Isaiah 59 Bible study: A Redeemer will come to Zion

The chapter opens with what is not the trouble: "Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear" (59:1) (tap shortened). Then it says what is: "But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" (59:2) (tap separated, hidden). Here is what almost everyone misses: the verb the WEB gives as separated is badal, the verb of the Bible's first days, "God divided the light from the darkness" (Genesis 1:4), and 59:2, like Genesis 1:4, has the Hebrew word between twice. The next verses name the body part by part: "For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness" (59:3), and then "Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood" (59:7).

Isaiah 59:20→leads toRomans 11:26-27

The LORD says, "A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from disobedience in Jacob" (Isaiah 59:20), and "As for me, this is my covenant with them" (Isaiah 59:21). Paul (Romans 1:1) writes, "Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”" (Romans 11:26-27). Paul gives the words as Scripture but doesn't name Isaiah, and the WEB words the two differently: where Isaiah 59:20 has A Redeemer will come to Zion, Romans has There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and where Isaiah has those who turn from disobedience in Jacob, Romans has he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them stands in both. Romans 11:27's last words are close to Isaiah 27:9, and the chapter on Isaiah 27 sets them out. Romans doesn't name the Deliverer, so setting 59:20 beside Jesus is a reading. Many Christians read Paul's Deliverer as Christ, and hear in "A Redeemer will come to Zion" (Isaiah 59:20) a promise of him. Others read Paul as giving these words of Scripture for the LORD's promise to Jacob, without saying who the Deliverer is, and read Isaiah 59:20 in its own chapter, as the LORD's word that a Redeemer will come to Zion (Isaiah 59:20-21), without setting it beside Jesus. These notes pick neither. Paul's sentence begins "and so all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26); that is Paul's own subject, Isaiah 59 doesn't raise it, and these notes take no view on it.

בָּדַלbadalsay ba-DAL

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "divide, separate". Strong's: "to divide". "But your iniquities have separated you and your God" (59:2). Its first use in the Hebrew Bible is "God divided the light from the darkness" (Genesis 1:4). Isaiah has the verb three times: twice in one verse, in the words the foreigner is told not to say, "The LORD will surely separate me from his people" (Isaiah 56:3), and once here. The chapter on 1 Chronicles 23 studies it.