Isaiah 59:14

Isaiah 59 moves in three steps: an account of the nation’s sin, a confession of that sin, and God’s promise of redemption. The first step is the prophet’s charge, with its hands stained by blood, lips that lie and feet quick to do evil (Isaiah 59:1–8). It begins by saying that the LORD’s power to save is as great as ever and his ear is open, and that the trouble lies with the people. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:2).

With verse 9 the speakers become “we” and “us”. The people take the charge as their own and describe what life is like on the far side of that separation. The opening “Therefore” joins the two parts, so that everything they lament in these verses is the result of the sins just listed. In verses 9 to 11 they describe their misery, in verses 12 and 13 they turn to God and name their guilt, and in verses 14 and 15 they describe the state of their society. Halfway through verse 15 the confession ends, and we are told what the LORD thinks of what he sees.

Isaiah prophesied in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1), in the time of the Assyrian threat, and his prophecy looks ahead through the Babylonian exile to the promise of return. Believers differ on which time this chapter speaks to most directly. Some hold that it describes Judah before the exile, and others that it describes the people during the exile or after their return, still struggling with oppression and unfaithfulness. In either setting the speakers are a people bound to the LORD by covenant, with blessing promised for obedience and curse for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28), and they have broken faith with him.

A confession like this is the first step toward restoration. Through Jeremiah the LORD calls his people to confess and return (Jeremiah 3:13), and here they do admit their guilt. The depth of what they confess also shows that they are unable to save themselves, so that rescue has to begin with God.

The first thing the people say is that judgment and justice are far from them. “Judgment” is mishpâṭ, from the verb shâphaṭ, to judge. It covers a verdict, a decree, God’s law, justice itself and a person’s right. “Justice” here is tsᵉdâqâh, which is often translated righteousness and means conformity to God’s standard, both in character and in just action. In Israel these two were the pillars of a society ordered by God’s covenant. When they are gone, the weak are exploited, wrongs stay unrighted, and God’s blessing is withdrawn. The phrase “neither doth justice overtake us” pictures righteousness as something that ought to be coming after them and catching them up, and it never arrives.

Then comes the picture of light. The people “wait for light”, ʼôwr, the word for illumination, which here stands for God’s truth, guidance, favour and salvation. What they find is “obscurity”, chôshek, a word for literal darkness that is also used for misery, ignorance, sorrow and wickedness. They hope for “brightness”, nᵉgôhâh, splendour, and they walk in “darkness”, ʼăphêlâh, thick gloom. The verb for walk, hâlak, means to go and also to behave, so the darkness is the way they live as well as the place where they find themselves.

Both words for darkness were used in the promise of the chapter before: “then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:10). That promise was made to people who would care for the hungry and the afflicted, and the light promised there has yet to come. The sorrow of the verse is that the people long for the very thing their own conduct has driven away. Jeremiah says the same to his generation, that their sins have withheld good things from them (Jeremiah 5:25). Proverbs says that judgment is beyond the understanding of evil men (Proverbs 28:5), and Jesus says that light has come into the world and men loved the darkness because their deeds were evil (John 3:19–20).

Verse 10 turns the darkness into blindness. To grope, gâshash, is to feel about with the hands. The people feel for a wall as a blind person does, looking for something steady to follow, a boundary or a guide that they are unable to find. “As if we had no eyes” presses the point further. They have eyes, and they behave as though they were sightless.

“We stumble at noonday as in the night” is the sharpest line of the verse. Noonday, tsôhar, is the brightest hour, and “night” here is nesheph, properly the dusk or twilight. To stumble, kâshal, is to totter, waver, stumble or fall. A person who stumbles at noon has a blindness that comes from within, since the light is all around. This is the covenant warning of Moses come true: “thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness” (Deuteronomy 28:29).

Scripture often uses light for God’s guidance, as when the psalmist calls God’s word a lamp (Psalm 119:105), and blindness for a people unable to perceive his will, as when the LORD calls his own servant blind (Isaiah 42:18–19). Proverbs says the way of the wicked is as darkness (Proverbs 4:19). Jesus speaks of blind leaders of the blind (Matthew 15:14), and Paul of minds that have been blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The verse ends with “we are in desolate places as dead men”. The Hebrew word behind “desolate places”, ʼashmân, is found only here, and Strong’s glosses it as a fat or fertile field. On that sense the people are among places that should be rich and are living there like the dead. “Dead” comes from mûwth, to die, and it describes people without life, strength or hope while they are still breathing. Paul states the principle in a sentence: the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

The people describe their grief with two animal sounds. To roar, hâmâh, is to make a loud sound and to be in commotion, and it is used of moaning, roaring and uproar. This is the loud side of their distress, a growl of frustration from people who feel trapped. The dove, yôwnâh, gives the quiet side. The verb for its mourning, hâgâh, means to murmur or moan, and the dove’s low, steady cooing pictures a sorrow that goes on and on. Hezekiah used the same verb and the same picture in his sickness: “I did mourn as a dove” (Isaiah 38:14). “All” tells us that the whole people is making these sounds together.

