Isaiah 59:1-11
Isa 59:1
Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot
save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
The LORD’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save.
The shortened arm represents diminished power in a person and here they
are making the allusion that the LORD’s power has been diminished to the point
it can no longer save. They
probably had in mind the coming Babylonian captivity and were hoping God would
save them out of it. The LORD’s
power has never diminished but he has the right to withhold that power in
certain situations. The same thing
with his hearing. His ear is not
heavy or dull of hearing and he hears everything that is spoken and every prayer
that is said but he has the right to refuse to hear any prayers or supplications
in certain situations especially the one named in the next verse.
Isa 59:2
But your iniquities have separated between you and your
God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
The reason they were going into captivity and that it
could not be avoided was because Judah had become filled with iniquity or
wickedness and their constant sinning caused God to turn his face from them.
Judah was still his people but their sinning ways had separated them from
the LORD. How could the LORD
intervene with blessings when they were sinning mightily against him?
He could not until all the sins were expunged from them and that would
take seventy years. This is also a
good verse for Christians. Many
times we pray and it seems God does not answer when in essence he is withholding
the answer until some sin in our lives is dealt with.
God could not bless Judah until they completely rid themselves of all
idolatry.
Isa 59:3
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers
with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered
perverseness.
Then the LORD points out to them the sins that they have
been guilty of and what has separated them from him.
This may be in the time of Manasseh who was a very wicked king.
There was much murder among them in the pursuit of gaining the lands and
wealth off the poor people. Not
only were their hands guilty of iniquity before the LORD but even their fingers
were involved which means down to the smallest sin.
They were notorious for lies as they would make false accusations against
people in the courts or they would just speak lies against someone to gain a
consensus among the people for evil gain.
Then what they speak with the tongue has already been mused over in their
mind. They made plans on what they
would say and how they would execute the words for maximum effect.
Isa 59:4
None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for
truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring
forth iniquity.
None calls for justice which means there was no concern
for what was right or wrong plus there was no true justice even among the
leaders toward the people. Whoever
could afford to bribe the judge would win the case.
For I know your manifold
transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe,
and they turn aside the poor in the gate
from their right. (Amos 5:12)
They trust in vanity, that is, empty words and platitudes and there is no
reality in their speech. They also
conceive or create all kinds of mischief which is iniquity or perverseness and
then when they have made their plans they execute those plans which is nothing
more than iniquity or wickedness.
When we look at these sins, we gain a better understanding why they had to be
chastised for seventy years so all these evil ways would be removed from them.
Isa 59:5
They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web:
he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into
a viper.
Their sins are compared to the hatching of a cockatrice
egg which would be the poisonous viper.
Those eggs would the nefarious plans that they have contrived of their
own evil minds. The spider’s web is
designed to catch insects so the spider would be able to devour them.
It represents the sinful concoctions these people invented so they could
catch other in their web of evil both to join them and to attack those who
oppose them as we will see later in this chapter.
Those that eat of their eggs which is those who join with them will not
prosper because just as those eggs are venomous so is the evil plans of man
which lead to nothing but destruction.
Then if someone desires to foil the plans of the evil men, then the eggs
will be hatched like a viper and those men will be attacked by the evil men as a
viper attacks its prey.
Isa 59:6
Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they
cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and
the act of violence is in their hands.
The spider webs which are very fragile to the human will
not be able to become garments, that is, the results of their evil activities
will be like clothing made out of a spider’s web, it will be very weak and
useless. Their works shall not be
able to cover them either as they find out that all their scheming will come to
nothing.
Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose
trust shall be a spider's web.
(Job 8:14) Their works are
nothing but wickedness and their works only exude a violent nature to gain what
they want. These things will never
benefit them as they will lose everything when they are taken to Babylon.
Oppressing their own people will prove detrimental to them as they must
give account for these actions on Judgment Day.
When embracing the ways of the world, one can only expect defeat.
Isa 59:7
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed
innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and
destruction are in their paths.
Their feet run to evil which means they are quick to
embrace any evil act or scheme if they think that it will yield them a profit.
They are not even averse to shed the blood of the innocent people if they
think it would bring them some kind of profit or increase their standing in the
community. Their thoughts are also
sourced in all kinds of iniquity as they have lost their fear of God and
replaced him with their greed and false gods.
The wicked, through the pride of
his countenance, will not seek after
God: God is not in all
his thoughts. (Psalm 10:4) They
made no effort to seek the LORD and repent of their vast iniquities.
Then the only thing that gives evidence of their presence is waste and
destruction wherever they go.
Wasting carries the meaning of “violence, desolation and robbery.”
Then the result of their wasting will be destruction of whatever they
have set out to oppose. The problem
was that they were in the process of destroying themselves with their nefarious
schemes and plans.
Isa 59:8
The way of peace they know not; and there is no
judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth
therein shall not know peace.
Having peace with God brings the blessings of the LORD
but these people lacked that peace with God plus they would have also lacked
inner peace and were always scheming to gain more and more which means they
would never experience any type of peace.
There is no judgment in their goings, that is, no equity, fairness, faith
or integrity in their dealings with other people.
They have produced their own crooked paths and they can blame no one but
themselves. The crooked path is the
life of sin in opposition to God who takes the crooked ways and straightens them
out.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every
mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and
the rough places plain: (Isaiah 40:4)
Then the admonishment is that anyone who joins forces with them will be
in the same predicament as the evil ones because they will never experience
inner peace and if they are the non-Elect of God, then will never have peace
with God in Christ.
Isa 59:9
Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice
overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but
we walk in darkness.
Then there was some type of realization on the part of
some of the people that because of the sins which were committed by them, they
had faced certain consequences.
There was no judgment for them in righteousness that God neither avenged their
enemies nor showed them any favor.
Remember in verse 2 that God withheld his intervention from them and let them
progress in their sins. They had no
justice as they had doled out their own methods of justice which amounted to
evil and there was no proper justice in Judah because all was being ordered
according to sinful desires. They
hold darkness as their light because they have thrown out the light of God out
of their camp and took to worshipping false gods which are only darkness and
that is what they walked in. This
is a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28:67.
In the morning thou shalt say,
Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
thine eyes which thou shalt see. (Deuteronomy 28:67)
There was never any part of the day which was not taken up with evils
schemes and practices and as a result was continual darkness.
Isa 59:10
We grope for the wall like the 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.
This is the only two places in the Old Testament where we
find the word grope. Just like a
blind man who uses his hands to guide his way, the people of Judah had become so
spiritually blind that they could not even find their way and had to grope like
a blind person seeking to find a wall or a familiar place to either sit or guide
him home. Then they grope as if
they had no eyes which basically repeats the consequences of the first part of
this verse. To have no eyes means
they never could see and had to rely on familiar paths to guide them.
The familiar paths that Judah chose was that of the false gospels along
with their idols. Then their
spiritual condition was so bad that they likened it to stumbling at high noon as
if it was midnight. Spiritual
blindness knows no time of day as a person continually walks in darkness if they
are unsaved. Then they liken
themselves to desolate places as dead men and the most desolate place a dead man
can inhabit is a cemetery. They
walked as dead men in a cemetery without the light of the true gospel
penetrating them and resurrecting their souls to newness of life.
Free among the dead, like the
slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off
from thy hand. (Psalm 88:5)
Isa 59:11
We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we
look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far
off from us.