Isa 59:1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Isa 59:3 For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
Isa 59:4 No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
Isa 59:5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
Isa 59:6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.
Isa 59:7 Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways.
Isa 59:8 The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.
Isa 59:9 So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
Isa 59:10 Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.
Isa 59:11 We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Isa 59:12 For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities:
Isa 59:13 rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived.
Judgment and Redemption
Isa 59:14 So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.
Isa 59:15 Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.
Isa 59:16 He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.
Isa 59:17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
Isa 59:18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due.
Isa 59:19 From the west, people will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along.
Isa 59:20 “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the LORD.
Isa 59:21 “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD.
1 The damnable nature of sin. 3 The sins of the Jews. 9 Calamity is for sin. 16 Salvation is only of God. 20 The covenant of the Redeemer.
Isa 59:1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
Many in Israel attributed the difficulties that beset their nation to inability on the part of God to deliver them. They had come to conceive of Him as the heathen did of their gods; they thought of Jehovah as a local deity whose power was limited and who, it seemed, was not even able to protect Israel from the gods and armies of the nations about them.
They blamed Him for their woes. The Lord now answers their cavils—the fault lies not with Him, but with them. God is still strong and good, His arm is still powerful, and His ear still attentive to the cries of His children. He can, and will, help when hindrances are removed.
His ear is not to dull to hear. The difficulty was with Israel’s spiritual perceptions, not with God’s (see ch. 6:9, 10).
Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Sin erects a barrier between man and God. If heaven seems far distant from earth, it is because sin has hung a veil of separation between man and God.
Isa 59:3 For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
Isaiah here repeats the accusation made in ch. 1:15. Although the Jews made a vigorous profession of religion, their words and works were consistently evil.
Isa 59:4 No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
No one calls for justice. Literally, “none calls in righteousness.” The context makes it clear that Isaiah refers to the administration of justice. The thought is that when men enter suit at law they do so, not to achieve strict justice, but to secure the sanction of the courts for unjust and oppressive acts.
Isa 59:5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
Leaders and people were constantly thinking evil thoughts that would hatch out into wicked deeds.
Isa 59:6 Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.
A spider web is unsuitable for clothing, and he who presumes to clothe himself therewith merely reveals his shame and folly. Those who engage in weaving spiders’ webs waste their time producing something that is not only utterly useless, but harmful.
Isa 59:7 Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways.
The words “rush” and “swift” depict the eagerness and intensity with which these men engage in evil. Their conscience is not asleep; it is dead. Having completed one act of iniquity, they are impatient to engage in another. Compare Prov. 1:16; 6:17, 18; Micah 7:3.
Shed innocent blood.
Manasseh “shed innocent blood very much” (2 Kings 21:16). God decreed that Gen 9:6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. When Judah faced its doom, its leaders were given over to “covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence” (Jer. 22:17).
One of the conditions upon which God promised to avert the doom of Jerusalem was that the people “oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood” (Jer. 7:6).
In the days of Noah, God saw that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Similarly, the schemes of evil men today bode ill for our generation (see on Matt. 24:37, 38).
Evil thoughts beget evil deeds. Attempts to thwart evil when it reaches the stage of action are largely futile. The only effective way to prevent evil deeds is to transform the thoughts. It is this aspect of the law that Christ sets forth in the Sermon on the Mount (see on Matt. 5:17–22).
Isa 59:8 The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.
Those who would enjoy peace must first think peaceful thoughts. Peace is the product of right thinking and right action (see ch. 32:17). God’s people enjoy peace (ch. 32:18) because they have peace in their hearts. Herein lies the remedy for the world’s distress and woe.
Isa 59:9 So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.
In vs. 1–8 God has been addressing the people. Now they reply, admitting God’s charges against them.
Israel anticipated the fulfillment of the covenant promises without meeting the covenant obligations. They expected to enjoy all its privileges without accepting its responsibilities. Accordingly, they reaped the curse for disobedience. Israel had no regard for justice, honesty, kindness, and mercy, and God would not plead their case against their oppressors.
To their sorrow they discovered that the measure they had meted out to others was to be measured back to them (see on Matt. 7:2). They were reaping what they had sown. They cried to God for succour, but the heavens above them seemed as brass and the earth beneath them seemed as iron (Deut. 28:23).
Isa 59:10 Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.
Verses 10–15 present a striking description of the results of transgression. When men refuse to walk in the way of right and justice God permits blindness to come upon them (Isa. 6:10; cf. Rom. 11:25). He allows them to walk in pathways of their own devising, pathways that inevitably lead into distress and perplexity. Men find themselves shut in, as it were, by walls of trouble. Blindly and in vain they grope about, seeking a way of escape. This was the very outcome Moses had foretold. (Deut. 28:20, 29).
Isa 59:11 We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Distress produces various effects—sometimes anger and bitterness, sometimes anguish and distress (see on v. 9). “There is no peace … to the wicked” (see on ch. 57:21).
