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;
Isaiah 59 explains why God's people found their prayers unanswered. The problem was not with God. Their own sins stood in the way. This verse traces evil from the feet, to the thoughts, to the ruin left behind. Paul later quotes it to show the whole world guilty before God.
One commentator sums up what stood between God and His people, and how the chapter ends:
It was their own evil that separated the Jews and their God, their sins which hid His face from them so that He did not hear. Then comes confession of their sins, but no power to rise out of their misery. That lasts until Jehovah steps in — identifying Himself with Christ, the Redeemer, in Zion — and brings deliverance for the godly remnant.
The verse does not say they walk toward evil; it says they run and hurry. Writing on Paul's list of quotations in Romans 3, one commentator connects this line to the one before it:
"Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood." From "cursing and bitterness" it is only a short way to murder.
The last line of the verse looks back down the road already travelled:
"Desolation and destruction are in their highways; the way of peace they do not know." Murder leaves ruin and misery behind it.
"Innocent blood" had faces attached to it. One writer names who the victims were:
The Nazirite's purity was the sanctification of obedience. He would meet insults rather than praise from people who held on to sin inside while keeping up the outward form and pattern of obedience to the Law. Such were the prophets who spoke in the word of the Lord to the rebellious and backsliding heart of the nation. He who departed from evil made himself a prey to those whose feet were swift to shed blood.
Between the running feet and the ruined road, the verse pauses on the inner life. Those thoughts have a direction and a target:
These cases make clear which way the thoughts of men's hearts lean. They are set against God, and against His Son as well. On that second point the prophecies about the Messiah came true, which said, "All their thoughts are against me for evil"; "their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity"; "all their imaginations are against me" (Ps. 56:5; Isa. 59:7; Lam. 3:61).
Paul's argument turns on who the words speak to. These Scriptures condemn the very nation that prized them:
The law, he says, belongs to you. You boast that it refers to you exclusively. Very well: then hear what it says of the people, of yourselves. It speaks to you, as you acknowledge. There is not one righteous man among you on whom God can look down from heaven. He quotes Psalm 14:2-3 and Isaiah 59:7-8, to show the judgment that the Scriptures they boasted in pronounce on them. So every mouth was shut, and all the world guilty before God.
The picture is not a dead end. The same mouth, tongue and feet can be turned to a new use:
That mouth, once "full of cursing and bitterness," is now full of blessing. That tongue, long used to "deceit," now spreads abroad the word of truth and life. Those feet, once "swift to shed blood," now wear "the readiness given by the gospel of peace." They run joyfully in the pathways of mercy.
For the nation, the deadlock breaks only when God Himself steps in:
Such utter moral chaos, hopeless for man, was the call for Jehovah's intervention. "He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then His own arm brought Him salvation, and His righteousness upheld Him."
- Separated — Their own evil separated them from God. Their sins hid His face, so He did not hear.
- Swift — The measure of the guilt is speed. From bitter words to bloodshed is a short walk, and these feet ran it.
- Innocent — The man who turned from evil became the prey. Feet swift to shed blood hunted those who spoke God's word.
- Silenced — Paul reads these words back to the people who prized them. Every mouth is shut, and all the world stands guilty before God.
- Sent — The same feet, once swift to shed blood, now carry the gospel of peace. Where no man could act, God's own arm brought salvation.
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.
Isaiah describes a people whose whole way of life has lost any sense of what peace is. It is not only a picture of violent men: Paul later takes these words from Isaiah and lays them on the whole human race.
Behind a life like this lies something worse than its crimes. One writer names what we usually miss when we think about sin:
When we consider the havoc sin has caused, we tend to think mainly of the guilt of our sins and the judgment they will bring. Perhaps we also think of the enslaving power sin has in our lives. But we give little thought to the way it has separated us from God. None of the effects of sin is more disastrous than this — alienation.
Scripture's word for iniquity means twisted or crooked. One writer shows what men have done with a road God laid out straight:
INIQUITY means twisted, crooked, perverse. God has laid down a road for the feet of men to tread, and that road is as straight as His everlasting sceptre, but men have made for themselves crooked ways (Isa. 59:8); they are a crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:15).
That explains the verse's last line. The road decides where it ends, so a crooked path never arrives at peace.
Religion itself can become a hiding place. One writer weighs what such a cover is worth to God:
You may have sought and provided a religious veil; but it is of no more value in God's eye than the web the spider weaves... For none are prouder or more bitter than natural men under a veil of religion.
Paul turns these words on the people who prized the law as their own possession:
The law, he says, belongs to you. You boast that it refers to you exclusively. So be it: then hear what it says of the people, of yourselves... He quotes Psalm 14:2-3; Isaiah 59:7-8, to set out the judgment pronounced on them by those very Scriptures they boasted in. So every mouth was shut, and all the world guilty before God.
Isaiah and Paul both use these words. But each moves on to something different:
The same apostle opened out the gospel of God to the saints in Rome. There he cites weighty and withering words from the early verses of our chapter. He uses them to convict of sin and ruin, and so to prove the utter need of grace (Rom. 3:15-17, 19-20). But he follows this up: God justifies freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus... The prophet does something different. After uncovering the sins of the people, he shows Jehovah stepping in, clothed in garments of vengeance. He repays fury to His adversaries and recompense to His enemies. This is not what He is doing now, nor is it in any way the gospel of grace. It is His coming in the displayed kingdom.
If no one knows the way of peace, no effort can find it. Someone must bring the news:
The work that made peace was the work of Christ alone... God's way of peace is giving — giving in grace, through the finished work of Christ. So no one can buy peace with God. No human effort can earn it. But anyone may receive it as a free gift, because the gospel still preaches it throughout the whole world.
This verse leaves men walking a road with no peace on it. The gospel fits a believer's feet for another road:
The Gospel of peace that we have received prepares us to walk in peace amid the world's unrest... Of natural men the Scripture says, "The way of peace they have not known" (Romans 3:17). But those whose feet are shod with peace are marked by peace even in conflict.
- Separated. Sin's worst effect is not only guilt but alienation — sin has separated us from God.
- Crooked. God laid a straight road; men twisted their own paths, and the path itself decides the outcome — whoever walks it does not know peace.
- Uncovered. Religion worn as a veil is worth no more in God's eyes than a spider's web.
- Convicted. Paul quotes these very words to the people who boasted in them, so that every mouth is shut and the whole world stands guilty.
- Given. What man cannot find, God gives through the finished work of Christ — and those who receive it walk in peace even in conflict.