Isaiah 59 — with JFB Commentary
The King James text with the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary (1871, public domain) directly beneath the verses it explains. Verses without a JFB note stand alone.
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1Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
CHAPTER 59
Is 59:1-21. The People's Sin the Cause of Judgments: They at Last Own It Themselves: the Redeemer's Future Interposition in Their Extremity.
The reason why Jehovah does not deliver His people, notwithstanding their religious services (Is 58:3), is not want of power on His part, but because of their sins (Is 59:1-8); Is 59:9-15 contain their confession; Is 59:16-21, the consequent promise of the Messiah.
1. hand ... shortened--(See on Is 50:2).
ear heavy--(Is 6:10).
2But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
2. hid--Hebrew, "caused Him to hide" (La 3:44).
3For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
3. (Is 1:15; Ro 3:13-15).
hands ... fingers--Not merely the "hands" perpetrate deeds of grosser enormity ("blood"), but the "fingers" commit more minute acts of "iniquity."
lips ... tongue--The lips "speak" openly "lies," the tongue "mutters" malicious insinuations ("perverseness"; perverse misrepresentations of others) (Jr 6:28; 9:4).
4None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
4. Rather, "No one calleth an adversary into court with justice," that is, None bringeth a just suit: "No one pleadeth with truth."
they trust ... iniquity--(So Job 15:35; Psa 7:14).
5They 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.
5. cockatrice--probably the basilisk serpent, cerastes. Instead of crushing evil in the egg, they foster it.
spider's web--This refers not to the spider's web being made to entrap, but to its thinness, as contrasted with substantial "garments," as Is 59:6 shows. Their works are vain and transitory (Job 8:14; Pr 11:18).
eateth ... their eggs--he who partakes in their plans, or has anything to do with them, finds them pestiferous.
that which is crushed--The egg, when it is broken, breaketh out as a viper; their plans, however specious in their undeveloped form like the egg, when developed, are found pernicious. Though the viper is viviparous (from which "vi-per" is derived), yet during gestation, the young are included in eggs, which break at the birth [Bochart]; however, metaphors often combine things without representing everything to the life.
6Their 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.
6. not ... garments--like the "fig leaves" wherewith Adam and Eve vainly tried to cover their shame, as contrasted with "the coats of skins" which the Lord God made to clothe them with (Is 64:6; Ro 13:14; Ga 3:27; Php 3:9). The artificial self-deceiving sophisms of human philosophy (1Ti 6:5; 2Ti 2:16, 23).
7Their 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.
7. feet--All their members are active in evil; in Is 59:3, the "hands, fingers, lips, and tongue," are specified.
run ... haste--(Ro 3:15). Contrast David's "running and hasting" in the ways of God (Psa 119:32, 60).
thoughts--not merely their acts, but their whole thoughts.
8The 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.
8. peace--whether in relation to God, to their own conscience, or to their fellow men (Is 57:20, 21).
judgment--justice.
crooked--the opposite of "straightforward" (Pr 2:15; 28:18).
9Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
9. judgment far--retribution in kind because they had shown "no judgment in their goings" (Is 59:8). "The vindication of our just rights by God is withheld by Him from us."
us--In Is 59:8 and previous verses, it was "they," the third person; here, "us ... we," the first person. The nation here speaks: God thus making them out of their own mouth condemn themselves; just as He by His prophet had condemned them before. Isaiah includes himself with his people and speaks in their name.
justice--God's justice bringing salvation (Is 46:13).
light--the dawn of returning prosperity.
obscurity--adversity (Jr 8:15).
10We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
10. grope--fulfilling Moses' threat (De 28:29).
stumble at noon ... as ... night--There is no relaxation of our evils; at the time when we might look for the noon of relief, there is still the night of our calamity.
in desolate places--rather, to suit the parallel words "at noonday," in fertile (literally, "fat"; Ge 27:28) fields [Gesenius] (where all is promising) we are like the dead (who have no hope left them); or, where others are prosperous, we wander about as dead men; true of all unbelievers (Is 26:10; Lu 15:17).
11We 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.
11. roar--moan plaintively, like a hungry bear which growls for food.
doves--(Is 38:14; Eze 7:16).
salvation--retribution in kind: because not salvation, but "destruction" was "in their paths" (Is 59:7).
12For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
12. (Da 9:5, &c.).
thee ... us--antithesis.
with us--that is, we are conscious of them (Job 12:3, Margin; Job 15:9).
know--acknowledge they are our iniquities.
