Isaiah 59:4

None calleth for justice,.... Or, "righteousness"; not for civil justice in courts of judicature, as if there were no advocates for it there; or that put those in mind of it, to whom the

None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

None calleth for justice, i.e. none seek to redress these wrongs and violences; they commit all rapines and frauds under impunity; either, 1. Because the judges are corrupt. Or, 2. Because none will warn the judges of their duty. Or, 3. Because none seek to bring offenders to justice. Or, 4. Because none will plead a righteous cause, or plead it righteously, or countenance goodness; and this the next expression favours; and so justice suffers, which the Hebrew word mispat, being in the passive voice, seems to intimate: the sense is the same, and whereas it is said none, it is as much as to say very few, as we say few or none; the like . Quest. How could this be charged upon them, when in the time of their captivity they had no courts? Answ. It is probable they had courts among themselves, to judge between one another, by leave of the Babylonish kings. They trust in vanity; either, 1. Relating to their lies, which are words empty and void of all consistency; and so it is the same with the next expression, and speak lies. Or, 2. In their idols, which are stocks and stones, and so oft called vanity and nothing, . For even in Babylon they worshipped idols, as appears by ,12,18. Or rather, 3. In their power, and craft, and policy, whereby, laying aside justice, they can oppress others; and so he calls it vanity by a metonymy of the adjunct, because it would prove all vain in the end, and either, 1. Frustrate their ends. Or, 2. Not justify them against God’ s proceedings with them. Or, 3. Bring all into emptiness and confusion: the word is tohu, whereby the confusion and mingling of all things is expressed, before the world was brought into order and form, . Speak lies: it may refer both to the judges, and to the lawyers and false prophets, that tell them they shall not go into captivity; they speak that which they know to be false. They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity: these two words of conceiving and bringing forth note their whole contrivance, and perfecting their wickedness; the former notes their plotting, the latter their execution of mischief; whatever is in the mind, only out of sight, warmed and formed there by cogitating and meditation, is called conception, which being ripe, and produced to view, is called a birth; intimating that the wicked sin not occasionally and accidentally, but premeditatingly and professedly; they grow big with it. The expression is allegorical, and in the two next verses compared to the cockatrice’ eggs for the wickedness of it, and to a spider’ s web for the vanity of it.

Isaiah 59:4 None calleth for justice, nor [any] pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.Ver. 4. None calleth for justice.] Mindeth the judges of their duty, but rather connive, collogue, partake, &c. The Chaldee hath it, ‘ There is none that delivereth the poor and needy.’ They trust in vanity.] As those did; making a bridge of their own shadows, they fall into the brook. They conceive mischief, &c.] This is taken out of Psa 7:14 Job 15:35; Heb., Going great with grievance, and bringing forth vexation.

(4) None calleth for justice.—Better, none preferreth his suit with truthfulness. The words point chiefly to the guilt of unrighteous prosecutions, but may include that of false witness also. They trust in vanity.—Literally, in chaos—the characteristic tohu of both parts of Isaiah (Isaiah 24:10; Isaiah 29:21; Isaiah 40:17; Isaiah 40:23).

Verse 4. They conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.] There is a curious propriety in this mode of expression; a thought or purpose is compared to conception; a word or act, which is the consequence of it, to the birth of a child. From the third to the fifteenth verse inclusive may be considered a true statement of the then moral state of the Jewish people; and that they were, in the most proper sense of the word, guilty of the iniquities with which they are charged.

4. The first half of the verse should be rendered as R.V. None sueth in righteousness, And none pleadeth in truth. The reference is to the abuse of legal procedure: lawsuits instituted and conducted with absolute disregard of righteousness and truth. Cf. ch. Isaiah 29:21. calleth] with the sense of “summon” (in jus vocare), as in Job 9:16; Job 13:22. pleadeth] i.e. “pleadeth a cause”, litigates; the same word as in Isaiah 43:26. The rest of the verse probably continues the same subject, describing the sophistical and mischievous arguments employed by the litigants to make the worse appear the better reason, and subvert the ends of justice. The verbs are infinitives (as in Isaiah 59:13 and Hosea 4:2) and should be translated thus: Trusting in emptiness (lit. “chaos” as Isaiah 40:17) and speaking vanity!Conceiving mischief and bringing forth evil!The last line occurs almost verbatim in Job 15:35.

None calleth for justice - Or rather, there is no one who brings a suit with justice; no one who goes into court for the purpose of obtaining justice.

3, 4. Hands… fingers… lips — The sins of Israel are sins of deed and word, by which accusation is to be found in every organ.