CHAPTER 59 Ju1. 3 
Evil Again Condemned
Behold, Yahweh’s hand is not shortened that it can’t save; neither His ear heavy, that it can’t hear: 2but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear. 3For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. 4None sues in righteousness, and none pleads in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 5They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper. 6Their 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. 7Their 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. 8The way of peace they don’t know; there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes therein does not know peace.
The People Confess
Vindication remains far removed from us and deliverance does not reach us: we look for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. 10We grope for the wall like the blind; yes, we grope as those who have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; among those who are lusty we are as dead men. 11We roar all like bears, and moan bitterly like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. 12For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: 13transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. 14Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can’t enter. 15Yes, truth is lacking; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Yahweh saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. 16He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His own arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness, it upheld Him. 17He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head; and He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle. 18According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, wrath to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; to the islands He will repay recompense. 19So shall they fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; for He will come as a rushing stream, which the breath of Yahweh drives. 20A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from disobedience in Jacob, says Yahweh. 21As for Me, this is My covenant with them, says Yahweh. My Spirit which is on you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed’s seed, says Yahweh, from henceforth and forever.

Commentary

59:1,2 If we feel that God is somehow limited, we must ask whether it is in fact our sins which are limiting His action; because He Himself is totally unlimited in His possibilities.
59:7,8 These verses are quoted in Rom. 3:17 about all of us. We aren’t to look at Judah at this time and shake our heads in disgust at them; the essence of their failures is to be found in each one of us.
59:9- see on 49:24.
59:13 Conceiving and uttering from the heart- Sin is conceived within the human heart, not placed there by some cosmic Satan being (Mk. 7:15-23; James 1:13-15). Our own heart is the arena of our spiritual battles; we are responsible for our sins, because they begin within our own minds.
59:20 The Redeemer is interpreted as Christ in Rom. 11:26. We could understand this verse as meaning that Christ shall come to Zion when there are in her those who have turned away from their transgression- which in the context of Israel is their rejection of Jesus as Christ. This would suggest a repentance of some Jews is required before Christ’s return; and this should motivate our preaching to them. 
59:21 My Spirit... My words- There is a common parallel of God’s words and His Spirit (notably in Jn. 6:63). The Bible is written by inspiration of God, and is therefore the work and vehicle of His Spirit. One way in which the Spirit works in our lives today is therefore through God’s word the Bible.