Chapter 59 of Yeshayahu is a sharp rebuke regarding the root cause of the exile: Hashem's hand is not too short to save, but rather our iniquities have created a barrier. In this part of the chapter, we examine the description of the depth of moral corruption (feet, thoughts, ways, and paths), and the dreadful outcome: darkness, gloom, and blindness, along with the cry of the exiles who have neither justice nor salvation. We will proceed verse by verse following the Malbim, alongside the insights of Rashi, Radak, and Targum Yonatan.
רַגְלֵיהֶם לָרַע יָרֻצוּ וִימַהֲרוּ לִשְׁפֹּךְ דָּם נָקִי, מַחְשְׁבֹתֵיהֶם מַחְשְׁבוֹת אָוֶן, שֹׁד וָשֶׁבֶר בִּמְסִלּוֹתָם׃ - Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways.
The Malbim explains: evil had already become second nature to them. Their feet ran toward evil on their own, out of ingrained habit. And it was not enough that they walked swiftly to the scene of murder; they were also swift in the act itself - "and they hasten to shed innocent blood." Sometimes a person runs to do something, but just before executing it, he pauses to consider whether it is proper or not. Other times, a person acts hastily precisely so his conscience will not have time to strike and restrain him. Here it is said that they both ran and acted immediately.
And lest you say that perhaps in their minds they were unsure whether it was right to act this way, providing some point of merit in that they were not fully at peace with their deeds, the verse continues: "their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity." Not only did they run to the transgression and commit it in haste, but they were entirely at peace with their actions. Furthermore: "desolation and destruction are in their highways" - their thought process was already paved and cleared toward ruin and devastation, and all their ideas constantly leaned in that direction. This was already a highway, a way of life. Thus, their wickedness was immense.
דֶּרֶךְ שָׁלוֹם לֹא יָדָעוּ וְאֵין מִשְׁפָּט בְּמַעְגְּלוֹתָם, נְתִיבוֹתֵיהֶם עִקְּשׁוּ לָהֶם, כֹּל דֹּרֵךְ בָּהּ לֹא יָדַע שָׁלוֹם׃ - The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their tracks; their paths they have made crooked for themselves; whoever treads upon them shall not know peace.
"The way of peace they do not know" - they do not know the way of peace and wholeness at all. For if "desolation and destruction are in their highways," if their paved road is one of robbery and ruin, naturally a way of peace is unfamiliar to them. "Their paths they have made crooked for themselves" - ikkesh denotes distortion or crookedness, as people say of a fox whose teeth are twisted. So too, they twisted their own paths, making their way crooked and winding.
The Malbim distinguishes here, as he often does in several places, between a derech (way) and a nativ (path). A derech is the established public road used by the multitude, what we would call a highway today. A nativ is a smaller, more private route leading to a town. The public at large always maintains a standard code of conduct, justice, and etiquette by which they proceed - some law through which they govern their lives in a peaceful manner, so that one does not oppress his fellow. Yet here it is said that even this general public way, the basic laws of decent conduct in the public sphere, they do not know.
There is also a ma'agal (circuit or track), which according to the Malbim always denotes a roundabout route. "There is no justice in their tracks" - after all, even among criminals there is etiquette, there are rules, and they even have their own court: an underworld tribunal where someone versed in underworld codes presides. It is impossible to operate without rules even among thieves, for instance regarding the division of percentages in the loot. If one arranged the theft and the other failed to give him his rightful share "according to the law" - an underworld law, but a law nonetheless. Or if two were partners in a robbery, and during the act one slipped a ring from an inner room into his pocket assuming his partner would not notice, thereby stealing from his partner. That is how they end up before the thieves' court. And so it remains to this day: when disputes arise and the underworld arbitrator fails to reach a compromise, bullets and rockets begin to fly, creating a dangerous situation. The verse says: even this roundabout route, which though corrupt still possesses boundaries and rules, they do not have. Even the bare minimum of law and justice accepted among criminals is absent among them.
Perhaps the concept of ma'agal can be better understood today in the sense of a "circle" or faction. That is to say: there are people who, at least within their own circle, the criminal circle, have their own judge. Here, however, even the judge of their own gang is rejected by them. "There is no justice in their tracks" - one would expect them to have at least a private code of conduct to live by, yet even this is lacking.
And not only this, but "their paths they have made crooked for themselves." The nativ is the path of the individual. Suppose the peaceful way of general society does not speak to you, and the tribunal of criminals holds no authority over you - at least for yourself, in your private life, have some personal path, a minimal moral compass. A person accounts to himself and possesses personal boundaries: this I do, and this I will not do, an internal moral code without external compulsion. That is called a nativ. Regarding this it is said: "their paths they have made crooked for themselves" - each person's private path is twisted. Therefore, "whoever treads upon them shall not know peace": each one ruins and corrupts himself, his home, his family, and his children.
