NOTES for Isa 59:1-21
1 Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: |
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. |
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. |
4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. |
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. |
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. |
7 Their feet run to evil, and they make hast to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
12 For 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; |
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 falsehood. |
14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. |
15 Yea, 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. |
16 And 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. |
17 For 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 cloke. |
18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence. |
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 come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. |
20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. |
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, 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. |
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Our iniquities separate us from God, and when we must deal with their consequences, we begin to blame Him, saying that He created a world mired in evil and tolerates it. But what about us? Why do we tolerate evil—and not merely tolerate it, but cherish and nurture it? Why have we agreed to regard evil as normal? Let us not shift the blame from the guilty to the innocent: it is not God who turned away from us, but we who turned away from Him. He does not want evil to triumph and rule, and He intends to eradicate it; that is precisely why the prophecy depicts Him here as an armed warrior ready for battle.
In fighting evil, He will also strike those who have placed themselves in evil's service. But if we regard sin as normal, do we not bring these blows upon ourselves, and do we not deserve them? Can we really say that we want God's victory when, out of a multitude of familiar and cherished sinful trifles, we constantly build barricades in His path?
These barricades will not stand before Him, but for a time they can hide Him from us.
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