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Isaiah 64 · a question people ask

What does 64:6 mean by "all our righteousness is like a polluted garment"?

In the text

It is the praying people's word about themselves: "For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment" (64:6). It comes straight after their confession, "you were angry, and we sinned. We have been in sin for a long time" (64:5). The same prayer has just said that the LORD meets "him who rejoices and does righteousness" (64:5), so it speaks of righteousness twice: first of the one the LORD meets, then of its own. In Hebrew the first is tsedeq and the second tsidqoteinu, the plural of tsedaqah, our righteousnesses. The prayer doesn't go on to explain the verse, and these notes add no teaching to it from other books and make it a verdict on no one today.

The verses

“You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned. We have been in sin for a long time. Shall we be saved? For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
Isaiah 64:5-6 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 64

Isaiah 64: We are the clay

In Hebrew 64:1 and 64:3 end with the same four words: the prayer asks the LORD to come down just as it remembers him coming down. In Hebrew its "a God besides you" (64:4) has the same two words as David's prayer (2 Samuel 7:22), and Paul gives as Scripture words that share some of 64:4's (1 Corinthians 2:9). And every leaf in Isaiah fades.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions