The Day of Atonement, known as Yom Kippur, is one of the most serious days God established in the Torah. Yet one of its commands has raised a question for centuries: what does “afflict your souls” actually mean?

Does God command a complete fast without food or water? Is the aim for a person to suffer physically as much as possible? Or is there something deeper behind the expression?

If we set later tradition aside and begin with the biblical text itself, the picture becomes much more interesting.

What does the Torah actually say?

In the description of the Day of Atonement, Leviticus sets the observance on the tenth day of the seventh month and calls the people to humble themselves and cease their ordinary work (Leviticus 16:29).

A similar command is repeated in Leviticus 23:27–32.

It is important to notice what the text says-and what it does not say.

The command is for a person to “afflict,” “humble,” or “deny” their soul, depending on the translation. The text does not simply say: “Do not eat or drink.”

That does not mean fasting has nothing to do with the expression. On the contrary, the rest of the Tanakh shows that fasting can be one way of humbling oneself before God. But saying that fasting is associated with humbling the soul is not the same as saying the entire command can be reduced to a set number of hours without food and water.

That distinction matters.

Isaiah explains the problem with fasting without a changed heart

One of the most important passages for understanding this subject is Isaiah 58.

The people ask why their fasting and self-humbling have gone unnoticed by God (Isaiah 58:3).

So the people themselves connect their fasting with “afflicting the soul.”

But God’s answer is surprising.

He does not tell them to go hungry for even longer.

Instead, he challenges whether a day of outward gestures-bowed heads, sackcloth, and ashes-is the fast he desires (Isaiah 58:5).

The problem was not that the people had skipped too few meals.

The problem was that they displayed humility outwardly while continuing to live unjustly.

They fasted, yet quarreled.

They humbled their bodies, but not their pride.

They displayed religion, but did not change how they treated other people.

That is why God describes the fast he wants as breaking oppression and sharing food with the hungry (Isaiah 58:6–7).

Here we reach the heart of the matter.

God does not ask for hunger for hunger’s sake

Isaiah 58 does not portray God as someone whose aim is to see how long a person can go without food.

Quite the opposite.

Physical self-denial that produces no humility, repentance, justice, mercy, or change in life can become a religious performance.

A person can go all day without eating and still have a heart that is completely unchanged.

They can be hungry and still be proud.

They can be thirsty and still be merciless.

They can spend the whole day waiting for the fast to end while hardly thinking about God at all.

In that situation, the stomach was empty, but the soul was not humble.

That is exactly the danger Isaiah warns about.

What, then, does it mean to “afflict the soul”?

The biblical expression should be understood as much more than simply starving oneself.

To humble your soul before God means to stand before him without excuses.

It means admitting your own sin.

Examining your actions.

Setting your ego aside.

Forgiving others.

Making right the injustice we are able to correct.

Repenting where we know we are doing wrong.

Helping someone who needs help.

Turning away from a sin we keep defending.

And perhaps hardest of all, acknowledging that God is right-even when we would rather be the one who is right.

That kind of “affliction of the soul” can be far more uncomfortable than skipping a few meals.

Hunger passes.

Pride is much harder to break.

But were animal sacrifices not offered on the Day of Atonement?

They were.

That cannot be separated from the biblical Day of Atonement.

Leviticus 16 describes in detail the high priest’s service, the blood of the sacrifices, the Most Holy Place, and the cleansing of the people.

That creates a very important problem for anyone today who wants to “celebrate Yom Kippur as it is in the Torah.”

We cannot simply take one part of the ritual-the fast-and act as though the rest of the chapter does not exist.

The biblical Day of Atonement was not just a day of fasting.

At its center were the high priest, the Most Holy Place, the altar, and the sin offering.

And this is where the New Testament gives an answer to how the day should be understood after Christ.

Christ and the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement

The Letter to the Hebrews uses the very images of the high priest, the Most Holy Place, and blood to explain Christ’s sacrifice.

For the Old Testament high priest, entering the Most Holy Place was an event that had to be repeated.

Hebrews says that Christ entered the Most Holy Place once for all through his own blood and obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12).

That completely changes the believer’s perspective.

If Christ’s sacrifice was made once for all, then for a person who believes in Christ, the Day of Atonement can no longer be an attempt to earn through hunger the forgiveness they lack.

Hebrews adds that one sacrifice has perfected forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:14).

That is why a believer does not fast in order to pay for sin through suffering.

Christ has already done what no person could ever accomplish through their own suffering.

Should we fast on the Day of Atonement, then?

Fasting can have value.

A person may voluntarily give up food to step back from everyday comforts, discipline themselves, and devote more time to God.

But there is a very important boundary.

Fasting is a means, not an end.

If fasting helps someone humble themselves before God, pray, reflect on their life, and direct their attention toward him, it can make sense.

But if the whole day becomes a series of thoughts like:

“How many hours are left?”

“How hungry am I?”

“How thirsty am I?”

“When can I finally eat?”

then it is possible that the means has completely swallowed the goal.

The person is no longer thinking about God.

They are thinking about surviving the fast.

And it is hard to claim that this is exactly what God wanted when he told people to humble their souls.

Fasting is not a currency with which we buy forgiveness

This is probably the most important thing to understand.

No amount of hunger can pay for sin.

No number of hours spent thirsty can wash a person’s conscience clean.

And no single religious day each year can make up for a life spent far from God.

God had already condemned that kind of thinking through the prophet Isaiah.

And through Christ we receive an even clearer picture: final cleansing does not come from our suffering, but from his sacrifice.

For that reason, the Day of Atonement should not be a contest over who can last the longest without water.

It should be a day when we seriously consider why cleansing was needed in the first place.

How, then, can we observe the Day of Atonement today?

We can begin with what the Torah undeniably calls for: seriousness, setting aside time for God, and humility before him.

That may mean completely setting aside our ordinary work for the day-even the work we depend on for a living-and spending time in prayer, reading Scripture, and examining our lives.

We can read Leviticus 16 and understand what the original Day of Atonement looked like.

Then we can read Isaiah 58 and ask whether our devotion is visible only in rituals or also in the way we treat other people.

After that, we can read Hebrews 9 and 10 and understand why Christ’s sacrifice is described in language that so strongly recalls the Day of Atonement.

We can confess our sins to God.

Apologize to someone we have wronged.

Forgive someone we have persistently refused to forgive.

Help someone who does not have enough.

Give up something that usually occupies our attention.

And we can fast, if we do so as a means of humility, not as the price of forgiveness.

But the goal is not to finish the day exhausted and proud that we “managed it.”

The goal is to finish it closer to God than when we began.

Afflict the stomach or humble the soul?

Perhaps that is the very question the Day of Atonement asks each of us.

It is easier not to eat for a day than to change your life.

It is easier to be hungry than to admit that you were wrong.

It is easier to put on a religious appearance than to give up pride.

It is easier to endure a few uncomfortable hours than to forgive an enemy, help the poor, make right an injustice, or leave behind a sin we love.

That is why Isaiah does not allow us to reduce “afflicting the soul” to an empty stomach.

God seeks a person who will humble themselves from within.

And for those who believe in Christ, the Day of Atonement carries an even deeper message.

We do not observe it in an attempt to pay the price for sin again.

We observe it by remembering how serious sin is, how much we need cleansing, and who has already paid that price.

We do not need to prove to God how much we can suffer. We need to let God change who we are.