59:1  Surely the Lord’s hand has not become too short to save, nor his ear dull of hearing!

In these chapters there is kind of a dichotomy of responses of people to the Lord: some going the way of evil and some responding appropriately, and responding in particular to the Lord’s Servant and the other servants of the Lord that are being mentioned in these chapters. It never fails but when some people respond appropriately and upgrade their spirituality and others reject, then you have kind of a polarization taking place, so that the result of the Servant’s mission, or these servant’s missions, is a polarization of people. Their diverse circumstances that end up are quite different than they were originally. You can imagine before this, people were more or less on the same kind of level, on a similar level. Then some repent and the Lord begins to bless them and some harden their hearts and the Lord begins to curse them, or curses ensue as a result of their rejection of the truth. And so you have an ugly situation for them. Nevertheless, it seems like as in Chapter 1, the people are still religious or claiming to be religious, or claiming to be God’s people, otherwise words like these wouldn’t have much meaning. When it says, …the Lord’s hand has not become too short to save, nor his ear dull of hearing! It means people are praying. People are calling on the Lord, but not getting answers. And we had that situation in Chapter 1 in the very beginning, in the preface of the book: where people were going to the temple, they were attending their Sabbath meetings and they were praying in the proper manner, but the Lord was not hearing them because their hands were filled with blood. And so it is here. They are not being saved. They are not being redeemed from their present adversity. The Lord is not hearing them because:

59:2  It is your iniquities that separate you from your God; your sins hide his face, so that he does not hear you.

It is your iniquities that separate you from your God He says. Your God is your covenant God, indicating that they are His covenant people. They are the people who are being addressed.
your sins hide his face, so that he does not hear you. There is a difference between sin and iniquity. I’m not sure if we’ve already covered that. But sin is something that you do wrong. It’s a transgression of God’s law. And sin can be willful sinning or inadvertent transgression. And a man is punished for his own sins as Ezekiel tells us. The son is not guilty of the father’s sin, but each is guilty of his own sin. But Moses says: the iniquities of the father’s on the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation. So there we have a different situation. There it is the effects of sin that are passed down, the habit patterns, dysfunctional behaviors. These too need to be overcome. It’s one thing for a man to be forgiven of his sins when he repents, but it’s another thing for a man to overcome the generational iniquity that he has inherited, and that have been passed down. That’s part of the perfection process. To be forgiven of sins is called Justification. When a man has been forgiven his slate is clean, forgiven of God. And then the sanctification begins that perfection to where all the affects of former generational sins and covenant curses, they, too, are overcome. And they are no longer dragging a person down. So here He is hiding His face, the Lord is hiding His face from His own people because of their sins and iniquities in which they are immersed.

59:3  For your palms are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak guile, your tongue utters duplicity.

As in Chapter 1: your hands are filled with blood It says in Chapter 1. Your palms are defiled with blood, Verse 3 your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak guile, your tongue utters duplicity. These people have a double standard. They speak with forked-tongue or they have one standard for themselves and another for others. None calls for righteousness; no one sues for an honest cause. They rely on empty words, deceitfully spoken;
they conceive misdeeds, they beget wickedness. So they are really into evil and evil in the form of injustices of various kinds because of the kind of legal language used here: no one sues for an honest cause.

59:4  None calls for righteousness; no one sues for an honest cause. They rely on empty words, deceitfully spoken; they conceive misdeeds, they beget wickedness.

These chapters are very much along the lines of sermonizing, calling people to repentance. This chapter is and this group of chapters immediately following. Notice the words: lips, tongue and righteousness. These are all pseudonyms: the first two of the King of Assyria and the second one, righteousness, of the Lord’s Servant. The Lord’s Servant personifies righteousness. So when it says: None calls for righteousness; It means that they reject the Servant, who is an exemplar of righteousness, besides their not being interested in righteousness itself as a principle. The lips speaking guile, the tongue uttering duplicity will be the King of Assyria and his guileful way of speaking. He is the lips and the tongue and he is an exemplar of wickedness. And that’s what the wicked do: they are full of guile and they have a double standard. Now you can see here that people are into oppressing their neighbor and duping them, making deceitful contracts, all in order to exploit a situation and oppress another. It is a conscious thing.
they conceive misdeeds, they beget wickedness. It’s a kind of developmental thing. It’s not just a one shot deal. It is actual plans that are implemented from the beginning based on a false basis of standard.

