What Does Isaiah 58:6 Mean?
Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 ye break every yoke?THE KEY
The fast God chooses is a shalach: a release that sends the crushed out from under what holds them.
THE MEANING
This verse names devotion as opening the knots of injustice, loosening burdens, sending the crushed into freedom, and breaking every yoke. Its movement runs from what is fastened to what is released, restoring the oppressed person’s freedom of movement now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that religious restraint can count as devotion while oppression remains fastened in place.
THE ROOT
וְשַׁלַּח
veshallach
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send, send forth, release, let go.
“send away free” in this verse is veshallach. The Hebrew gathers sending and releasing into one movement: what is held is sent outward. In related branches, that movement can become provision spread on a table or healing carried by sent waters.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name associated with the sent waters.
שִׁלֹחַ
The waters of Shiloach flow from the same send-forth image, linking release with a movement that restores.
Shulchan: Table; provision spread out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The root’s outward movement also appears as provision extended, showing release as room and sustenance made available.
פַּתֵּחַ
pattēaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
Open.
“open the bonds” in this verse is pattēaḥ. The first movement is opening what has been knotted shut. The verse then continues through untying, sending out, and snapping the yoke: freedom is uncovered by undoing restraint.
ALSO GROWS
Patach: To open.
פָּתַח
This verb names the opening action that begins the verse’s sequence of release.
Petach: An opening or doorway.
פֶּתַח
The doorway image makes the result concrete: an opening appears where confinement had closed the way.
רְצוּצִים
retsutsim
GROWS FROM
רצץ
Crush, bruise, shatter.
The word describes people as crushed, making the force of oppression visible in their condition. The verse does not leave them under that name: it sends them out free and breaks the structure pressing on them.
ALSO GROWS
Ratsats: To crush or bruise.
רָצַץ
The root names the pressure that has been put on people, rather than treating their suffering as abstract.
Retsutsim: Crushed ones.
רְצוּצִים
This is the verse’s word for the oppressed, whom it places on the receiving end of release.
THE PATTERN
Godward devotion takes visible form as release from crushing structures and restored freedom.
Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.The same shalach root gives the words “Let my people go.” Here, release is the living measure of devotion: people held under a yoke are sent out into freedom.
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