Isaiah 59:8 Komentář

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 (Isa 59:7, Isa 59:8) is applied to the general corruption of mankind (Rom 3:15), so what is here said of a Redeemer (Isa 59:20) is applied to Christ, Rom 11:26. I. It is here charged upon this people that they had themselves stopped the current of God's favours to them, and the particular sins are specified which kept good things from them (Isa 59:1-8). II. It is here charged upon them that they had themselves procured the judgments of God upon them, and they are told both what the judgments were which they had brought upon their own heads (Isa 59:9-11) and what the sins were which provoked God to send those judgments (Isa 59:12-15). III. It is here promised that, notwithstanding this, God would work deliverance for them, purely for his own name's sake (Isa 59:16-19), and would reserve mercy in store for them and entail it upon them (Isa 59:20, Isa 59:21).

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 59 As the former chapter declares the hypocrisy and formality of professors of religion; this expresses the errors and heresies, immorality and profaneness, which shall prevail before the spiritual reign of Christ, or the latter day glory begins; which is so fully described in the next chapter. Reasons are given of God's withdrawing his presence from a professing people, which were not want of power and readiness in him, but their own sins and transgressions, Isa 59:1 which are enumerated, such as murder, rapine, lies, &c. Isa 59:3 for which the judgments of God were upon them, darkness, distress, and misery, of which they were sensible, Isa 59:9 and confess their sins and transgressions, Isa 59:12 and lament their wretched state and condition, which was displeasing to God, Isa 59:14 who is represented as appearing for their salvation; moved to it by their want of help, and the oppression of their enemies, in which he shows his power, justice, zeal, grace, and goodness, Isa 59:16 the consequence of which shall be the conversion and salvation of many, owing to the efficacy of the divine Spirit, and to the spiritual coming of the Redeemer, Isa 59:19, and the chapter is closed with a promise of the continuance of the Spirit of God, and the Gospel of Christ in his church, unto the end of the world, Isa 59:21.

The way of peace they know not,.... Neither the way of peace with God, supposing it is to be made by man, and not by Christ; and are ignorant of the steps and methods taken to procure it; nor do they know the way of peace of conscience, or how to attain to that which is true and solid; nor the way to eternal peace and happiness, which is alone by Christ, and the Gospel of peace reveals, to which they are strangers; nor the way of peace among men, which they are unconcerned about, and do not seek after, make use of no methods to promote, secure, and establish it; but all the reverse: and there is no judgment in their goings; no justice in their actions, in their dealings with men; no judgment in their religious duties, which are done without any regard to the divine rule, or without being able to give a reason for them; they have no judgment in matters of doctrine or worship; they have no discerning of true and false doctrines, and between that which is spiritual and superstitious in worship; they have no knowledge of the word of God, which should be their guide both in faith and practice; but this they do not attend unto: they have made them crooked paths: they have devised paths and modes of worship of their own, in which they walk, and which they observe, that are not according to the rule of the word; but deviate from it; and so may be said to be crooked, as not agreeable to that: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace; the way of peace with God, as before; or he shall not have any experience of true, solid, and substantial peace in his own conscience now, and shall not attain to eternal peace hereafter.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. [Isaiah 59:7-8] Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

(V. 7, 8.) Their deeds are useless deeds: and the work of iniquity is in their hands. Their feet run towards evil: and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are worthless thoughts: destruction and ruin are in their ways. They have not known the way of peace: and there is no justice in their steps. Their paths are crooked for them: whoever walks on them does not know peace. LXX: For their deeds are the deeds of iniquity: and their feet run towards malice. They are swift to shed innocent blood, and their thoughts are the thoughts of fools. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and they do not know the way of peace. There is no justice in their ways. Their paths are twisted and they do not know peace. Therefore, their deeds are not hidden, for their actions are the works of wickedness, which the Apostle calls unfruitful, that is, having no fruit (Ephesians 5). And their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood (Prov. 1). For they also had the custom of killing the prophets. To whom Stephen was speaking: Which of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted (Acts 7:52)? And the Lord in the Gospel: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you (Matt. 23:37); and again: On you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar (Ibid., 35). And it is said above to them: Your hands are polluted with blood: and your tongue speaks wickedness (Isaiah 1:15). And through this meditation of cruelty and blasphemy, they came to the death of the Lord. Likewise, Judas came to murder through the path of greed, rather sacrilege coupled with greed. And what follows: Their thoughts are the thoughts of foolish ones: destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and they have not known the way of peace. And above: Their feet are swift to shed blood, the Apostle placed in Romans (Ch. III): which many ignorant people think is taken from the thirteenth psalm, which verses are added in the Vulgate edition and are not found in Hebrew. We have spoken more fully about this at the beginning of this volume. But those who have refused to accept its author have rightly ignored the way of peace. For he himself is our peace, who speaks to the Apostles: Peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you (John XIV, 27). And to Jerusalem: If you knew the things that are for your peace, for the days shall come upon you when your enemies shall cast a trench about you, and encompass you round, and straiten you on every side, And beat you flat to the ground, and your children who are in you. It follows: Their paths are perverse, not by nature, but by their own will. For whatever is distorted and curved, is twisted from straight to crooked. Every teaching of the Pharisees is a subversion of truth, through which one who follows it not only does not find peace, but also does not even know it, so as to know what they should seek.