Isa 59:12 For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities:
On behalf of the people of Judah, Isaiah now frankly acknowledges their transgressions (see on v. 9). They no longer endeavour to justify themselves. They have begun to collect the wages of sin (see Rom. 6:23; cf. James 1:15).
Isa 59:13 rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived.
Sin ever leads from God, never to Him. The path Israel was following led the nation further and further from the ideals God had set before them.
The people, as it were (see on v. 12), here frankly admit their guilt (see on v. 9), and in so doing take the first step back to the Lord. The successive steps essential to reformation are explained in ch. 58:5–14. This was Israel’s only hope of averting further calamity.
Judgment and Redemption
Isa 59:14 So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.
Isaiah here describes the sad state of affairs that prevailed in the courts of justice and in the private dealings of Jews with Jews. Justice is personified and pictured as having fled away for her own safety. She was fearful of venturing forth into the open.
Justice. Literally, “righteousness.” She too has been brushed aside and is a fugitive from the haunts of men. Truth has been attacked, and lies like a fallen warrior, trampled underfoot and unable to rise. Equity and integrity have been banished and dare not return. Such is the inevitable result when a nation turns its back on God and on divine law (see GC 584, 585).
Isa 59:15 Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.
With these words the section beginning with v. 9 closes. The times are so evil that an upright man finds his very life in danger. Such was the situation in Judah during the reign of Manasseh, who “shed innocent blood very much” (2 Kings 21:16).
The Lord looked. These words begin a new section. The divine indictment of Judah (vs. 9–15) has been concluded. The Lord now surveys the seemingly hopeless condition of Judah and offers Himself as a Saviour and Intercessor (see on ch. 53:12). It is encouraging to know that when a situation appears dark and discouraging to man, the Lord not only knows all about it, but stands ready to take steps that will bring relief.
Isa 59:16 He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.
In the crisis that had risen there was none able to provide relief (see Eze. 22:30). There was none to stay the threatened scourge, as did Aaron and Moses (Num. 16:47, 48), or Phinehas (Num. 25:7, 8). From a human point of view the situation appeared hopeless.
Help must come from God, as it did in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and repeatedly throughout the wilderness wanderings and the occupation of the Promised Land. God would work for His own name’s sake and for the sake of His stricken people.
They were estranged from the heavenly Father, and in dire need of help (see on vs. 1, 2, 9).
His own righteousness.
It is divine mercy that moves the Omnipotent One to intervene in behalf of His beleaguered people. The crisis that confronted Judah in the days of Isaiah, and later, threatened the nation with utter extinction. But, as so often in the book of Isaiah, Inspiration draws from the more immediate crisis a lesson of the most profound import concerning the great conflict between good and evil.
It is not only Judah that is involved, but all mankind. The utter helplessness of Judah before her enemies is here set forth as an example of the helplessness of the entire human race in its struggle against sin and the forces of evil. Without divine intervention man has no hope. Christ therefore offers Himself a ransom for many and enters upon the arduous pathway of conflict that will lead Him eventually to the cross.
Isa 59:17 He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak.
Isaiah pictures Christ as an armed warrior entering into the struggle for man’s salvation. This is war, but the conflict is not fought with carnal weapons. The breastplate and helmet are weapons of defence designed to protect the head and the breast, the two most vulnerable parts of the body (see Eph. 6:14, 17).
Christ was to carry the battle to the gates of the enemies of His people.
Wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. His zeal made Him fearless and struck terror to the forces of evil (see Ps. 69:9; 119:139).
Isa 59:18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due.
Isa 59:18 According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes; he will repay the islands their due.
To be just, judgment must be in proportion to guilt. When Christ returns, it will be to “give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12). The Lord “is slow to anger,” but the time comes when He will “take vengeance on his adversaries” and “will not at all acquit the wicked” (see on Nahum 1:2, 3).
Isa 59:19 From the west, people will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along.
Like Egypt of old, the nations are all bound to respect the power and majesty of God when He rises in defence of His people (see on ch. 45:23). When God’s “judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (ch. 26:9).
God’s final manifestation of power in behalf of His people will cause all to acknowledge Him, from one end of the earth to the other (Ps. 50:1–6; Mal. 1:11; Rev. 5:13; 15:3, 4).
Come in like a pent-upf lood. “Like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives
When the enemy comes in with seemingly irresistible force, and it appears that nothing can prevent him from pouring out his wrath on the righteous, God reveals His mighty power (v. 16). Again and again throughout history God has intervened in the most marvelous ways to deliver His people.
Such will again be the experience of God’s people in the great crisis at the end of time. At the moment the wicked of earth think they have the saints completely within their power, the Lord will manifest Himself, destroying their enemies and taking the saints home with Him to receive their inheritance.
Isa 59:20 “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the LORD.
This prophecy will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ. The Lord will then return to save His people—those who have turned from their transgressions and have accepted Him as their Saviour. In Rom. 11:26, 27 Paul applies similar words to the time when “all Israel shall be saved.”
Isa 59:21 “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD.