Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 59

Verse 3

59:3 For your hands are defiled with {a} blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath uttered perverseness.

(a) Read Isaiah 1:15 .

Verse 4

59:4 None calleth for justice, nor [any] {b} pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and {c} bring forth iniquity.

(b) All men wink at the injuries and oppressions and none go about to remedy them.

(c) According to their wicked devices, they hurt their neighbours.

Verse 5

59:5 They hatch {d} eggs of an adder, and weave the spider’s {e} web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

(d) Whatever comes from them is poison, and brings death.

(e) They are profitable to no purpose.

Verse 9

59:9 Therefore is {f} judgment far from us, neither doth {g} justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, [but] we walk in darkness.

(f) That is, God’s vengeance to punish our enemies.

(g) God’s protection to defend us.

Verse 10

59:10 We grope for the wall like the {h} blind, and we grope as if [we had] no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; [we are] in desolate places as dead [men].

(h) We are altogether destitute of counsel, and can find no end to our miseries.

Verse 11

59:11 We all roar like {i} bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation, [but] it is far from us.

(i) We express our sorrows by outward signs, some more and some less.

Verse 12

59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our {k} sins testify against us: for our transgressions [are] with us; and [as for] our iniquities, we know them;

(k) This confession is general to the Church to obtain remission of sins, and the prophets did not exempt themselves from the same.

Verse 13

59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of {l} falsehood.

(l) That is, against our neighbours.

Verse 14

59:14 And {m} judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

(m) There is neither justice nor uprightness among men.

Verse 15

59:15 Yea, truth faileth; and he [that] departeth from evil maketh himself {n} a prey: and the LORD saw [it], and it displeased him that [there was] no judgment.

(n) The wicked will destroy him.

Verse 16

59:16 And he saw that [there was] no man, and wondered that [there was] no intercessor: {o} therefore his arm brought {p} salvation to him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

(o) Meaning, to do justice, and to remedy the things that were so far out of order.

(p) That is, his Church or his arm helped itself and did not seek aid from any other.

Verse 17

59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an {q} helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance [for] clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

(q) Signifying that God has all means at hand to deliver his Church and to punish their enemies.

Verse 18

59:18 According to [their] deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the {r} isles he will repay recompence.

(r) That is, your enemies who dwell in various places, and beyond the sea.

Verse 19

59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall {s} come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

(s) He shows that there will be great affliction in the Church, but God will always deliver his.

Verse 20

59:20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to {t} them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.

(t) By which he declares that the true deliverance from sin and Satan belongs to none but to the children of God, whom he justifies.

Verse 21

59:21 As for me, this [is] my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that [is] upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, {u} shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

(u) Because the doctrine is made profitable by the virtue of the Spirit, he joins the one with the other, and promises to give them both to his Church for ever.