Isaiah 59:3
59:3 For your hands are defiled with {a} blood, and your fingers
     with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath
     uttered perverseness.

     (a) Read Isaiah 1:15.

Isaiah 59:4
59:4 None calleth for justice, nor [any] {b} pleadeth for truth:
     they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive
     mischief, and {c} bring forth iniquity.

     (b) All men wink at the injuries and oppressions and none
         go about to remedy them.
     (c) According to their wicked devices, they hurt their
         neighbours.

Isaiah 59:5
59:5 They hatch {d} eggs of an adder, and weave the spider's {e}
     web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is
     crushed breaketh out into a viper.

     (d) Whatever comes from them is poison, and brings death.
     (e) They are profitable to no purpose.

Isaiah 59:9
59:9 Therefore is {f} judgment far from us, neither doth {g}
     justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold
     obscurity; for brightness, [but] we walk in darkness.

     (f) That is, God's vengeance to punish our enemies.
     (g) God's protection to defend us.

Isaiah 59:10
59:10 We grope for the wall like the {h} blind, and we grope as
      if [we had] no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the
      night; [we are] in desolate places as dead [men].

      (h) We are altogether destitute of counsel, and can find
          no end to our miseries.

Isaiah 59:11
59:11 We all roar like {i} bears, and mourn bitterly like doves:
      we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation,
      [but] it is far from us.

      (i) We express our sorrows by outward signs, some more and
          some less.

Isaiah 59:12
59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our
      {k} sins testify against us: for our transgressions [are]
      with us; and [as for] our iniquities, we know them;

      (k) This confession is general to the Church to obtain
          remission of sins, and the prophets did not exempt
          themselves from the same.

Isaiah 59:13
59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing
      away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt,
      conceiving and uttering from the heart words of {l}
      falsehood.

      (l) That is, against our neighbours.

Isaiah 59:14
59:14 And {m} judgment is turned away backward, and justice
      standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and
      equity cannot enter.

      (m) There is neither justice nor uprightness among men.

Isaiah 59:15
59:15 Yea, truth faileth; and he [that] departeth from evil
      maketh himself {n} a prey: and the LORD saw [it], and it
      displeased him that [there was] no judgment.

      (n) The wicked will destroy him.

Isaiah 59:16
59:16 And he saw that [there was] no man, and wondered that
      [there was] no intercessor: {o} therefore his arm brought
      {p} salvation to him; and his righteousness, it sustained
      him.

      (o) Meaning, to do justice, and to remedy the things that
          were so far out of order.
      (p) That is, his Church or his arm helped itself and did
          not seek aid from any other.

Isaiah 59:17
59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an {q}
      helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the
      garments of vengeance [for] clothing, and was clad with
      zeal as a cloke.

      (q) Signifying that God has all means at hand to deliver
          his Church and to punish their enemies.

Isaiah 59:18
59:18 According to [their] deeds, accordingly he will repay,
      fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the
      {r} isles he will repay recompence.

      (r) That is, your enemies who dwell in various places, and
          beyond the sea.

Isaiah 59:19
59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and
      his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall
      {s} come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall
      lift up a standard against him.

      (s) He shows that there will be great affliction in the
          Church, but God will always deliver his.

Isaiah 59:20
59:20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to {t} them that
      turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.

      (t) By which he declares that the true deliverance from
          sin and Satan belongs to none but to the children of
          God, whom he justifies.

Isaiah 59:21
59:21 As for me, this [is] my covenant with them, saith the
      LORD; My spirit that [is] upon thee, and my words which I
      have put in thy mouth, {u} shall not depart out of thy
      mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the
      mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth
      and for ever.

      (u) Because the doctrine is made profitable by the virtue
          of the Spirit, he joins the one with the other, and
          promises to give them both to his Church for ever.