Charles Spurgeon Commentary Isaiah 58:6

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?" — Isaiah 58:6 (ASV)

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?

Yes, this is true fasting before God—not to demand your pound of flesh, and declare that you will have it; not to grind down the poor man to the last farthing; but to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.

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 you break every yoke?

That is the kind of fasting which God cares for—when a man stops oppressing those who toil for him, when he makes their tasks lighter, when he seeks their comfort, when he no longer grinds them between the millstones that threaten to crush the life out of them.

To undo the heavy burdens,

Not to exact from a man what you have no right to have, but what, perhaps, the law may allow you to get out of him. This is God's fasting – to undo the heavy burdens.