What does Isaias Chapter 59 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The addressees’ bloodshed and falsehood accompany divided access. Communal confession depicts fallen truth and absent judgment. Divine armor and the redeemer lead to a covenant of spirit and words.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 59 denies a shortened saving hand or heavy hearing ear, instead accusing the addressees' iniquities of division and hidden face. Bloodied hands, lying lips and absent true judgment accompany vanity, labor and iniquity. Broken asp eggs kill eaters and hatch basilisk; spider webs cannot clothe or cover. Feet race to innocent blood, wasting and crooked unpeaceful paths.

The voice turns to we: distant justice, expected light becoming dark, blind groping and noon stumbling like death in dark places. Bear roars and dove laments accompany absent judgment and salvation. Known sins testify, with lies against the Lord, calumny, transgression and heart-born falsehood. Truth falls in the street, equity cannot enter and one leaving evil becomes prey. The Lord sees absent judgment and is astonished at no man opposing himself.

His own arm and justice bring salvation and support. Justice breastplate, salvation helmet, vengeance garments and zeal cloak accompany recompense to enemies and islands. West fears the name and sunrise the glory at a spirit-driven violent stream. A redeemer comes to Sion and those returning from Jacob's iniquity. The covenant preserves spirit and words in the addressed mouth and descendants' mouths forever. The edition interprets this as perpetual orthodoxy of Christ's Church. The local accusation is not generalized into a rule that every unanswered prayer proves personal wrongdoing, and a clinical diagnosis or guaranteed immediate restoration is not added.

The story inside

Opening: The addressees’ bloodshed and falsehood accompany divided access. Development: Communal confession depicts fallen truth and absent judgment. Conclusion: Divine armor and the redeemer lead to a covenant of spirit and words.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The addressees’ bloodshed and falsehood accompany divided access.
2
Communal confession depicts fallen truth and absent judgment.
3
Divine armor and the redeemer lead to a covenant of spirit and words.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 83332–83333
59:2. But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear.
Lines 83387–83389
59:16. And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own justice supported him.