3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.
When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; They break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.
Also in your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor: you did not find them breaking in; but it is because of all these things.
In vain have I struck your children; they received no correction: your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
Her rich men are full of violence, Her inhabitants speak lies, And their tongue is deceitful in their speech.
through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;
The godly man has perished out of the earth, And there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; Every man hunts his brother with a net.
They build up Zion with blood, And Jerusalem with iniquity. Her leaders judge for bribes, And her priests teach for a price, And her prophets of it tell forturnes for money: Yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, Isn't Yahweh in the midst of us? No disaster will come on us. Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, And Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, And the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, Yet they have spoken lies against me.
They make the king glad with their wickedness, And the princes with their lies.
You, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations.
Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have spoken falsehood, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, says the Lord Yahweh.
But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
They bend their tongue, [as it were] their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don't know me, says Yahweh. Take you heed everyone of his neighbor, and don't you trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. They will deceive everyone his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity. Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says Yahweh.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 59
Commentary on Isaiah 59 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 59
In this chapter we have sin appearing exceedingly sinful, and grace appearing exceedingly gracious; and, as what is here said of the sinner's sin (v. 7, 8) is applied to the general corruption of mankind (Rom. 3:15), so what is here said of a Redeemer (v. 20) is applied to Christ, Rom. 11:26.
Isa 59:1-8
The prophet here rectifies the mistake of those who had been quarrelling with God because they had not the deliverances wrought for them which they had been often fasting and praying for, ch. 58:3. Now here he shows,
Isa 59:9-15
The scope of this paragraph is the same with that of the last, to show that sin is the great mischief-maker; as it is that which keeps good things from us, so it is that which brings evil things upon us. But as there it is spoken by the prophet, in God's name, to the people, for their conviction and humiliation, and that God might be justified when he speaks and clear when he judges, so here it seems to be spoken by the people to God, as an acknowledgment of that which was there told them and an expression of their humble submission and subscription to the justice and equity of God's proceedings against them. Their uncircumcised hearts here seem to be humbled in some measure, and they are brought to confess (the confession is at least extorted from them), that God had justly walked contrary to them, because they had walked contrary to him.
Isa 59:16-21
How sin abounded we have read, to our great amazement, in the former part of the chapter; how grace does much more abound we read in these verses. And, as sin took occasion from the commandment to become more exceedingly sinful, so grace took occasion from the transgression of the commandment to appear more exceedingly gracious. Observe,