Isaiah 59:12

12 For our transgressions have been multiplied before Thee, And our sins have testified against us, For our transgressions [are] with us, And our iniquities -- we have known them.

Isaiah 59:12 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 59:12

For our transgressions are multiplied before thee
Not only an increase of immorality among the people in common, but among professors of religion; and as their transgressions are committed against the Lord, so they are in his sight taken notice of and observed by him, are loathsome and abominable to him, and call aloud for his judgments on them: and our sins testify against us;
God is a witness against us, in whose sight our sins are done; and our consciences are witnesses against us, which are as a thousand witnesses; and there is no denying facts; our sins stare us in the face, and we must confess our guilt: or, "our sins answer against us" ^F3; as witnesses called and examined answer to the questions put, so our sins, being brought as it were into open court, answer and bear testimony against us; or it must be owned, our punishment for our sins answers to them; it is the echo of our sins, what they call for, and righteously comes upon us: for our transgressions are with us;
or, "on us" ^F4; in our minds, on our consciences, loading us with guilt; continually accusing and condemning us; are manifest to us, as the Targum; too manifest to be denied: and as for our iniquities, we know them;
the nature and number of them, and the aggravating circumstances that attend them; and cannot but own and acknowledge them, confess, lament, and bewail them; an enumeration of which follows.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 (wnb htne wnytajx) "peccata nostra respondit contra nos", Montanus; "id ipsum respondit contra nos", Cocceius; "even everyone of them", so Junius & Tremellius; "peccatorum nostrorum quodque", sic
F4 (wnta) "super nos", Munster.

Isaiah 59:12 In-Context

10 We feel like the blind [for] the wall, Yea, as without eyes we feel, We have stumbled at noon as at twilight, In desolate places as the dead.

11 We make a noise as bears -- all of us, And as doves we coo sorely; We wait for judgment, and there is none, For salvation -- it hath been far from us.

12 For our transgressions have been multiplied before Thee, And our sins have testified against us, For our transgressions [are] with us, And our iniquities -- we have known them.

13 Transgressing, and lying against Jehovah, And removing from after our God, Speaking oppression and apostacy, Conceiving and uttering from the heart Words of falsehood.

14 And removed backward is judgment, And righteousness afar off standeth, For truth hath been feeble in the street, And straightforwardness is not able to enter,