Isaiah 59: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Isaiah 59 answers the charge that God is unable or unwilling to rescue his people: the problem is their own sin, which has cut them off from him. The chapter lists their violence, lies, and injustice, then turns to a confession spoken by the people themselves, who admit they wait for light and justice and find neither. God then looks for someone to step in, finds no one, and acts himself, arming for rescue and repayment. It closes with the Redeemer coming to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from rebellion, and with God's promise that his Spirit and his words will stay in their mouths and their descendants' mouths forever.

Claim by Claim

1. 59:1
   • The LORD's hand is not too short to save.
   • The LORD's ear is not too dull to hear.
2. 59:2
   • Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.
   • Your sins have hidden his face from you.
   • Because of this he does not hear.
3. 59:3
   • Your hands are defiled with blood.
   • Your fingers are defiled with iniquity.
   • Your lips have spoken lies.
   • Your tongue mutters wickedness.
4. 59:4
   • No one calls out in righteousness.
   • No one pleads a case in faithfulness.
   • They trust in emptiness.
   • They speak worthless falsehood.
   • They conceive trouble.
   • They give birth to iniquity.
5. 59:5
   • They hatch the eggs of a venomous snake.
   • They weave a spider's web.
   • Whoever eats of their eggs dies.
   • When one of the eggs is crushed, a viper breaks out of it.
6. 59:6
   • Their webs will not become clothing.
   • They will not cover themselves with what they make.
   • Their works are works of iniquity.
   • Deeds of violence are in their hands.
7. 59:7
   • Their feet run to evil.
   • They hurry to shed innocent blood.
   • Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity.
   • Ruin and destruction are on their roads.
8. 59:8
   • They do not know the way of peace.
   • There is no justice in their tracks.
   • They have made their paths crooked for themselves.
   • No one who walks on such a path knows peace.
9. 59:9
   • Therefore justice is far from us.
   • Righteousness does not reach us.
   • We wait for light, but there is darkness.
   • We wait for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10. 59:10
    • We grope along the wall like blind men.
    • We grope like people who have no eyes.
    • We stumble at noon as though it were twilight.
    • We are like dead men, and the Hebrew word for where we are is obscure: it may mean desolate places or those in full vigor.
11. 59:11
    • We all growl like bears.
    • We moan like doves.
    • We hope for justice, but there is none.
    • We hope for salvation, but it is far from us.
12. 59:12
    • Our transgressions are many before you.
    • Our sins testify against us.
    • Our transgressions are with us.
    • We know our iniquities.
13. 59:13
    • We have transgressed and denied the LORD.
    • We have turned away from following our God.
    • We have spoken oppression and revolt.
    • We have conceived and uttered lying words from the heart.
14. 59:14
    • Justice is turned back.
    • Righteousness stands far off.
    • Truth has stumbled in the public square.
    • Uprightness cannot enter.
15. 59:15
    • Truth is missing.
    • Whoever turns away from evil is plundered.
    • The LORD saw this.
    • It was evil in his eyes that there was no justice.
16. 59:16
    • He saw that there was no man.
    • He was appalled that there was no one to intervene.
    • His own arm brought salvation for him.
    • His own righteousness sustained him.
17. 59:17
    • He put on righteousness like a breastplate.
    • He put a helmet of salvation on his head.
    • He put on garments of vengeance as his clothing.
    • He wrapped himself in zeal like a cloak.
18. 59:18
    • He will repay according to deeds.
    • He will repay wrath to his adversaries.
    • He will repay recompense to his enemies.
    • He will repay recompense to the coastlands.
19. 59:19
    • They will fear the name of the LORD from the west.
    • They will fear his glory from the rising of the sun.
    • The second half of the verse is ambiguous in Hebrew: it can mean that when an enemy comes in like a flood the Spirit of the LORD will raise a standard against him, or that he will come like a pent-up river driven by the breath of the LORD.
20. 59:20
    • A Redeemer will come to Zion.
    • He will come to those in Jacob who turn from transgression.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
21. 59:21
    • The LORD says this is his covenant with them.
    • The LORD's spirit is upon you.
    • The LORD has put his words in your mouth.
    • His spirit and his words will not depart from your mouth.
    • They will not depart from the mouth of your offspring.
    • They will not depart from the mouth of your offspring's offspring.
    • The LORD says this holds from now and forever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

59:1

"The LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters (YHWH) that Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; the King James translators replaced it with "the LORD" throughout. "His arm is not too short" is a Hebrew idiom: a short arm means limited reach and so limited power, as an outstretched arm means power in action. The same image returns in verse 16.

