Isaiah 59:1-8

F. WRATH OF THE LORD UPON COVENANT DESPISERS, CHAPTER 59
1. THEIR CRIMES

TEXT: Isaiah 59:1-8

1

Behold, Jehovah's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2

but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear.

3

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness.

4

None sueth in righteousness, and none pleadeth in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

5

They hatch adders-' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth; and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

6

Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

7

Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths.

8

The way of peace they know not; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whosoever goeth therein doth not know peace.

QUERIES

a.

Why bring up the subject of the people's salvation here?

b.

With what webs did the people hope to cover themselves?

c.

Why do they not know the way of peace?

PARAPHRASE

Look! The reason My great redemptive plan has to be delayed by a period of chastening for you is not because My power or My willingness is. insufficient. You are the reason, O Israel. You are in rebellion against all I want to do for you and through you. Your rebellion and sin has built a wall of unwillingness and rejection. As long as you are determined to continue in your wickedness, you will not see Me as I am. Yes, it is because you have your hands in every conceivable practice of wickedness there is (murder, thievery, covenant-breaking, slander) that you cannot receive My purpose for you. No one practices justice in legal suits or tries cases honestly. People are building this society on moral impotence and falsehood. They spend most of their time plotting wickedness and their plots produce violence. Poisonous seed is produced by these snakes like the eggs of a viper. They build traps for one another like a spider weaving webs. They produce poisonous offspring and everyone who partakes of their wickedness is poisoned also. They think that their subtle webs will provide a covering or escape, but the evil of their hearts is clearly seen in what their lives produce. They do not merely stumble into sin, they eagerly race one another to kill and maim the innocent. They dream and think and plan wickedness all day and all night. They haven-'t the slightest desire for real peace in this society. They prefer to live crooked and devious lives and when anyone prefers that he is an enemy of justice and peace.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 59:1-4 BARRICADED: In chapter 58 Jehovah tells the people the virtues which would prepare them to be covenant-keepers and to carry out His messianic plans. But these people are so thoroughly entrenched in sin and rebellion against God's program of righteousness and holiness they must be repeatedly warned of the wrath that comes to those who despise His covenant. These first verses of chapter 59 are a graphic description of Judah's adamant hostility against God's way and her passionate wantonness for wickedness. Isaiah is describing here the conditions during the reign of the most wicked king Judah ever hadManasseh. Manasseh came to the throne in 687 B.C. as a boy of 12 and was seduced by a powerful group of priests, noblemen and false prophets to reintroduce the idolatry of his ancestors (Ahaz, et al). Judah's prophets (Isaiah and Micah) predicted the wrath of Jehovah which had earlier fallen (722 B.C.) upon Israel. Manasseh outstripped all his ancestors in wickedness, (cf. 2 Kings 21:1-17; 2 Kings 23:11-14; 2 Chronicles 33:1-20). He instituted a reign of terror and persecution against Jehovah's true prophets unequaled in the history of all Israel (cf. O.T. History, Smith and Fields, College Press, pg. 647-650). Isaiah was probably executed during that persecution.

Judah and Jerusalem had been saved from her enemies when Hezekiah paid heed to Isaiah's message from the Lord (cf. Chapter s 36-39). But now she has, through the leadership of the vilest king she has ever had, committed herself to a path of rebellion which will lead inexorably to captivity. Undoubtedly, there were plain indications to the nation that it was in danger of foreign invasion and captivity. Manasseh was taken captive and imprisoned by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, in 673 B.C. It appeared that the whole nation would soon suffer the same fate. Whether the people were asking for Isaiah's advice or not, he was giving it. He states unequivocally that they had barricaded themselves from God and He could not help them. The Lord has the power to save them from their enemies if they will turn to Him and trust Him. But as long as they choose paganism, depend upon themselves and heathen allies, He cannot and will not help them. God made man and gave man the sovereignty of his own will. He gave man the awesome freedom to make his own sovereign choices with the attendant responsibility of the consequences of those choices. When man chooses to rebel against the revealed will of God, man willingly separates himself from God's redeeming, saving power. Of course, man is never able to separate himself from God's judgmental power. Men perish because they refuse to love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). Men scoff and follow their own passions because they deliberately ignore God's truths (cf. 2 Peter 3:1-7). Men will not come to the light because they love darkness (John 3:19-21). Men do not come to God because they do not want to be shepherded by Him (John 10:1-39). Men do not come to God because He tells them the truth and they had rather listen to the devil (John 8:39-47). When men build such walls of their own between themselves and God. His only alternative (in the light of man's freedom to exercise his own sovereign will) is to give man up to a base mind and improper conduct (cf. Romans 1:18-32). When God is forced to give rebelling man up, man must save himself and man cannot do that! Man cannot save himself from nature, from death, from men more powerful than he, and last, but most important, man cannot save himself from his own conscience!

The prophets of God (Isaiah and his contemporaries, Amos, Hosea and Micah) have promised a glorious salvation for God's people and an even more glorious messianic future. Recent circumstances (the wickedness, increased tribute to Assyria, Manasseh's capture, etc.) have brought on fear, chaos and bitterness. Judah is complaining with sarcasm that the God of Isaiah is not fulfilling His promise. They are apparently preaching that Jehovah has no power to save them (advocating at the same time that power for rescue will come from their idols and alliances with the heathen). The nation is in a mess. The easiest explanation is to blame God for it (cf. comments Isaiah 50:1-3).

God is not to blame. Their hands are filled with blood. Their lips have spouted lies. They have destroyed themselves. God has never lied to them. He has never defaulted on one of His promises. He has not cheated them, robbed them, murdered them. He can save them, but not in their condition. Should God save them, allowing them to continue in wickedness, He would be a partner in their wickedness and thus dishonest, unjust, unholy, unrighteous reducing Himself to moral impotency and consigning Himself and these people to an endless hell! God cannot be God and condone a kingdom in rebellion. If He is to rule in perfect righteousness and holiness He must rule a kingdom of citizens who have willingly surrendered to His sovereign will.

Isaiah's description of the depravity of society in Judah is similar to Hosea's description of Israel's wicked anarchy in an earlier day (before 722 B.C.) (cf. Hosea 4:1 to Hosea 5:15). There was no truth, no justice, no goodness in the land. There was murder, lying, slander, robbery, vain revelry and adultery. Manasseh was eventually returned to Judah. His imprisonment in the city of Babylon apparently caused him to repent, and he instituted a religious reform in the land. God's judgment of Judah was postponed for about a hundred years (until 606-586 B.C.). Manasseh's reform was only superficial. Underneath a veneer of orthodoxy was a deep-seated wickedness sown by Manasseh when he was a younger man. Eventually, Judah returned to this wickedness and God's word says it was because of Manasseh's earlier seduction of the nation (cf. 2 Kings 24:3; Jeremiah 15:4). The student should read the first 23 Chapter s of Jeremiah's prophecy as a record of the consequences of Manasseh's leading Judah into idolatry and sin.

Isaiah 59:5-8 BARBAROUS: The adder is tziphe-'oni in Hebrew and describes the most poisonous of all serpents, or fiery serpent. The Hebrew word for viper is -ephe-'eh and is from the root word which means whisperer or hisser. Isaiah is emphasizing to his disciples the lethal danger of flirting with the majority of people in his day. Most men in the prophet's generation were like deadly poisonous snakes. He also likened them unto cunning spiders. Poisonous snakes lay eggs which incubate poisonous embryonic snakes. Anyone who eats of the fruit (eggs) of that poisonous society will die of the same poison. Even those who try to crush what that society produces shall be slain by the snake that comes from the egg. Most spiders use their webs as snares and hiding places (cover). This evil generation will be trapped by their own webs and instead of being able to hide in their webs will be exposed by them. The violent consequences of their deeds are plain to everyone. The decadence of that generation is manifested in the fact that no one really cared. It is difficult to believe that people would run with haste to shed innocent blood. But even among God's people there were syndicates or mobs of organized criminals, incredibly enough, among the priests (cf. Hosea 6:9). There is no restraint in the doing of evil. Jeremiah said they trooped to the houses of harlots (Jeremiah 5:7-8); they lurked like trappers lying in wait to ensnare men and women (Jer. -5:25-28). They gave their minds to dreaming, thinking, planning, plotting and preparing for wickedness all day and all night (cf. Hosea 7:4-7). They were like the wicked people of Noah's day whose every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5).

They did not know the way of peace. The Hebrew word shalom is translated peace but means primarily, soundness, wholeness, well-being, prosperity, health, goodness. In all of the following scriptures the word shalom is in the original text: (Psalms 122:7; Psalms 35:27; Psalms 73:3; Job 9:4; Job 22:21; 1 Kings 9:25; Deuteronomy 27:6; Joshua 8:31; Genesis 29:6; Genesis 37:14; Genesis 43:27; 2 Samuel 18:28; 2 Kings 4:23; 2 Kings 4:26; 2 Kings 5:21-22; 2 Kings 9:11). In 2 Samuel 11:7, David asked Uriah concerning the shalom of Joab and the shalom of the people and the shalom (peace?) of the war. In each instance here we have a graphic illustration of the usage of the word shalom being primarily, well-being, prosperity, wholeness, integrated-goodness. In Deuteronomy 27:6 and Joshua 8:31 the word shalom is translated uncut stones. Only whole, sound, perfect (in the sense of uncut) stones were to be used for altars. The people of Isaiah's day did not know the way to soundness, wholeness, prosperity, (shalom). They thought they did! Apparently they believed security, well-being, prosperity would result from copying their pagan neighbors and worshipping in the fertility cults of idolatry. They felt secure in allying themselves politically, militarily and economically with pagan empires. Moral crookedness, social injustice and exploitation, compromise with pagan unbelief always leads to spiritual, moral, physical and social disintegration. Sin fractures; it does not produce wholeness. Man was not made for sin; he was made for righteousness. Falsehood disorients, divides, alienates, deranges; truth solidifies, integrates, consolidates and frees. Faith in God and Christ makes whole (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31; Mark 5:34; Luke 8:48; Luke 17:19; John 5:6; John 5:14). Peace (shalom) is a prominent feature of the messianic kingdom according to the prophets (cf. Isaiah 2:4; Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11:6; Ezekiel 34:25; Micah 4:2-4; Zechariah 9:10, etc.). Ephesians 2:11-22 is a vivid illustration that the eirene (peace) of the New Testament church is of the same essence as the shalom of the Old Testament; that is, wholeness, integration, unification, well-being, soundness.

Materialism, sensuality, carnality and idolatry leads to foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness and ruthlessness. It leads to barbarity! (cf. Romans 1:30).

QUIZ

1.

Who was primarily responsible for the wickedness described by Isaiah here?

2.

How does man separate himself from God's saving power?

3.

Why cannot God save men in rebellion?

4.

Why liken the majority of his generation to snakes?

5.

What is peace?

6.

What is the way of peace?

7.

What does all this indicate about the meaning of peace in the N.T.?