59:5  They hatch vipers’ eggs and spin spiders’ webs; whoever eats of their eggs dies, and if any is smashed, there emerges a serpent.

Yuck. These are the effects. These are the fruits of their business dealings and their actions one with another. They are poison and they are useless.

59:6  Their cobwebs are useless as clothing; their fabrications are worthless for covering themselves. Their works consist of wrongdoing; they manipulate injurious dealings.

At this point in the circumstances of the Lord’s people there are a lot of oppressive, unjust, manipulative dealings going on, and also beginning to see the effects of them. And the effects are evil. Nobody is a winner. Nobody is gaining anything.

59:7  Their feet rush after evil; they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are preoccupied with mischief; havoc and disaster follow in their wake.

Havoc and disaster, of course, are chaos motifs, the result of all of their activities, including, at this point, murder. It’s progressively getting worse. The deceitfulness in the beginning, the business dealings they enter into, eventually end up in murder. Very much reminding of the time before the flood, when the imaginations of the people were to do evil continually and violence prevailed.

59:8  They are unacquainted with the way of perfection; integrity is not within their bounds. They have made crooked their paths; none who treads them knows peace.

All of these things are in contrast to the straight path, that Isaiah talks about, of the righteous. Chapter 26 verse 7: The path of the righteous is straight; thou pavest an undeviating course for the upright. In the…passage of thine ordinances we anticipate thee, O Lord; the soul’s desire is to contemplate thy name. And here, this is the other side. These are the people who are responding by rejecting the truth. And they have adopted this evil paradigm that they are following. All of their ways follow after the King of Assyria’s paradigm of wickedness. He is the epitome of all of these types of behaviors. And those who reject the light and truth, more or less, are following his paradigm, his example. They are unacquainted with the way of perfection; Which is what the Lord does want for His people. They should be in the way of perfection. integrity is not within their bounds. Integrity should be part of their lifestyle and of their thinking. They have made crooked their paths; Paths should have been straight. none who treads them knows peace. It says there is no peace for the wicked in Isaiah. These people don’t know what peace means. And peace in Isaiah is synonymous with salvation or healing.

59:9  Therefore redress remains far from us and righteousness is unable to reach us. We look for light, but there prevails darkness; for a glimmer of hope, but we walk amid gloom.

Eventually the effects of their actions set in and the covenant curses prevail. And they themselves are caught in the very trap that they set for others. They try to exploit others and now they themselves are in a situation where they are the victims of injustice and there is no redress for them. There is no one that comes and bails them out. …righteousness is unable to reach us.
Because they willfully rejected God and the terms of His covenant and now they’re locked-in to the conscious choices that they made and the results thereof, the consequences of that. Righteousness is not just the principle but also the person. The person, the Lord’s Servant, vindicates the Lord’s people, those who repent. The Lord’s Servant vindicates them. As we saw in Chapter 53 verse 11: because of his knowledge, and by bearing their iniquities, shall my servant, the righteous one, vindicate many. He releases others from bondage and from captivity, from the injustices that they are subjected to, from the situation of being persecuted, but not these wicked ones. Righteousness was able to reach those who repent. And he brought redress or vindication or an amelioration of their circumstances. He did that for those who repented, for the righteous, but not for these people. And the time is now passed.