59:2

"Hidden his face" is a standard Hebrew idiom for withdrawing attention and favor, the opposite of turning your face toward someone. It describes a deliberate refusal to engage, not a change in God's location.

59:3

"Hands stained with blood" is legal language for bloodguilt, being answerable for a death, whether or not you personally struck the blow. In Israelite law bloodguilt clung to a person and to a community until it was dealt with.

59:4

This verse and much of the chapter use the vocabulary of a lawcourt: "calls for justice" and "argues his case" describe bringing and pleading a suit. The picture is of a legal system where no one will state a true case. "Conceive" and "give birth to" are a deliberate pair, the metaphor is pregnancy: what they plan privately they eventually deliver into the open.

59:5

The King James "cockatrice" is a mythical serpent from medieval lore that the 1611 translators used for a Hebrew word meaning some kind of venomous snake; the Hebrew names an ordinary poisonous snake, not a monster. The point of the image is that the eggs look harmless and edible, and either way, eaten or crushed, they kill.

59:6

Spiderwebs look a little like cloth, but nobody can wear one. Their work is that useless, and it cannot cover up what they have done.

59:8

In the King James, "judgment" here does not mean judging people. It is an old word for justice: treating people fairly and rightly.

59:9

The King James "judgment" here does not mean condemnation or a verdict against someone. It renders the Hebrew *mishpat*, which means justice: the right ordering of things, cases decided correctly, wrongs put right. It is paired throughout the chapter with *tsedaqah*, "righteousness," which in a social setting means acting rightly toward others, hence "fair treatment." Wherever the King James says "judgment" in this chapter, read "justice."

59:10

The last line is genuinely uncertain in Hebrew. The word rendered "in desolate places" can also mean "among the vigorous" or "the healthy," giving the sense "among the strong we are like the dead." Both readings are defended; the King James takes the first, many modern translations the second.

59:11

Both animals are chosen for their sound, not their character. A bear's low growl and a dove's repeated cooing were conventional images in Hebrew for the noises of grief, one loud and angry, the other soft and unending.

59:12

The courtroom image continues: the sins are cast as witnesses taking the stand for the prosecution. "Pile up in front of you" is the language of evidence heaped before a judge.

59:13

Rebellious means refusing to obey the person in charge.

59:14

The "public square" is the open space just inside a city gate. This was where elders heard legal cases, deals were witnessed, and public business was done, so truth falling there means the collapse of justice at the exact place it was supposed to be administered.

59:15

Prey is the animal a hunter chases down. Anyone who stopped doing evil became a target for everyone else.

59:16

"Intercessor" in the King James does not mean a person who prays. It renders a Hebrew word for someone who steps in between parties, intervening, interposing, pressing a case on another's behalf. The complaint is that no one at all would take that role.

59:17

This is the picture of a warrior arming for battle, piece by piece: body armor over the chest, helmet on the head, cloak over everything. "Vengeance" translates a Hebrew word for judicial retribution, a penalty imposed to settle an outstanding wrong, rather than personal spite. "Zeal" renders *qin'ah*, a word covering fierce, burning commitment and also jealousy, the heat a person feels over something that is rightfully theirs.

59:18

The King James "islands" and the rendering's "coastlands" translate a Hebrew word for the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, the far edges of the known world as seen from Israel. It is a standard way of saying "the most distant nations."

59:19

"From the west... where the sun rises" is a merism: naming the two extremes to mean everything between them, i.e. the whole earth. The second half of the verse is disputed in Hebrew. The same consonants can be read as the King James takes them, the enemy comes like a flood and the LORD's Spirit raises a banner against him, or as many modern translations take them, with the LORD himself coming like a pent-up flood driven by his breath. Hebrew *ruach* means breath, wind and spirit alike, which is why the two readings diverge so far. A "standard" is a battle banner raised on a pole to rally troops.

59:20

"Redeemer" translates *go'el*, a specific role in Israelite family law: the nearest male relative, who was obliged to buy back a kinsman's land that had been sold, to purchase a relative out of debt-slavery, and to pursue the killer of a murdered family member. The word carries that family obligation, not merely rescue. "Zion" was originally the fortified hill of Jerusalem and came to stand for the city and its people. "Jacob" is the ancestor whose descendants made up Israel; his name is used here for the nation itself.

59:21

A "covenant" is a formal binding agreement with stated terms and obligations, of the kind made between a ruler and a people or between two parties before witnesses (closer to a treaty or contract than to a promise casually given. Note that "you" here is singular in Hebrew while "them" at the start of the verse is plural; who the single addressee is) the prophet, the nation spoken of as one person, or the coming Redeemer, is left unresolved by the text.