arose, and was baptized.
19 And when he had received food, he was strengthened.
Selecting leaders and accomplishing ministry was a serious responsibility of church leaders in furthering God's kingdom. The leaders must humbly depend on the Lord for guidance. It is not surprising that their humble dependence and seriousness is expressed in prayer and fasting.
1 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
3 And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
23 And when they had appointed elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they believed.
Although God did not establish fasting, he accepted it as long as it was done with the attitude of humility and it came out of a life of obedience.
5.1 God condemns fasting that does not come out of a righteous life.
God condemned Israel through the prophet Isaiah for fasting and seeking him while living unrighteously before him.
4 Behold, you fast for strife and contention and to hit with the wicked fist. You will not fast as you do this day, to make your voice heard on high.
God tells them that he desires a fast that is done in the midst of people dealing justly with each other.
6 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 you break every yoke?
The Lord rebukes the Jews for fasting and mourning with the wrong attitude and unrighteous lives.
5 "Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did you fast to me?
6 And when you ate and when you drank, did not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
9 "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Administer true judgment and show mercy and compassion to each other.
10 And do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the stranger, or the poor and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
5.2 Jesus taught that fasting should not be done out of pride, desiring the praise of others.
In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus spoke to the Jews and rebuked them for their sinful attitude of heart as they practiced fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.
16 Moreover when you fast, do not put on a sad countenance as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces so that they may appear to men to fast. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.
18 so that you do not appear to men to fast, but to your Father who is in secret and your Father, who sees in secret, shall reward you openly.
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus taught that fasting done from a prideful heart was worthless.
10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus within himself, 'God, I thank you that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
In this parable above, Jesus contrasts the heart of a prideful Pharisee and the heart of a humble tax collector. The Pharisee prided himself on fasting twice a week among other practices he did in following the Law. His heart was filled with pride and he looked down on others who didn't follow these practices. He completely misunderstood the purpose of fasting, which was to express humble dependence on God when a believer needed the Lord's help. He used it instead as a ritualistic practice to show his false righteousness before God.
The Scriptures do not give any instruction on how long to fast, but it does give the practice of the Jews. This clearly shows the Jews had clear limits and standards in terms of time periods during which they fasted. We have seen this earlier.
6.1 The Jews fasted for a limited amount of hours.
When the Jews fasted on minor fast days and during times of crisis, they did it from sunrise to sunset. That was their standard fast time. Only on the major fast days a year did they fast for a longer time. If the Jews fasted for several days in a crisis, they would fast from sunrise to sunset each day.
24 And the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day.
25 Benjamin went out against those from Gibeah the second day and destroyed eighteen thousand men of the sons of Israel. All these were armed with swords.
26 Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept and sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.
12 And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan, his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they were killed by the sword.
This is important because it shows that there is no Biblical justification for long extended fasts that are often touted today as an example of a deeper walk with God. Fasting was always for short periods of time. This also fits with fasting as the expression of a believer's humble dependence before God in seeking his help in a serious or desperate situation in his or her life.
But what about the long fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus? This brings us to the example of supernatural fasts in the Bible.
Are they examples of what Christians should be doing? The answer is no. The supernatural nature of their fasts demonstrate that these fasts by Moses, Elijah, and Jesus were a sign that God was at work in these three who were central in his plan of redemption.
The supernaturally prolonged fast was a miraculous sign of God's sustenance of his specially selected servants. They exemplified the truth "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."(Deut.8:3) That is, life is sustained ultimately not by food, but by God's power and sovereignty over human beings. It is also shows that trust and obeying God is more important than any physical activity including the very one that sustains life, eating. As all supernatural occurrences in the Scriptures, they are not to be taken as normative for the life of the believer.
Let's look at each of them briefly.
7.1 Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights while he was with the Lord on Mount Sinai.
Moses' prolonged fast on Mount Sinai was a miraculous sign of God's sustenance of human life (as Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone.") and a sign that Moses was God's servant and spokesman.
Moses was with the Lord for forty days and forty nights, worshipping, pleading with the Lord for his people, and writing out the Law. During that time Moses tells us that he did not eat or drink. It is possible that a human being can fast without food for forty days and forty nights, but not water. A human being can only last 3-5 days without water.
5 And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Later, Moses reminds the Israelites how the Lord had worked in his life the first time he was with him by keeping him alive and well as he went without food and water. Then he mentions the second time he was with the Lord after the tablets were destroyed when the Lord did the same miracle.