We look for light, but there prevails darkness; Because they chose darkness instead of the light, they rejected the Lord’s light which was the Lord’s Servant or the word of god that he brought. They rejected that. They call light darkness and darkness light, as Isaiah says in another place. And so they end up in darkness. Darkness is the King of Assyria. He now has power over them. Darkness is also a chaos motif and light, a creation motif. So, they are left in a situation of chaos, utter gloom, subject to the King of Assyria because they chose it. And it is kind of a hopeless, despairing state that they are in. There’s no turn-around. There was a reversal of circumstances for the righteous, for those who repented. They were amid gloom and now they walk in the light. Remember that passage in Chapter 9, for the elect when the Lord’s Servant does his mission or for the righteous: …it shall not be gloomy to those who have been in anguish. The people walking in darkness have seen a bright light; Chapter 9 verses 1 and 2 on the inhabitants of the land of the shadow of death has the light dawned. There was this dichotomy going on between the righteous and the wicked, a reversal of circumstances. The righteous are brought from darkness into the light. The mission of the Lord’s Servant in Chapter 42 verse 7is: to open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from confinement …from prison those who sit in darkness.
He’s appointed as …a covenant for the people, a light to the nations, And in Chapter 49 he is also appointed as a light to the nations. And he is to say to the captives, Chapter 49 verse 9:
…Come forth! And to those in darkness, Show yourselves! And so here we have a reversal of circumstances for the wicked. They were in the light and they had access to the light. And they rejected it and now they are left in darkness, without hope.

59:10  We grope along the borders like the blind; we flounder like those without eyes. We stumble at noon as in the dark of night; in the prime of life we resemble the dead.

Those who were blind, their eyes were opened by the Lord’s Servant. His job is to open the eyes of the blind, as I just read. These people who did see are now blind. It’s very similar to John’s discourse in the New Testament where Jesus heals the man born blind. He was blind from birth, by smearing mud on his eyes and having him wash it in the Pool of Siloam. And he sees. And these Pharisees cast him out of the synagogue. And when Jesus hears that he was cast out of the synagogue, he goes to him and reveals himself as the Son of God, which he did not, the first time. He comforted him and manifested himself to that man, in a way that He had not before. And then John makes the point that the Pharisees, whose eyes were open, are now blind, blind as to who Christ was and His teachings. But the man who was blind now sees. So it is a reversal of circumstances there for both the righteous person and the wicked people, very much like it is here. Also the eyes are called the prophets in the Book of Isaiah. he has shut your eyes, the prophets; [29:10] You remember that scripture? So that they have no prophetic leadership, no messenger from God here for these people to guide them or to lead them. They are left entirely on their own in the dark of night. But to the righteous, the dark of night becomes as the noonday, as we saw in Chapter 58 verse 10: then shall your light dawn amid darkness and your twilight become as the noonday. That is for those who keep the Sabbath Day holy and release others from oppression. These people are oppressing others, so they meet opposite fate. They are also dead, spiritually. Remember the covenant with death in Chapter 28 that the wicked make? By choosing wickedness they die or it leads to death. Whereas the elect, or those who repent, covenant, as in Chapter 55 with the Lord: Hear me well: Eat what is good, and your souls shall enjoy abundance.
Give ear and come unto me; pay heed, that your souls may live! And I will make with you an everlasting covenant: Chapter 55 verses 2 and 3 One group goes to death and the other to life. You see the dichotomy or the polarization between the two groups? In these last chapters of the book of Isaiah that becomes prominent, very pointed. The people polarize into two opposite camps.

59:11 We grumble like bears, all of us; we moan incessantly like doves. We expect justice when there is none; we look for salvation, but it eludes us.

Because they were unjust in their dealings.  Salvation is deliverance from present difficulties, or adverse circumstances, or from evil.  It’s also the Lord, himself.  He personifies salvation in the Book of Isaiah.  He is Salvation.  Salvation comes to the Lord’s righteous people, as in 62:11:  See, your Salvation comes, his reward with him, his work preceding him.  He comes to save, the Lord does, his own people, those who covenant with him and keep their covenants.  He does not come to this group of people.  He comes to the other group; the other group dealt justly one with another.  They were a righteous people, and righteousness is a preconditioner.  It is necessary in order to merit salvation, to qualify for salvation.  They are moaning and groaning, but they brought it upon themselves.

