“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Here we have, I. The displeasure which these hypocrites conceived against God for not accepting the services which they themselves had a mighty opinion of (Isa 58:3): Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Thus they went in the way of Cain, who was angry at God, and resented it as a gross affront that his offering was not accepted.
Commenting on Isaiah 58:3-7
Is not this the fast that I have chosen?.... Which God has appointed, he approves of, and is well pleasing in his sight; these are works and services more agreeable to him, which follow, without which the rest will be rejected: to loose the bands of wickedness; which some understand of combinations in courts of judicature to oppress and distress the poor; others of bonds...
loose . . . bands of wickedness--that is, to dissolve every tie wherewith one has unjustly bound his fellow men (Lev 25:49, &c.). Servitude, a fraudulent contract, &c. undo . . . heavy burdens--Hebrew, "loose the bands of the yoke." oppressed--literally, "the broken." The expression, "to let go free," implies that those "broken" with the yoke of slavery, are meant (Neh 5:10-12; Jer 34:9-11, Jer 34:14, Jer 34:16).