What Does Isaiah 58:6 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
“let go 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.
“loose” 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.
“oppressed” in this verse is retsutsim. 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.
Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto 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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