Isaiah 59:9 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Therefore is judgment far from us: this seems to be spoken in the person of those Jews that did partake of these sins, giving the reason by way of complaint of those evils that they groaned under. Justice: judgment, and so justice, is herb taken for deliverance, Isaiah 1:27: q.d. God doth not defend our right, nor revenge our wrong, nor deliver us, because of these outrages and acts of violence, injustice, and oppression that are committed among us; so that deliverance is called here judgment and justice by a metonymy of the efficient: q.d. If he had executed judgment and equity among one another, they would not now have been far from us. As works are sometimes put for the reward of works, Job 7:2 Psalms 109:20, so judgment and justice is put for the reward of judgment and justice. Or wicked men are in power and seats of judicature, that execute no judgment or justice in the behalf of the oppressed. We wait for light: how the Hebrews use light and darkness, see before on Isaiah 58:8,10. But we walk in darkness; or, mist; we are in such a thick mist, that which way soever we look, we see no way out, no hope of deliverance; we are still in captivity, and like so to be, till we see judgment and justice executed, and then we may expect good days.

Isaiah 59:9

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.