Isaiah 59:9-15 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Isaiah 59:9-15 a. The People Confess that their Piteous Plight is the Fruit of their Wrongdoing. The poet now joins himself to his people and, speaking in their name, owns the truth of the indictment in Isaiah 59:1-4. True! that is why we do not attain our right, and victory is not ours! No gleam of hope lightens our darkness. We grope like blind men along a wall instead of treading firmly. We stumble in broad daylight. We moan and murmur like growling bears or cooing doves. Right and deliverance seem ever further off, for our numberless rebellions bear witness before Thee against us. Their guilt is ever on our hearts rebellion and transgression against Yahweh, uttering perverseness (so read for oppression), defection, and lying words. So Right turns her back upon us and Victory keeps her distance, since Truth stumbles in our market-square, and Straight-dealing cannot make her way in. So Truth is not to be seen, and Insight departs from the city (cf. LXX).

Isaiah 59:10. Read (cf. mg.) We dwell in darkness like the dead (in the gloomy underworld).

Isaiah 59:13. in: delete.

Related Commentaries of Isaiah 59:9

Isaiah 59:9-15

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.