A Confession of National Wickedness

591 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, that he doth not hear. 3 For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak lies, your tongue muttereth unrighteousness: 4 none calleth for justice, none pleadeth in truthfulness. They trust in vanity, and speak falsehood; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 5 They hatch serpents' 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; wasting and destruction are in their paths; 8 the way of peace they know not, and there is no judgment in their goings; they have made their paths crooked: whoso goeth therein knoweth not peace.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 59:1-8

Commentary on Isaiah 59:1-8

(Read Isaiah 59:1-8)

If our prayers are not answered, and the salvation we wait for is not wrought for us, it is not because God is weary of hearing prayer, but because we are weary of praying. See here sin in true colours, exceedingly sinful; and see sin in its consequences, exceedingly hurtful, separating from God, and so separating us, not only from all good, but to all evil. Yet numbers feed, to their own destruction, on infidel and wicked systems. Nor can their skill or craft, in devising schemes, as the spider weaves its web, deliver or save them. No schemes of self-wrought salvation shall avail those who despise the Redeemer's robe of righteousness. Every man who is destitute of the Spirit of Christ, runs swiftly to evil of some sort; but those regardless of Divine truth and justice, are strangers to peace.