John Calvin 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. He now brings forward their actions, so that they may not practice evasion or question which sins have “caused the separation.” He therefore removes every excuse from them by bringing forward particular instances, as if their shameful life were displayed on an open stage.

Now, he speaks in the second person because, like an advocate, he argues and pleads God’s cause. Therefore, he speaks of himself as not belonging to the ranks of the wicked, with whom he did not wish to be grouped, though he was not entirely free from sin but feared and served God and enjoyed freedom of conscience.

No one could be free to condemn others who was involved in the guilt of the same vices; and no one could be qualified for pleading God’s cause who deprived himself of that right by living wickedly.

We must be unlike those whom we reprove if we do not wish to expose our doctrine to ridicule and be considered impudent. On the other hand, when we serve God with a pure conscience, our doctrine gains weight and authority, and more fully convicts even adversaries.

Are polluted with blood. The picture he gives of the wicked life of the people is not unnecessary, for people seek various evasions and cannot be brought to obedience unless they have first acknowledged their sins.

By mentioning blood, he does not mean that murders have been committed everywhere. Instead, by this word, he describes the cruelty, extortions, violence, and great wickednesses committed by hypocrites against the poor and defenseless. For they were not dealing with robbers and assassins, but with the king and the nobles, who were highly respected and honored.

He calls them manslayers because they cruelly harassed the innocent and seized the property of others by force and violence. And so, immediately afterwards, he uses the word “iniquity” instead of “blood.”

And your fingers with iniquity. Though he appears to extend the discussion further, it is a repetition, or rather, a reduplication, such as is frequently used by Hebrew writers, accompanied by amplification. For he expresses more by “fingers” than by “hands”; as if he had said that not even the smallest part was free from unjust violence.

Your lips have uttered falsehood. Next, he notes one kind of wickedness: when people deceive each other by tricks, falsehood, or perjury. For that iniquity by which we wound our neighbors is most frequently defended either by cruelty as a bodyguard, or by cheating and falsehood.

Here the Prophet takes a rapid view of the second table, and from the crimes they commit against it, he shows that they are wicked and lacking all fear of God. For cruelty and treachery, by which human society is violated, proceed from contempt of God.

Thus, from “the hands”—that is, from extortion and violence—he descends to falsehoods and deceitful practices, to perjuries and crafty devices, by which we take advantage of our neighbors.