Isaiah 58:6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? Or approve, as before, Isaiah 58:5. Or ought not such a fast to be accompanied with such things as these? He now proceeds to show the concomitants of a true fast; namely, to exercise works of justice and charity. To loose the bands of wickedness Namely, the cruel obligations of usury and oppression. To undo the heavy burdens Hebrew, the bundles of the yoke, as in the margin; by which may possibly be intended bundles of writings, acknowledgments, bonds, mortgages, &c., which the usurers had lying by them. The former are thought to relate to unjust and unlawful obligations, extorted by force or fear, which the prophet would have cancelled: this latter, to just debts contracted through poverty and necessity, the rigour whereof he would have abated. And to let the oppressed go free Those grieved or vexed, whether by the griping of usury or the bonds of slavery, accompanied with cruel usage; or those confined or shut up in prisons; and that ye break every yoke Namely, which is grievous; that you free your dependants and servants, and all that are under your power, from all sorts of vexations and oppressions.