עַל־כֵּן רָחַק מִשְׁפָּט מִמֶּנּוּ וְלֹא תַשִּׂיגֵנוּ צְדָקָה, נְקַוֶּה לָאוֹר וְהִנֵּה חֹשֶׁךְ, לִנְגֹהוֹת בָּאֲפֵלוֹת נְהַלֵּךְ׃ - "Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness; for brightness, yet we walk in gloom."
Rashi explains: We cry out over the violence of our enemies, and we would expect the Holy One, blessed be He, to execute judgment, try them, and exact retribution from them. Yet the Holy One, blessed be He, does not execute judgment to take vengeance, nor does He punish the nations who harm and distress us. "And righteousness does not overtake us" - the Holy One, blessed be He, promised gracious consolations, but those consolations do not arrive and do not reach us, and we walk in darkness.
Radak notes the shift in grammatical person: until now, the prophet spoke in the third person - "The way of peace they do not know," "There is no justice in their paths" - and from here he shifts to the first person: "Justice is far from us," "Righteousness does not overtake us." The explanation is that from here until "And He saw that there was no man," the prophet serves as the mouthpiece for his contemporaries, articulating the words of the exiles. They say that we were exiled for the iniquity of the fathers along with the iniquity of the children. Indeed, the majority of Israel did not return from the first exile: in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, only about fifty thousand people returned - roughly a quarter of a single tribe, the population of a single neighborhood. It is traditionally held that the Yemenite Jews did not return because they possessed a tradition that the Second Temple would eventually be destroyed as well; but the truth is that numerically, the Babylonian Jews hardly returned either, for fifty thousand people was a tiny fraction of the whole. Thus, most of the Jewish people remained in exile. Jeremiah spoke similarly in the name of the exiles: "Our fathers sinned and are no more, and we have borne their iniquities." David likewise said, "Do not remember against us the iniquities of earlier generations," speaking not privately for himself, but on behalf of the entire community. Here too, Yeshayahu serves as a mouthpiece for the people of the exile.
And why is justice far? Measure for measure: since we distanced ourselves from peace and did not practice justice, failing to act with uprightness, the Holy One, blessed be He, likewise does not exercise justice to punish our enemies. If we uphold justice, law, and righteousness among ourselves, then the Holy One, blessed be He, will exact retribution and justly judge the enemies who distress us.
Furthermore, Radak explains: It is one of the Creator's attributes to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children - but when? When they hold fast to the deeds of their fathers. If the children continue the deeds of their fathers, the guilt of the fathers is visited upon them as well. At first glance, this presents a difficulty: my own sins are burden enough, so why must I bear the sins of my father and grandfather as well? The holy Ari explains that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren are in fact the reincarnations (gilgulim) of the fathers; thus, the very same individuals receive their punishment, for they themselves sinned. You might think, "they sinned and are no more," but in reality they are present - they returned in a gilgul, and in the third generation they are punished for what they sinned, because it is they themselves. As is well known, the Ari notes that when the Torah refers to "fathers," it often alludes to reincarnation, as in the concept of a "righteous person born of a wicked person - a tzaddik who suffers," meaning that in his previous incarnation he was wicked, and the "father" represents his prior life. Through the teachings of reincarnation, one can resolve many perplexities of Divine providence in the world, though this is not the place to elaborate. At any rate: "Righteousness does not overtake us," because Hashem visited upon us the iniquity of our fathers, and we still hold fast to their ways, so that we are paying for what we ourselves committed in earlier lifetimes. (Radak himself does not mention gilgulim; this is an incidental insight added to his words.)
The Malbim defines the terms: Mishpat (justice) is what Hashem dispenses according to deeds and merits, what is due to us by strict law. Tzedakah (charity or gratuitous benevolence) is what the Holy One, blessed be He, grants beyond the letter of the law, far more than what is deserved - like one who gives charity to a poor person, owing him nothing yet giving nonetheless. We can thus understand why "justice is far from us": we lack merits, and by right of law nothing is coming to us. Yet a question remains: charity is given even to those who are unworthy, so why does "righteousness not overtake us"? The Malbim answers: indeed, tzedakah is not measured by a person's deeds, nor does it depend on whether one is worthy or not, for its very essence is to pursue a person even when he does not deserve it. Rather, tzedakah fails to overtake us because we are running away from it. The Holy One, blessed be He, desires to shower upon us undeserved grace, yet we flee, as though we refuse to dwell under its shelter at all.
"We hope for light" - we anticipate the light of redemption, "and behold, darkness." We hoped that we would at least have brightness (nogah), that faint glow that exists even in the dark, but even this did not hold out for us, for "we walk in gloom," and gloom (ofel) is far worse than darkness. The Malbim explains: or (light) refers to anything that is an independent source of light, such as the sun. Nogah (radiance or brightness) is the illumination emanating from a light source, like the surrounding aura. Moonlight is called nogah, because the moon has no light of its own; it serves merely as a mirror reflecting the light of the sun. Similarly in Yechezkel: "Like the appearance of the rainbow in the cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness (nogah) surrounding it" - for a rainbow has no independent light, but is a reflection of the sun's rays through a spectrum of colors.
It follows that when sunlight is absent, "You bring darkness and it becomes night" - there is darkness, yet there is still nogah, for the moon shines and one can still discern something. But when there is actual gloom (afelah), even the moonlight is gone. This is the progression of the verse: we hoped for light, and instead darkness arrived; we said to ourselves that even in the dark there is at least the radiance of the moon - we hoped for brightness, but in its place came thick gloom. This echoes the words of Amos: "Behold, the day of Hashem is darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it." That is to say, all illumination has been completely withheld from us, to the point that not even the faintest glimmer from the moon remains.
נְגַשְׁשָׁה כַעִוְרִים קִיר וּכְאֵין עֵינַיִם נְגַשֵּׁשָׁה, כָּשַׁלְנוּ בַצׇּהֳרַיִם כַּנֶּשֶׁף בָּאַשְׁמַנִּים כַּמֵּתִים׃ - "We grope along a wall like the blind, and like those with no eyes we grope; we stumble at midday as in twilight, in darkness like the dead."
When a blind person wants to go from place to place, he has to grope around. Negasheshah ("we grope") is related to feeling around with one's hands, just as the Tochachah states, "And you shall grope at noontime" - it is noon, there is light, yet you are like a blind person feeling and groping his way. And here, this refers to blindness in the eyes of the intellect. "We grope like those who have no eyes" - like people who have no eyes at all. "We stumble at noon as in the twilight" - keneshef means as in the night.
"Ba'ashmanim" is a hapax legomenon, a word that appears only once in Tanach. In older printed editions of Tanach, the Masorah appears in the margin: a beis means the word appears twice more, a gimmel three times, and if a lamed is written - meaning leisa or leika (it does not exist elsewhere) - it means it appears only once, as Rashi often phrases it, "and I have found no companion to it in Scripture." This poses a considerable challenge, as there is no concordance that can show us the word in other contexts so that we might understand its meaning from the surrounding subject matter. Therefore, each commentator attempts to break down the word and see what it hints to.
Some explain that it derives from the root asham (guilt or desolation). Rashi cites Dunash, who interpreted it from the word shuman (fat) - ashmanim like shemanim (the robust, vigorous ones), with an additional alef. Do not wonder at this, for in Lashon HaKodesh we frequently find an extra alef: nachal achzav (a deceptive brook) from kazav (falsehood), as in "whose waters fail not [lo yechazvu]"; "the people pass by the way of the Atharim" from tarim (scouts), a place traversed by those scouting the land; he'eznichu from hiznichu (they made foul or cast off), and so on. If so, it is as though it were written, "among the vigorous, like the dead," meaning: among the living, we are considered like the dead. A corpse shrivels, decays, and dries up, whereas a living person has a vibrant face, a living body, and healthy vigor (shuman). We are thus like a walking corpse among the living.
In contrast, Targum Yonatan translates according to the first interpretation cited by the Radak, from the concept of enclosure or confinement: "Ittachad be'apana kema de'achidin kivraya be'apei meitiya" - shut in like the dead. Admittedly, it is not entirely clear how the concept of enclosure is derived from the word ashmanim, whether he interprets it from the context or from the word itself, for asham and shuman are phonetically close to the word, whereas closing or locking has no similar grammatical conjugation. In any event, this is how the Targum explains it.
The Malbim explains this as a continuation of the description of the profound darkness: in addition to the gloom and darkness, we are also blind - a double blow. Now, seemingly, what use is sight in complete pitch darkness? However, even in the dark, there is someone who can still see slightly or who knows the place. Moreover, a person who once had sight, and remembers the way from when there was light, knows more or less where the turn is and where the door is, so the darkness does not completely bar him. But here, we lack the light of salvation - salvation is always symbolized by light, a glimmer of light in the darkness - and we are in utter darkness without a single ray of light, unable to perceive even a hint of divine bounty from above. Furthermore, we would not even be fit to receive that light were it actually present, for of what use is light to the blind? Thus, we are neither worthy of the divine light, nor would we have the vessels to receive it even if it arrived.
"We grope like those who have no eyes" - like a person who never had eyes to begin with. Had we possessed eyes previously, we would remember something of the way; but we are like those who have never seen, with no way of knowing how to enter the city. Furthermore, when a blind person walks during the day, another person can still show him the way. That is why a blind person recites the blessing of Yotzer HaMe'orot - for of what benefit are the luminaries to him if he has never seen them in his life? Rather, someone who sees can guide him where he cannot see. It turns out that a blind person is assisted by others when there is light. But here, where we are both blind and surrounded by darkness, no one else can guide us either, and consequently we are "in gloom like the dead" - lying confined like corpses that cannot move at all. Thus we find layer upon layer: there is darkness, there is no brightness, there is gloom, we grope like the blind, and we are like those who never had eyes, and because of this we stumble at noon as in the night, and are shut up in our graves like the dead.
