Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 59:15

"Yea, truth is lacking; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And Jehovah saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice." — Isaiah 59:15 (ASV)

Truth faileth — that is, it is banished, and becomes like a missing and lost thing. The man who departs from evil is merely the victim of the evildoers. Other renderings are (1) is outlawed, and (2) is counted mad, but the Authorised Version is quite tenable. These words remind us of the terrible picture of Greek demoralisation in Thucydides, Book 3.

And the Lord saw it ... — The verse at first suggests the thought that what Jehovah saw were the sins thus described. The sequence of thought, however, tends to the conclusion that these words are properly the beginning of a new section, and that the supplied pronoun refers to the repentance and confession of the people. It displeased Him — literally, was evil in His eyes — that the penitents were still subject to oppression, that they found no leader and deliverer, and therefore He came, as it were, alone and unaided, to the rescue. (Compare Joel 2:17-19.)