The second half of the verse says what they are grieving over. “We look” is qâvâh, to wait with expectation. They wait for mishpâṭ, for God to set things right, “but there is none”. They wait for salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh, a word for deliverance, rescue, aid and victory, and it is “far off”, râchaq, to be far. The same disappointed waiting is heard elsewhere in Scripture. Jeremiah’s people say, “We looked for peace, but no good came” (Jeremiah 8:15). In Lamentations the people confess that they have rebelled and say that God has hidden himself from their prayer (Lamentations 3:42–44). The psalmist shows the same waiting at its best, watching for the Lord as watchmen wait for morning (Psalm 130:5–6).

In verse 12 the people stop describing their condition and speak to God directly: “before thee”. They give the reason for everything in verses 9 to 11, and they use three different words for what they have done.

• Transgressions, peshaʻ, are acts of rebellion, in which someone defies a rightful authority. The plural counts separate acts, and the people say these are “multiplied”, râbab, grown beyond counting, and all of them are in God’s sight.
• Sins, chaṭṭâʼâh, comes from a verb whose root sense is to miss the mark. It is the failure to meet God’s standard.
• Iniquities, ʻâvôn, carries the sense of perversity or crookedness, and it often includes the guilt that follows.

These are the three words of the LORD’s own name as he proclaimed it to Moses, “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:7). The people name every kind of wrong, and each kind they name is one the LORD has declared himself ready to forgive.

“Our sins testify against us” puts the scene in a courtroom. The verb ʻânâh means to answer, and it is used of a witness giving testimony. The people need no accuser, because their own deeds stand up and speak. Jeremiah prays in the same words: “though our iniquities testify against us” (Jeremiah 14:7). “Our transgressions are with us” says that these rebellions have stayed with them as constant companions. And “we know them” uses yâdaʻ, to know, a knowledge that comes from experience. They offer no excuse and claim no ignorance.

David makes the same admission in his own confession (Psalm 51:3). Paul says that all have sinned (Romans 3:23), so this confession belongs to every one of us, and John gives God’s promise to those who confess their sins (1 John 1:9).

Verse 13 lists what the transgressions were. It begins with God, since every item is first an offence against him. “Transgressing” is pâshaʻ, to break away from just authority, to rebel. “Lying” is kâchash, to be untrue in word or in deed, which includes lying, deceiving and denying. Both are done “against the LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name. “Departing away” is nâçag, to retreat or turn away, and they have turned away from “our God”, ʼĕlôhîym, the God who chose and delivered them. This is the breaking of a relationship. Throughout Isaiah the people are warned about seeking safety in alliances with other nations and in idols when they should have trusted the LORD.

The list then moves to their speech. “Oppression” is ʻôsheq, injury, fraud and unjust gain, usually at the expense of the weak. “Revolt” is çârâh, apostasy or rebellion. Their talk promotes both.

Last comes the source. They confess to “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood”. To conceive, hârâh, is the word for becoming pregnant, so the heart is pictured as a womb in which lies are formed and carried before they are born as speech. “Uttering” is hâgâh, the same verb used of the doves’ moaning in verse 11. The heart, lêb, is the centre of a person in Hebrew thought, the seat of feeling, will and understanding. The “words”, dâbâr, of “falsehood”, sheqer, are therefore deliberate. They come from the deepest part of the people who speak them.

Scripture says the same of the human heart elsewhere. Jeremiah calls it deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus teaches that what defiles a man comes from within (Mark 7:20–23): “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). Paul traces the same path, from turning away from God to every kind of wrong, in Romans 1:18–32. A sin that begins in the heart needs a cure that reaches the heart.

Verse 14 shows what such hearts do to public life. Four good things are pictured as persons who have been driven out of the city. Judgment, mishpâṭ, “is turned away backward”. The verb is nâçag again, the same one used for the people’s departing from God in verse 13, joined with ʼâchôwr, backward. The people retreated from God, and justice has retreated from them. Courts now reverse what they exist to do, so that right is called wrong. Justice, tsᵉdâqâh, “standeth afar off”, like someone watching from a distance.

