Commentaries:
Isaiah 59 portrays an entire culture in collapse. What is reported there took place about 120 years before Judah's devastation by Nebuchadnezzar's armies in 605 BC. Until being conquered, Judah was still holding together as a nation, so the chapter provides insight into what the self-centered leadership was producing on a more day-to-day basis. In the first eight verses, Isaiah lists Judah's immoral activities.
This passage appears like a report from God through Isaiah on how He sees the collective cultural chaos produced as each citizen's sinfulness contributed to the wickedness of all who were living in Judah at that time. It is delivered as though God is a prosecuting attorney presenting his case before a court for judgment. After reading such a condemning report, one can only wonder whether any more than a mere handful of citizens were actually obeying God! In the same way, we can confidently judge from the news reports we hear daily in the media that the quality of life in the United States is approaching the same condition.
Notice how the Revised English Bible renders the first three verses:
The LORD'S arm is not too short to save nor His ear too dull to hear; rather, it is your iniquities that raise a barrier between you and your God; it is your sins that veil His face, so that He does not hear. Your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with crime; your lips speak lies and your tongues utter injustice.
The people are indeed suffering from the chaotic immorality that surrounds them, and some are truly appealing to God to bring it to a merciful end. They have prayed and fasted about the situation, but God did not react. He provided no answers. He effected no changes. He did not raise up righteous and dutiful shepherds to provide good guidance and instill peace. Indeed, it seemed as if He had not even heard! Or if He had heard, He seemed not to have enough time or strength to do anything to bring the agonies of this kind of life to an end. Why?
Verses 2-3 contains the answer: Surprise, surprise—the very people appealing to God to end the crisis in their communities were guilty of committing the same sins that were responsible for intensifying the crisis. Despite crying out to God, they were not repenting of their own sins! In the meantime, God is waiting for the beginning of a truly sincere and substantial change led by the people crying out to God. He wants them to begin obeying His Word and restoring justice in all their doings.
We can apply this to the ever-worsening situation in the United States. Many people in this nation still hold sincerely to a substantially correct understanding of God and His purposes for mankind. They understand to some degree where the present immorality can lead. Because they fear what is coming and are suffering some degree of misery due to the nation's spiritual decline, they are probably praying about these things.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Two)
Israelites are described at the end time as people whose "lips have spoken lies, [and whose] tongue has muttered perversity" (Isaiah 59:3). In the next verse, Isaiah continues, "No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies." He concludes in verse 15, "So truth fails."
We could mention high-pressure salesman, marketing companies, and more, as well as politicians who promise the moon to get what they want. None of these ever deliver. The sad thing is that we just take such deceit for granted as a way of life. This is just the way things are, and so we live with it. Lying has become so normal that we expect it, and everyone else expects us to go along with it.
Worse, because it is ubiquitous and seemingly no big thing to the world, we can slip into the mode of living with it and even unconsciously participate in it. As God's people, we must constantly guard ourselves so that we never take the truth so lightly.
God clearly condemns lying in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:16). I Timothy 1:9-10 ranks liars and perjurers among the worst of men. "A lying tongue" is second on the list of seven things that God hates (Proverbs 6:17), and "a false witness who speaks lies" is number six. Conversely, one who "speaks the truth in his heart" and who even "swears to his own hurt and does not change" will dwell on God's holy hill (Psalm 15:2, 4).
Have we ever wondered what it would be like if God lied? Could we have any faith at all in a God who lied? Could we count on any hope of a positive future? Could we be sure of anything at all? He would be just as unreliable as any man!
We need to consider the source of lying, Satan the Devil (John 8:44). Prior to Satan, lies never existed. Everything was done in total honesty, purity of heart, and truth. The concept of deceit had never even been considered until Satan came on the scene and introduced it. Why did he promote it? He wanted to cause confusion, division, rebellion, and heartache and to lead the people of God into sin. His pattern all along is to destroy all that God is doing.
When we lie, even a small lie, Jesus says that we are of our father the Devil, that is, we take on this proclivity of his and imitate him. In what environment is Satan's influence most likely to affect us? Like him, we are most likely to lie when we want an advantage or when our pride is at stake, for instance, when we want to appear superior in mind or ability than what we actually are or when we desire to cover up a defect in ourselves or our merchandise. We will lie to create a false impression by leaving something out that should be told.
Because the world around us lives this way, it can be so easy to fall into the evil habit of shading, obscuring, or omitting the truth to put ourselves in a good light. We should not do this for any reason. Paul urges us in Ephesians 4:25, "Therefore putting away lying, 'Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,' for we are members of one another." In other words, stop lying so we can trust each other and be united in the truth.
Does the fact that we are always to tell the truth mean we are to answer every question? Of course not. Some things are no one else's business. Some things can and should be private.
Must we tell all we know? No. At times, not answering is the correct tack to take, and at other times, a simple answer may be all that is required. We must discern whether our withholding of information comes from a selfish desire to deceive, exalting or benefitting ourselves in the process.
We who have been raised in a deceived and deceiving culture are so inundated with the practice of lying that we find it difficult to conceive of a time when only truth will be spoken, and all will live by it. Revelation 22:14-15 tells us that those who love and practice lying will not even be in the Kingdom of God. But that totally truthful, godly society is what we represent as lights in this world (Matthew 5:14). So one who tells the truth and keeps his word will not soon be forgotten.
As children of God, we need to make it a priority to stop and consider before we speak to repudiate the way of Satan and bear the image of God before the world.
John O. Reid
National False Witness
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Isaiah 59:3:
Amos 3:3