59:12  For our transgressions before thee have multiplied; our sins testify against us. Our offenses are evident; we perceive our iniquities:

These covenant curses that are coming upon them, and the situation in which they are left – they are left to themselves amidst all of this adversity and all of these difficulties because they heaped them upon others and now they are suffering them – does bring some to an awareness of what they’ve done, of the magnitude of their offenses and the fact that this kind of language is now being spoken.  ... our transgressions before thee have multiplied; our sins testify against us.  Our offenses are evident; we perceive our iniquities  means that some of these people, at least, are beginning to realize that it is a consequence of their own actions that they are suffering these things.  And so, it opens the door for repentance for them.  Other people don’t repent, that’s very obvious throughout Isaiah.  They are destroyed; the king of Assyria has power over them to destroy them, but there is an intermediate category here.  They start defining what their offenses are and their iniquities, denying the Lord in verse 13.

59:13  willfully denying the Lord, backing away from following our God, perversely planning ways of extortion, conceiving in the mind and pondering illicit transactions.

These people are really into exploitive business dealings one with another, ripping each other off.  Also, willfully denying the Lord is not just ignoring him, but actually when you are confronted with the truth, rejecting it; having been religious or a covenant person, now backing away.  Very similar to chapter 1:4, again, where there are a nation astray, a people weighed down by sin, the offspring of wrongdoers, perverse children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have spurned the Holy One of Israel, they have lapsed into apostasy.  The …perversely planning ways of extortion… also has a parallel in chapter 1 in that sense:  perverse children, forsaking the Lord. 

59:14  And so redress is compelled to back away, and righteousness to stand at a distance; truth stumbles in the public place and uprightness cannot enter.

Truth stumbling in the public place is probably more than just the fact that the truth is rejected, but that individuals who stand for the truth are stumbling and falling because they become a focus of wrath, the wrath of the wicked.  It says in verse 7:  …they hasten to shed innocent blood…  So the wicked become incensed against the righteous, and the righteous become an object for hatred and for, in this case, even murder. These people are not easily going to get out of their situation.  …redress is compelled to back away…There is a separation between the righteous and the wicked here.  Maybe they lived together before when the wicked were oppressing the righteous, or oppressing the innocent, but now there is a separation between the two.  One group goes one way, and it’s in a different place; whereas we know that the righteous, or those who repent, go on an exodus out of the midst of the people.  They go under the Lord’s protection, led by the Lord’s servant or servants, to inherit lands of inheritance at the time when the king of Assyria is given power over the wicked to destroy them, to take them captive.  And so …righteousness stands at a distance… implies that the righteous people are somewhere else.  They can’t reach them. Righteousness, the person, also does not have any obligation to help them as he helps the righteous, or as he helped those who repent, those who respond to the Lord’s message.

59:15  When integrity is lacking, they who shun evil become a prey. The Lord saw that there was no justice, and it displeased him.

In that society, like I said, those who repent, or those who are righteous, they become the victims in that situation.  They are the ones who are exploited because everybody else is extorting everybody that they can. The Lord saw that there was no justice, and it displeased him.  Like a Sodom and Gomorrah society, each one preying upon the next guy.

59:16  When he saw it, he wondered why there was no man, no one who would intercede. So his own arm brought about salvation for him; his righteousness rallied to his cause.

No one seemed to have power to intervene, or to stand up for what was right.  If they did, they’d be knocked down, like truth stumbling in a public place.  So, what was left to do?  The Lord saw the situation, just like he looked down on people before the flood and saw that situation, and he intervened himself and brought on the flood.  That’s what he does here. So his own arm brought about salvation for him; his righteousness rallied to his cause. 

59:17  He put on righteousness as a breastplate and made salvation the helmet on his head; he clothed himself with vengeance for a garment and wrapped himself in fury as in a robe.

