Isaiah 59:11

11 We all roar like bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation, [but] 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, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, [but] we walk in darkness.

10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if [we had] no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; [we are] in desolate places as dead [men].

11 We all roar like bears, and mourn bitterly like doves: we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation, [but] it is far from us.

12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions [are] with us; and [as for] our iniquities, we know them;

13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.