Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 59:3

"For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue muttereth wickedness." — Isaiah 59:3 (ASV)

For your hands are defiled with blood — The prophet proceeds here more particularly to specify the sins of which they were guilty; and in order to show the extent and depth of their depravity, he specifies the various members of the body—the hands, the fingers, the lips, the tongue, the feet—as the agents by which people commit iniquity. See a similar argument on the subject of depravity in Romans 3:13-15, where part of the description the prophet gives here is quoted by Paul and applied to the Jews in his own time. The phrase your hands are defiled with blood, means with the blood of the innocent; that is, they were guilty of murder, oppression, and cruelty. See a similar statement in Isaiah 1:15, where the phrase your hands are full of blood occurs.

The word rendered here ‘defiled’ (גאל gā'al) commonly means to redeem or ransom; then to avenge, or to demand and inflict punishment for bloodshed. In the sense of defiling, it occurs only in the later Hebrew writers—perhaps used in this sense because those who were avengers became covered, that is, defiled with blood.

And your fingers with iniquity — In the Scriptures, the fingers are represented as the agents by which any purpose is executed (Isaiah 2:8), Which their own fingers have made . Some have supposed that the phrase used here means the same as the preceding one: that they were guilty of murder and cruelty. But it seems more probable that the idea suggested by Grotius is the true sense: that it means they were guilty of rapine and theft. The fingers are the instruments by which theft—especially the lighter and more delicate kinds of theft—is executed. Thus, we use the term ‘light-fingered’ to denote anyone who is dexterous in taking and conveying away anything, or anyone who is addicted to petty thefts.

Your lips have spoken lies — The nation is false, and no confidence can be placed in the declarations that are made.

Your tongue has muttered — Regarding the word rendered ‘muttered’ (הגה hâgâh), see the notes at Isaiah 8:19. Probably, the word here includes the idea that they not only spoke evil but did so with a complaining, discontented, or malicious spirit. It may also mean that they calumniated the government of God and complained of his laws; or it may mean, as Grotius supposes, that they calumniated others—that is, that slander abounded among them.

Perverseness — Hebrew, עולה ‛avlâh — ‘Evil’ — the word from which our word evil is derived.