Isaiah 59:1-8 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Reader Related Verse
Bible Comments

Solely the Sins of the People Delay Yahweh's Intervention.

Isaiah 59:5-8, with their fantastic metaphors and bitter invective, are probably a later addition made in even gloomier times. Note the third person, and the good connexion between Isaiah 59:4 and Isaiah 59:9. Not the waning of Yahweh's power, nor His deafness, explains His failure to aid His people. Their sins are like a wall between them and the Divine Presence. In act and word they are cruel and false. In the law-courts false dealing and speaking rule; a just cause counts for less than lying words. (Isaiah 59:5-8 pictures the schemes of the wicked under two figures. They hatch out poisonous serpents-' eggs; anyone who eats the eggs dies, and if an egg is broken a young viper is disclosed. They weave spiders-' webs; but these are useless to cover their iniquity. They haste eagerly to accomplish their wicked purposes. In their pathway they leave ruin. The path of peace they pursue not, and no right-dealing marks their tracks, for they choose crooked ways.)

Isaiah 59:2. his face: literally, face, probably a proper noun used for the Divine Presence, the Shekinah.

Isaiah 59:4. pleadeth: in the legal sense.

Related Commentaries of Isaiah 59:1

Isaiah 59:1-8

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 hida 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 haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destructionb are in their paths.

8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgmentc in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.