“Truth is fallen in the street” gives the reason. Truth is ʼemeth, from ʼâman, and it means stability, certainty, truth and trustworthiness. “Fallen” is kâshal, the verb for the people’s stumbling at noon in verse 10. The “street”, rᵉchôb, is the broad public place of a town, the square by the gate where cases were heard, business was done and news was exchanged. Elders and judges were meant to give true and fair judgments there. Truth has stumbled in that very place, in full view. Finally equity, nᵉkôchâh, from nâkôach, means straightforwardness, integrity and uprightness. It “cannot enter”, where the verb bôwʼ means to come in. Uprightness stands outside the gate and is refused admission.

Isaiah opened his book with the same grief, over a faithful city once full of judgment that had become the home of murderers and of rulers who love bribes (Isaiah 1:21–23). Earlier in this chapter he said, “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth” (Isaiah 59:4). Micah tells us what the LORD requires of his people (Micah 6:8), and a psalm asks what the righteous can do if the foundations are destroyed (Psalm 11:3). The answer of this chapter is that the LORD himself will act.

“Yea, truth faileth” carries the thought one step further. The verb ʻădar is glossed as to muster and so to miss or find wanting, as when a roll is called and someone is absent. Truth has been looked for and found missing.

The next line shows how upside down things have become. “He that departeth from evil”, where the verb is çûwr, to turn aside, “maketh himself a prey”. Shâlal means to plunder. In a healthy society the upright are honoured and protected. Here the person who refuses to join in the wrong stands out and is stripped, mocked or exploited by those who profit from it. Micah saw the same thing and said that the good man had perished out of the earth (Micah 7:2). What ought to be there instead is what Amos asks for, judgment running down like waters (Amos 5:24).

The last line of the passage changes everything that follows: “and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.” Up to this point we have heard only the people. Now we hear how God regards the same scene. He has been watching all along, and he sees every wrong done in the square and every upright person made a prey.

“It displeased him” is literally “it was evil in his eyes”, from yâraʻ and ʻayin, the word for eye. Scripture speaks of God in human terms here so that we can understand him. The absence of mishpâṭ offends him and grieves him, as the wickedness of the earth grieved him before the flood (Genesis 6:6).

Each thing the people lack in these verses is given in Jesus Christ.

They waited for light and walked in darkness. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). The brightness they longed for is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). They groped like the blind, and he opened the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:1–7) and said he had come “that they which see not might see” (John 9:39). They were as dead men, and he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

They looked for judgment and salvation. He is the one who “shall shew judgment to the Gentiles” (Matthew 12:18), the righteous Branch promised through Jeremiah who would execute judgment and justice in the earth (Jeremiah 23:5–6). God’s righteousness is now revealed through faith in him, and God justifies those who believe (Romans 3:21–26).

They confessed transgressions, sins and iniquities. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), wounded for our transgressions and bearing the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5–6). God made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Forgiveness comes through the shedding of his blood (Hebrews 9:22). Our sins testify against us, and Christ, who died and rose and now intercedes for us, answers every charge (Romans 8:33–34). He is the intercessor the LORD looked for and found missing among men.

The falsehood came from the heart, and God promises, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26–27). The Spirit of truth guides God’s people into all truth (John 16:13).

Truth had fallen in the street, and Jesus says that he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He turned from evil perfectly and was made a prey for it. He did no sin, and he was accused, mocked and crucified, bearing our sins in his own body (1 Peter 2:22–24). The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22), whose kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17). He will come again to judge in righteousness (Revelation 19:11), and then truth will stand and the upright will be safe.

These verses give God’s people words for an honest confession. The speakers hide nothing and blame no one else. They say “we” from beginning to end, and they trace the darkness around them back to their own hearts. When we see confusion or injustice around us, this passage teaches us to ask first what part our own sin has played. The three words of verse 12 are the same three that the LORD says he forgives, so a confession this plain is made to a God who is ready to pardon.

The passage also tells us who God is when a society goes wrong. He sees it. He is displeased by injustice, and he takes notice of the person who suffers for refusing to do evil. Anyone who has paid a price for honesty has this verse to hold: “the LORD saw it”. And since the people in this chapter were unable to restore themselves, the hope it holds out rests on the LORD who acted when there was no one else, and who has acted for us in Christ.