9 When I was gone up to the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I remained in the mountain forty days and forty nights, I did not eat bread or drink water.
17 And I took the two tablets and cast them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18 I fell down before the Lord as at the first forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread nor drink water because of all your sins which you committed in doing evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also.
This was a powerful sign that the Lord had indeed called Moses to lead the Israelites and was empowering him to accomplish his will.
Although in this supernatural fast, Moses does not model how long a believer should fast, he does model the heart of the praying and fasting believer. He was humbling himself before the Lord and asking him to be merciful to his sinful and rebellious people.
The supernatural element of Moses' fast established two important truths. First, God's power alone is necessary to sustain a man's life. Second, Moses is God's chosen servant who speaks for God. The Jews needed to know these two truths!
This was also the case with Elijah, the Prophet.
7.2 Elijah fasted for forty days as he travelled to Mount Horeb.
1 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had executed all the prophets with the sword.
3 And when he saw this he arose and ran for his life and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
6 Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.
8 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.
In 1 Kings, Elijah has been demonstrating to Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen of Israel, that God is supreme over all idols. Jezebel has sworn that she will destroy Elijah and Elijah flees. Tired and discouraged, Elijah sits down and falls asleep under a Juniper tree in the wilderness. An angel of the Lord appears to him to feed him and strengthen him in the Lord. Thus, Elijah is nourished by an angel from the Lord and is able to travel to Mount Horeb on the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights. To be able to fast for forty days and nights is not miraculous in itself, but to be able to travel while engaged in that fast is. Elijah would not have been strong enough to travel after several weeks without food. It takes supernatural power from the Lord.
Again, this is a sign to Elijah from the Lord himself that the Lord was with Elijah to sustain his life and give him the strength to have victory over Jezebel. Elijah was a prominent person in God's plan of redemption. Later, Jesus said that John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah.
Is this the norm for believers in the OT? No. It was never imitated by any OT believers.
7.3 Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness.
The Lord Jesus initiates his ministry with a forty day fast in the wilderness before presenting himself to Israel as the messiah. Like, Elijah, fasting (abstaining from food) for forty days is not miraculous, but it is a sign of the significant ministry Jesus was to have and his obedience to God the Father. During those forty days and afterward, Jesus had to stand against Satan's temptation to misuse His supernatural power. God the Father sustained him supernaturally so he could withstand the temptations in such a weakened physical state.
2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
Even though he was in that weakened condition, he was able to turn from his own desire for food and turn his heart to trust and obedience to God his Father.
Is Jesus' forty day and night fast to be imitated? No. Like Elijah's, Jesus' fast was a supernatural sign to show the true identity of Jesus. This example from Jesus was not followed by any of his disciples as recorded in the Scriptures.
To understand fasting in the Jewish mind you must understand feasting in the Jewish mind because fasting is the opposite of feasting.
Feasting is what one does to celebrate and display joy. Fasting is what one does to focus on prayer and display seriousness or sorrow. Feasting is a physical expression of joy. Fasting is a physical expression of sorrow or seriousness.
Feasting is not about gluttony and fasting is not about starvation. Feasting is not about what food does for the body and fasting is not about what a lack of food does for the body.
Feasting is not about indulgence of food and fasting is not about deprivation of food. Feasting is not about selfishness and self-indulgence and fasting is not about sacrifice and self-denial.
Fasting was never done to make a sacrifice to God of self-denial. It was never a penance. It was always a part of prayer and a serious or sorrowful heart.
Fasting is not commanded by God in the OT and fasting is never commanded in the NT. That means it is an option. The reason it is an option is because it is never done for the sake of itself. It is always done because the Christian wants to do it because of his seriousness or sorrow and it is meaningful to him or her.
Fasting is like kneeling or any other physical expression of the inward heart.
You can't command people to kneel or fast because kneeling or fasting is not something that one does ritualistically or legalistically. Kneeling and fasting before God are physical expressions of the seriousness and desperation we feel before God. They are natural expressions of humility, of serious petition before God, of sorrow before God. Anything short of that makes fasting or kneeling meaningless.
Fasting will turn to gladness in the kingdom.
When Jesus comes and bring his kingdom to earth, there will be no need for fasting because there will be no sorrow or desperate situations as Jesus reigns.
1. Kent D. Berghuis, "A Biblical Perspective on Fasting," BSac 158 (2001): 97-101.