The vengeance and the fury implies punishment, or destruction, or some kind of recompense for the wicked.  The righteousness and the salvation, on the other hand, imply deliverance for the righteous.  When the Lord comes to intervene, when he comes and does something about this situation, there is a two-fold result:  punishment for the wicked, and deliverance for the righteous. Now vengeance and fury are also pseudonyms for the king of Assyria.  He personifies vengeance; he personifies fury.  God, himself, is not a vengeful God, filled with anger and fury and indignation, but he uses the king of Assyria in that role.  He subjects the wicked to other wicked people, and in this case to the king of Assyria who has the power to take care of the wicked. But the breastplate, the helmet, and the robe and so on also characterizes God as a warrior, and we have seen that elsewhere.  At the time when he needs to, God can come forth like a warrior.  He’s not a wimp.  In 42:13:  The Lord will come forth like a warrior, his passions aroused like a fighter; he will give the war cry, raise the shout of victory over his enemies.  When the Lord intervenes, he intervenes through war to destroy the wicked if they don’t repent, and he also comes as the hero to deliver the innocent. 

His own arm brought about salvation for him…  it says.  Arm signifies intervention.  …his righteousness rallied to his cause.  Here we see the parallelism of the arm and the righteousness because they are one and the same as a person.  It’s God intervening, but how does he intervene?  Through the Lord’s servant whom he empowers.  The Lord’s servant personifies righteousness.  He’s called Righteousness in 41:2.  In that chapter the servant is also a warrior.  Chapter 41:2 says:  Who has raised up Righteousness from the east, calling him to the place of his foot?  Who has delivered nations to him, toppled their rulers, rendering them as dust to his sword, as driven stubble to his bow?  Here Righteousness, the person, comes as God intervening through his servant, through the instrumentality of his servant, to deliver or bring about salvation for the righteous people. Here you also see that righteousness is a precondition for salvation.  Righteousness, the principle, is a precondition for salvation, the principle.  No one is going to save us if we are not righteous, but we qualify for salvation by being righteous.  Righteousness means keeping the terms of God’s covenant and abiding by his word, which in this case he makes known through his servant.  So you see what’s going on here?  He put on righteousness as a breastplate…  He empowers his servant, in other words.  In chapter 11:4 the Lord’s servant is also in that mode:  He will judge the poor with righteousness, and with equity arbitrate for the lowly in the land; he will smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips slay the wicked.  Again, the twofold intervention – destruction of the wicked, deliverance of the righteous. 

He put on righteousness as a breastplate and made salvation the helmet on his head…  This is also like a crown.  The Lord is salvation himself, and righteousness comes first as a precursor to prepare the way.  Righteousness, the condition, precedes salvation as a condition. So, whichever way you read it, you see that the Lord’s righteous people are going to be delivered, they are going to be saved; whereas the wicked people are going to be destroyed.

59:18  According to what they deserve, he will repay them: wrath upon his adversaries, reprisals upon his enemies; to the isles he will render retribution.

The wrath and retribution there are the consequences of evil actions, but they are also the king of Assyria.  He personifies God’s wrath, and now he is given power over the adversaries of God’s people, among who were God’s people themselves.  They were God’s people; they turned to wickedness, to oppression, to exploitation, extortion, and now they are given into the hands of the king of Assyria.  Where?  Everywhere, even to the isles, throughout the whole world, it’s a universal judgment.

59:19  From the west men will fear the Lord Omnipotent, and from the rising of the sun his glory. For he will come upon them like a hostile torrent impelled by the Spirit of the Lord.

This is more or less like, again, the fate of the wicked being described here.  When the Lord comes, at the time of his coming, which is being likened to the rising of the sun, and we’ll see that in the next chapter, chapter 60.  We’ve seen it before.  The Lord’s servant is the lesser light that prepares the way, like the dawning of the millennium.  The sun rising over the horizon is like the coming of the Lord in power and in glory to his people.  Here in verse 19, at the time of his coming, it kind of locates this whole scenario of oppression and extortion and exploitation and wickedness in that time period preceding the coming of the Lord.  The wicked will fear his coming.  First they will repudiate it, pretend it doesn’t happen or it won’t exist, won’t do anything.  Then when it actually happens they will be in great fear.  We saw that in chapter 2 also where the Lord comes, and the wicked cravenly run into the holes in the rocks. 

