Isaiah 59:11

11 We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us.

Isaiah 59:11 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 59:11

We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves
Some in a more noisy and clamorous, others in a stiller way, yet all in private: for the bear, when robbed of its whelps, goes to its den and roars; and the dove, when it has lost its mate, mourns in solitude: this expresses the secret groanings of the saints under a sense of sin, and the forlorn state of religion. The Targum paraphrases it thus,

``we roar because of our enemies, who are gathered against us as bears; all of us indeed mourn sore as doves:''

we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far
from us;
we expect that God will take vengeance on our enemies, and save us; look for judgment on antichrist, and the antichristian states, and for the salvation of the church of God; for the vials of divine wrath on the one, and for happy times to the other; but neither of them as yet come; the reason of which is as follows.

Isaiah 59:11 In-Context

9 Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have walked in the dark.

10 We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places, as dead men.

11 We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us.

12 For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and have known our iniquities:

13 In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression: we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood.