Reflections on Isaiah 59

Isaiah 59 (Contemporary English Version)
1. The LORD hasn't lost his powerful strength; he can still hear and answer prayers.
   
2. Your sins are the roadblock between you and your God. That's why he doesn't answer your prayers or let you see his face.
   
3. Your talk is filled with lies and plans for violence; every finger on your hands is covered with blood.
   
4. You falsely accuse others and tell lies in court; sin and trouble are the names of your children.
   
5. You eat the deadly eggs of poisonous snakes, and more snakes crawl out from the eggs left to hatch. You weave spider webs,
   
6. but you can't make clothes with those webs or hide behind them. You're sinful and brutal.
   
7. You hurry off to do wrong or murder innocent victims. All you think about is sin; you leave ruin and destruction wherever you go.
   
8. You don't know how to live in peace or to be fair with others. The roads you make are crooked; your followers cannot find peace.
   
9. No one has come to defend us or to bring about justice. We hoped for a day of sunshine, but all we found was a dark, gloomy night.
   
10. We feel our way along, as if we were blind; we stumble at noon, as if it were night. We can see no better than someone dead.
    
11. We growl like bears and mourn like doves. We hope for justice and victory, but they escape us.
    
12. How often have we sinned and turned against you, the LORD God? Our sins condemn us! We have done wrong.
    
13. We have rebelled and refused to follow you. Our hearts were deceitful, and so we lied; we planned to abuse others and turn our backs on you.
    
14. Injustice is everywhere; justice seems far away. Truth is chased out of court; honesty is shoved aside.
    
15. Everyone tells lies; those who turn from crime end up ruined. When the LORD noticed that justice had disappeared, he became very displeased.
    
16. It disgusted him even more to learn that no one would do a thing about it. So with his own powerful arm, he won victories for truth.
    
17. Justice was the LORD's armor; saving power was his helmet; anger and revenge were his clothes.
    
18. Now the LORD will get furious and do to his enemies, both near and far, what they did to his people.
    
19. He will attack like a flood in a mighty windstorm. Nations in the west and the east will then honor and praise his wonderful name.
    
20. The LORD has promised to rescue the city of Zion and Jacob's descendants who turn from sin.
    
21. The LORD says: "My people, I promise to give you my Spirit and my message. These will be my gifts to you and your families forever. I, the LORD, have spoken."

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Isaiah spoke in the previous chapter of Israel's insincere efforts at fasting as a means of appeasing God so He would deliver them from their exile. Here he outlines more of Israel's problems of wickedness and injustice that are the real reasons deliverance has not come. It is not because "the LORD's hand is . . . too short to save, and His ear is . . . too deaf to hear" (59:1) that Israel has not been delivered, but because her "iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide His face from you so that He does not listen." (59:2) Verses 3 through 7 detail Israel's iniquities, concluding in verse 8 that Israel has known no peace because no one who walks on crooked ways will know peace. There are many today, as there probably were in Isaiah's day, who are rather naive about peace. They espouse peace as if all one must do is stop fighting. They do not addess the causes of that fighting, though. In fact they seem ignorant of the causes. They make no connection between wicked lifestyles and the lack of peace. Many who espouse such peace on a national level do not even know peace on a personal level. But God tells us peace is only possible through a lifestyle of righteousness.

Speaking on behalf of Israel, Isaiah confesses the nation's sins in verses 9 through 15. He acknowledges that it is because of her sin that salvation is far from her. But then the Lord looked down and saw that there was no one interceding for Israel. Israel was totally incapable of helping herself. Only God could help her. Sometimes people get caught in a vicious cycle. They may recognize their sin and even recognize the results of that sin and want to be freed from them. But thinking they must first change their sinful ways before coming to God to ask Him to free them from those results, they find themselves helpless to be rid of the sin. What they fail to understand is that only God can free them from both sin and its results. They will wait forever if they try to be rid of the sin before coming to God. Only God can free them from the sin, but He will not do so against their will. They need to seek His help. The cause is helped if there is someone interceding on their behalf and seeking God's help for them. This is what was referred to in verse 16. Israel was helpless to change her sinful ways and there was no one to intercede on her behalf. Therefore, God decided to step in.

God's intercession comes in conjunction with the Messiah's second coming. That is my understanding of verse 20, "The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression." This intercession through the Messiah is part of a new covenant God will make with Israel.