Isaiah 59:10

10 Like the blind, we inch along a wall, groping eyeless in the dark. We shuffle our way in broad daylight, like the dead, but somehow walking.

Isaiah 59:10 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 59:10

We grope for the wall like the blind
Who either with their hands, or with a staff in them, feel for the wall to lean against, or to guide them in the way, or into the house, that they may know whereabout they are, and how they should steer their course: and we grope as if we had no eyes:
which yet they had, the eyes of their reason and understanding; but which either were not opened, or they made no use of them in searching the Scriptures, to come at the light and knowledge of divine things; and therefore only at most groped after them by the dim light of nature, if thereby they might find them. This is to be understood not of them all, but of many, and of the greatest part: we stumble at noonday as in the night;
as many persons do now: for though it is noonday in some respects, and in some places, where the Gospel and the truths of it are clearly preached; yet men stumble and fall into the greatest errors, as in the night of the greatest darkness; as if it was either the night of Paganism or Popery with them: we are in desolate places as dead men;
or "in fatnesses" ^F1; in fat places where the word and ordinances are administered, where is plenty of the means of grace, yet not quickened thereby; are as dead men, dead in trespasses and sin, and at most have only a name to live, but are dead. Some render it, "in the graves" ^F2; and the Targum thus,

``it is shut before us, as the graves are shut before the dead;''

we have no more light, joy, and comfort, than those in the graves have.

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 (Mynmvab) "in rebus pinguissimis", Junius & Tremellius; "in pinguetudinibus", Piscator; "in opimis rebus", Vitringa.
F2 "In sepulchris", Pagninus; and so Ben Melech interprets it.

Isaiah 59:10 In-Context

8 They know nothing about peace and less than nothing about justice. They make tortuously twisted roads. No peace for the wretch who walks down those roads!

9 Which means that we're a far cry from fair dealing, and we're not even close to right living. We long for light but sink into darkness, long for brightness but stumble through the night.

10 Like the blind, we inch along a wall, groping eyeless in the dark. We shuffle our way in broad daylight, like the dead, but somehow walking.

11 We're no better off than bears, groaning, and no worse off than doves, moaning. We look for justice - not a sign of it; for salvation - not so much as a hint.

12 Our wrongdoings pile up before you, God, our sins stand up and accuse us. Our wrongdoings stare us down; we know in detail what we've done: