Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 59:4

4 None calleth for justice nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity , and speak lies , they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

i. e. None seek to redress these wrongs, and violences, they commit all rapines, and frauds under impunity: Either 1. Because the Judges are corrupt. Or, 2. Because none will warn the judges of their duty. Or, 3. Because none seek to bring offenders to Justice. Or, 4. Because none will plead a righteous cause or plead it righteously, or countenance goodness, and this the next expression favours, and so Justice suffers, which the Hebrew word nis[illegible: 1+ letters]at being in the passive voice, seems to intimate; the sense is the same, and whereas it is said none, it is as much as to say very few, as we say few or none, the like Psal. 14. 3. Qu. How could this be charged upon them, when in the time of their [illegible: 1 word] the[illegible: 1+ letters] [illegible: 1 word] no Courts? Answ. It is probable they had [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] themselves, to judge between one another by leave of the [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] Kings.

Either, 1. Relating to their lies, which are words empty, and void of all consistency, and so it is the same with the next expression, and speak lies. Or, 2. In their Idols, which are stocks and stones, and so o[illegible: 1+ letters]t called vanity and nothing, 1 Cor. 8. 4. For even in Babylon, they worshipped Idols as appears by Ier. 16. 11▪ 12, 18. Or, rather, 3. In their power, and craft, and policy, whereby, laying aside Justice, they can oppress others, and so he calls it vanity by a Metonymy of the Adjunct, because it would prove all vain in the end, and either, 1. Frustrate their ends. Or, 2. Not justify them against Gods proceedings with them. Or, 3. Bring all into emptiness and confusion; the word is tohu, whereby the confusion, and mingling of all things is expressed, before the world was brought into order, and from Gen. 1. 2.

It may refer both to the Judges, and to the Lawyers, and false Prophets, that tell them they shall not go into Captivity, they speak that which they know to be false.

k These two words of Conceiving, and Bringing forth, note their whole contrivance, and perfecting their wickedness, the former notes their plotting, the latter their execution of mischief; whatever is in the mind only out of sight, warmed, and formed there by cogitating and meditation, is called Conception, which being ripe, and produced to view, is called a Birth, intimating that the wicked sin not occasionally, and accidentally, but premeditatingly, and professedly, they grow big with it. The expression is Allegorical, and in the two next verses compared to the Cockatrices Eggs for the wickedness of it, and to a Spiders Web for the vanity of it.

Marginal references: Jer. 9. 4▪; Job 15. 35. Psal. 7. 14.