Second, the fairness of their misery, namely that they suffer the kinds of things that they do to others: the way of peace, by which they might have set others in peace; there is no right judgment, and therefore, their paths, that is, the things they devise, are become crooked, that is, they are made curved to them, because what they prepared for others, they themselves will suffer; every one that treads, following them, knows no peace, with the knowledge of experience: destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known (Ps 13[14]:3). 1049. Note also on the words, their paths are become crooked (Isa 59:8), that there is the crookedness first, of guilt, above: bow down, that we may go over (Isa 51:23); second, of misery: I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end (Ps 37:7[38:6]); third, of sadness: the soul that is sorrowful for the greatness of evil she has done, and goes bowed down (Bar 2:18); fourth, of fraud: though he humble himself and go crouching, yet take good heed and beware of him (Sir 12:11); fifth, of justice: God, whose wrath no man can resist, and under whom they stoop that bear up the world (Job 9:13).

Thy chapter contains a more general reproof of the wickedness of the Jews, Isa 59:1-8. After this they are represented confessing their sins, and deploring the unhappy consequences of them, Isa 59:9-15. On this act of humiliation God, ever ready to pardon the penitent, promises that he will have mercy on them; that the Redeemer will come, mighty to save; and that he will deliver his people, subdue his enemies and establish a new and everlasting covenant, Isa 59:16-21. The foregoing elegant chapter contained a severe reproof of the Jews, in particular for their hypocrisy in pretending to make themselves accepted with God by fasting and outward humiliation without true repentance; while they still continued to oppress the poor, and indulge their own passions and vices; with great promises however of God's favor on condition of their reformation. This chapter contains a more general reproof of their wickedness, bloodshed, violence, falsehood, injustice. At Isa 59:9 they are introduced as making, themselves, an ample confession of their sins, and deploring their wretched state in consequence of them. On this act of humiliation a promise is given that God, in his mercy and zeal for his people, will rescue them from this miserable condition, that the Redeemer will come like a mighty hero to deliver them; he will destroy his enemies, convert both Jews and Gentiles to himself, and give them a new covenant, and a law which shall never be abolished. As this chapter is remarkable for the beauty, strength, and variety of the images with which it abounds; so is it peculiarly distinguished by the elegance of the composition, and the exact construction of the sentences. From the first verse to the two last it falls regularly into stanzas of four lines, (see Prelim. Dissert. p. xxi.), which I have endeavored to express as nearly as possible in the form of the original. - L.

Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace "Whoever goeth in them knoweth not peace" - For בה bah, singular, read בם bam, plural, with the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and Chaldee. The ה he is upon a rasure in one MS. Or, for נתיבתיהם nethibotheyhem, plural, we must read נתיבתם nethibatham, singular, as it is in an ancient MS., to preserve the grammatical concord. - L.

THE PEOPLE'S SIN THE CAUSE OF JUDGMENTS: THEY AT LAST OWN IT THEMSELVES: THE REDEEMER'S FUTURE INTERPOSITION IN THEIR EXTREMITY. (Isa. 59:1-21) hand . . . shortened--(See on Isa 50:2). ear heavy-- (Isa 6:10).

peace--whether in relation to God, to their own conscience, or to their fellow men (Isa 57:20-21). judgment--justice. crooked--the opposite of "straightforward" (Pro 2:15; Pro 28:18).

This second prophetic address continues the reproachful theme of the first. In the previous prophecy we found the virtues which are well-pleasing to God, and to which He promises redemption as a reward of grace, set in contrast with those false means, upon which the people rested their claim to redemption. In the prophecy before us the sins which retard redemption are still more directly exposed. "Behold, Jehovah's hand is not too short to help, nor His ear too heavy to hear; but your iniquities have become a party-wall between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear." The reason why redemption is delayed, is not that the power of Jehovah has not been sufficient for it (cf., Isa 50:2), or that He has not been aware of their desire for it, but that their iniquities (עונתיכם with the second syllable defective) have become dividers (מבדּלים, defective), have grown into a party-wall between them and their God, and their sins (cf., Jer 5:25) have hidden pânı̄m from them. As the "hand" (yâd) in Isa 28:2 is the absolute hand; so here the "face" pânı̄m) is that face which sees everything, which is everywhere present, whether uncovered or concealed; which diffuses light when it unveils itself, and leaves darkness when it is veiled; the sight of which is blessedness, and not to see which is damnation. This absolute countenance is never to be seen in this life without a veil; but the rejection and abuse of grace make this veil a perfectly impenetrable covering. And Israel had forfeited in this way the light and sight of this countenance of God, and had raised a party-wall between itself and Him, and that משּׁמוע, so that He did not hear, i.e., so that their prayer did not reach Him (Lam 3:44) or bring down an answer from Him.

Their whole nature is broken up into discord. "The way of peace they know not, and there is no right in their roads: they make their paths crooked: every one who treads upon them knows no peace." With דּרך, the way upon which a man goes, the prophet uses interchangeably (here and in Isa 59:7) מסלּה, a high-road thrown up with an embankment; מעגּל (with the plural in ı̂m and ôth), a carriage-road; and נתיבה, a footpath formed by the constant passing to and fro of travellers. Peaceable conduct, springing form a love of peace, and aiming at producing peace, is altogether strange to them; no such thing is to be met with in their path as the recognition of practice of right: they make their paths for themselves (להם, dat. ethicus), i.e., most diligently, twisting about; and whoever treads upon them (bâh, neuter, as in Isa 27:4), forfeits all enjoyment of either inward or outward peace. Shâlōm is repeated significantly, in Isaiah's peculiar style, at the end of the verse. The first strophe of the prophecy closes here: it was from no want of power or willingness on the part of God, that He had not come to the help of His people; the fault lay in their own sins.