נֶהֱמֶה כַדֻּבִּים כֻּלָּנוּ וְכַיּוֹנִים הָגֹה נֶהְגֶּה, נְקַוֶּה לַמִּשְׁפָּט וָאַיִן, לִישׁוּעָה רָחֲקָה מִמֶּנּוּ׃ - We growl like bears, all of us, and moan continually like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us.
"Nehemeh" (we growl) and "nehgeh" (we moan) are expressions of wailing: like bears uttering a growling, wailing sound, and like a cooing dove. This symbolizes the sheer gravity of the dire state in which we find ourselves. "We hope for justice, but there is none" - we expected the Holy One, blessed be He, to exact retribution and execute judgment against our enemies, yet He does not judge them, as the Radak explains.
The Malbim explains that the clauses here run parallel: "We growl like bears, all of us" corresponds to "we hope for justice, but there is none," while "and moan continually like doves" corresponds to "for salvation, but it is far from us." At first, we roar like a bear, and a bear comes with strength and might - so too we expect justice, which is what is due to us by strict law. Observe the sheer insolence and the complete lack of understanding of their own plight: they are still confident that they deserve justice to be executed on their behalf, failing entirely to grasp the dire state they are in and the divine wrath directed toward them. They still come with complaints: Master of the Universe, why do You not execute judgment upon our enemies? And then it is revealed to them: "and there is none" - we have no worthy deeds, we are not upright, and we are not deserving of having justice done on our behalf.
From this we learn that a person must never demand strict judgment from Above: "Master of the Universe, You saw what so-and-so did to me; punish him!" First of all, the Holy One, blessed be He, is not - to make a million distinctions - like an attack dog that one sics on someone to settle a score. Does He not know what to do? Is He waiting for your operating instructions as to whom to act against? Secondly, since there is a justice system on earth, you must turn to a Beis Din, and they will act. When you turn to the Master of the Universe, you are saying, as it were: "I am certainly a tzaddik, so all that remains is to punish him." And then Heaven says: "You are a tzaddik? Let us examine your ledger." This is the great fear of every self-employed person: that the tax authorities will pull him in a random audit and start asking: "What is this check? Where is it recorded? Who gave this deposit and for what?" Anyone familiar with Katz Bakery in Bnei Brak knows that the tax authorities audited him, the man suffered a heart attack, and his funeral was that very same day - terrible and tragic. Consider what that fear was about - just the tax authorities! Yet here, the Master of the Universe says: "Let us examine his books."
And incidentally, the very same issue applies to someone who prays alone without a minyan: Are you such a tzaddik that you do not need a minyan, able to manage on your own with a direct line to the Holy One, blessed be He? Let us see your ledger: what merits do you possess that make you think you have an open highway to the Master of the Universe? And woe to the person whose ledgers are examined.
Therefore, when we initially came with force like bears, assuming that justice was due to us, it became clear to us that "and there is none" - we possess no worthy deeds, we are not upright, and we are not deserving. Consequently, "and like doves we mourn continually": no longer like bears demanding what is rightfully theirs, but like a feeble dove with a faint cry: Master of the Universe, we have no good deeds and are not worthy, yet perform tzedakah with us - for tzedakah, as we mentioned, is granted even to one who is undeserving, stemming from chesed. Concerning this, the verse states: "for salvation, but it is far from us": salvation indeed exists in reality, for the Holy One, blessed be He, is abundantly able to save, and His salvation is always accessible because it is an aspect of tzedakah, granted even to the undeserving - yet nonetheless it is far from us, due to the evil of our deeds. And this is why the next verse continues: "For our transgressions are multiplied before You."
In these verses, the prophet describes a gradual and terrible descent: feet that run to evil out of habit, swiftness in committing sin, and thoughts paved toward robbery. From there comes the loss of all structure: neither the general way of peace, nor justice even within the circle of criminals, nor even a private path of personal morality. The result is measure for measure: "justice is far from us" because we lack merits, and "tzedakah does not overtake us" because we flee from it. From here stems the description of accumulating darkness - not light, not brightness, but thick darkness; and not only darkness, but also blindness, like someone who never had eyes at all, until we are like the dead in confinement. Finally, the cry is reversed: from the growl of the bear demanding justice, to the mournful cooing of the dove pleading only for tzedakah. Yet even that remains far - not because salvation is lacking, but because of the wickedness of our deeds. This serves as the preparation for the next verse: "For our transgressions are multiplied before You."