13In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
13. The particulars of the sins generally confessed in Is 59:12 (Is 48:8; Jr 2:19, 20). The act, the word, and the thought of apostasy, are all here marked: transgression and departing, &c.; lying (compare Is 59:4), and speaking, &c.; conceiving and uttering from the heart.
14And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
14. Justice and righteousness are put away from our legal courts.
in the street--in the forum, the place of judicature, usually at the gate of the city (Zec 8:16).
cannot enter--is shut out from the forum, or courts of justice.
15Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
15. faileth--is not to be found.
he that departeth ... prey--He that will not fall in with the prevailing iniquity exposes himself as a prey to the wicked (Psa 10:8, 9).
Lord saw it--The iniquity of Israel, so desperate as to require nothing short of Jehovah's interposition to mend it, typifies the same necessity for a Divine Mediator existing in the deep corruption of man; Israel, the model nation, was chosen to illustrate his awful fact.
16And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
16. no man--namely, to atone by his righteousness for the unrighteousness of the people. "Man" is emphatic, as in 1Ki 2:2; no representative man able to retrieve the cause of fallen men (Is 41:28; 63:5, 6; Jr 5:1; Eze 22:30).
no intercessor--no one to interpose, "to help ... uphold" (Is 63:5).
his arm--(Is 40:10; 51:5). Not man's arm, but His alone (Psa 98:1; 44:3).
his righteousness--the "arm" of Messiah. He won the victory for us, not by mere might as God, but by His invincible righteousness, as man having "the Spirit without measure" (Is 11:5; 42:6, 21; 51:8; 53:11; 1Jo 2:1).
17For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
17. Messiah is represented as a warrior armed at all points, going forth to vindicate His people. Owing to the unity of Christ and His people, their armor is like His, except that they have no "garments of vengeance" (which is God's prerogative, Ro 12:19), or "cloak of zeal" (in the sense of judicial fury punishing the wicked; this zeal belongs properly to God, 2Ki 10:16; Ro 10:2; Php 3:6; "zeal," in the sense of anxiety for the Lord's honor, they have, Nu 25:11, 13; Psa 69:9; 2Co 7:11; 9:2); and for "salvation," which is of God alone (Psa 3:8), they have as their helmet, "the hope of salvation" (1Th 5:8). The "helmet of salvation" is attributed to them (Ep 6:14, 17) in a secondary sense; namely, derived from Him, and as yet only in hope, not fruition (Ro 8:24). The second coming here, as often, is included in this representation of Messiah. His "zeal" (Joh 2:15-17) at His first coming was but a type of His zeal and vengeance against the foes of God at His second coming (2Th 1:8-10; Re 19:11-21).
18According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.
18. deeds--Hebrew, "recompenses"; "according as their deeds demand" [Maurer]. This verse predicts the judgments at the Lord's second coming, which shall precede the final redemption of His people (Is 66:18, 15, 16).
islands--(See on Is 41:1). Distant countries.
19So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
19. (Is 45:6; Mal 1:11). The result of God's judgments (Is 26:9; 66:18-20).
like a flood--(Jr 46:7, 8; Re 12:15).
lift up a standard--rather, from a different Hebrew root, "shall put him to flight," "drive him away" [Maurer]. Lowth, giving a different sense to the Hebrew for "enemy" from that in Is 59:18, and a forced meaning to the Hebrew for "Spirit of the Lord," translates, "When He shall come as a river straitened in its course, which a mighty wind drives along."
20And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.
20. to Zion--Ro 11:26 quotes it, "out of Zion." Thus Paul, by inspiration, supplements the sense from Psa 14:7: He was, and is come to Zion, first with redemption, being sprung as man out of Zion. The Septuagint translates "for the sake of Zion." Paul applies this verse to the coming restoration of Israel spiritually.
them that turn from--(Ro 11:26). "shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob"; so the Septuagint, Paul herein gives the full sense under inspiration. They turn from transgression, because He first turns them from it, and it from them (Psa 130:4; La 5:21).
21As 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, 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.
21. covenant with them ... thee--The covenant is with Christ, and with them only as united to Him (He 2:13). Jehovah addresses Messiah the representative and ideal Israel. The literal and spiritual Israel are His seed, to whom the promise is to be fulfilled (Psa 22:30).
spirit ... not depart ... for ever--(Jr 31:31-37; Mt 28:20).