From the West men will fear the Lord Omnipotent, and from the rising of the sun his glory.  It’s a universal event; God’s intervention is universal.  …he will come upon them like a hostile torrent impelled by the Spirit of the Lord.  The king of Assyria is empowered by the Lord, we saw that in chapter 10.  In chapter 28 he is the overflowing scourge, the new flood.  In chapters 7 and 8 the torrent that sweeps everything before it, it sweeps the wicked before it; it destroys them.   …he will come upon them like a hostile torrent impelled by the Spirit of the Lord.  The Lord does, in the form of the king of Assyria.

59:20  But he will come as Redeemer to Zion, to those of Jacob who repent of transgression, says the Lord.

Here we have another definition of Zion, of what Isaiah means by Zion, as you did in chapter 1:27.  He will come as a Redeemer to Zion to whom?   …to those of Jacob who repent of transgression…  Those are the Lord’s covenant people who repent.  He doesn’t come as a redeemer to the others.  The others are given over into the hands and power of the king of Assyria.  What a contrast!  They could all have been redeemed.  They could all have received the Lord.  Instead, some of them are given into the hand of the king of Assyria whose purpose is to annihilate and exterminate them, it says in chapter 10. 

59:21  As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: My Spirit which is upon you and my words which I have placed in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of their offspring, says the Lord, from now on and forever.

We talked about a covenant of life in chapter 55 versus the covenant with death in chapter 28.  …this is my covenant with them…  That is, with those who are redeemed.  Zion are those redeemed, Zion are those who repent.  My Spirit which is upon you and my words which I have placed in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of their offspring, says the Lord, from now on and forever.  It’s an unconditional covenant.  This is how it’s going to be; they are going to be filled with the Spirit of the Lord to guide them, to instruct them in the truth, in the law of the covenant, to reveal the word of God to them, to counsel them, to comfort them, to testify or witness to them, all the kinds of things that the Spirit of God does, all the gifts of the spirit will be manifest in them, everlastingly, unconditionally; because they already met the conditions, they already paid the price, they proved themselves loyal under all conditions, and so now the Lord gives them a covenant which is unconditional.  This is another aspect of the Lord’s covenant.  It is one dimension of the Lord’s covenant. 

Do you remember in chapter 54 the two main ingredients of the covenant there, or anywhere, are land and offspring.  Those were things promised to Abraham.  But we found out that the land was beautified or made into a paradisiacal state, and here we see that the offspring is endowed with the Spirit of the Lord, and we saw it there, too.  It’s not just plain old land and plain old offspring.  It is land that’s a new paradise, and it is an offspring that’s endowed with priesthood powers, because the covenant of the Lord with Levi was a spirit endowment like this. This has a type in the Lord’s covenant with Phinehas in the Old Testament, and with the Levites in the Book of Malachi who were the priests and teachers of the people, and they were given a special spirit endowment, an endowment of the Spirit of God, so they could be instructors.  But now this is received across the board by the righteous in an unconditional covenant, an unconditional endowment.  Not just the tribe of Levi, all the seed of Abraham that comes in this category now receives that blessing. 

On the other hand, the terms covenant and mouth are also pseudonyms, or metaphors, describing the Lord’s servant.  He was appointed as a covenant of the people in chapters 42 and 49, which implies that this covenant made with them has something to do with the servant.  We see in chapter 61:1 that he is the one who endows, or empowers, the elect, or the righteous.  It says, The Spirit of my Lord Jehovah is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to announce good tidings to the lowly; … to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the eyes to the bound… and so forth  …to endow those who mourn in Zion, bestowing upon them a priestly headpiece in place of ashes, the festal anointing in place of mourning, a resplendent robe in place of a downcast spirit.  There the servant endows or empowers or authorizes or ordains the people of Zion, like Moses did Aaron.  Moses ordained Aaron to the priesthood, to the high priesthood, and clothed him in a robe and so forth.  The servant does that. In the Book of Isaiah there is a reversal of circumstances.  First of all for the servant, he’s raised up from a lowly place, and his circumstances are reversed – we saw that in chapter 49 and 42 – that when he’s empowered then he ministers to others who respond to his message, or to the message of God given through him.  Then he empowers them in the same way, with priesthood power.  He becomes a mediator of the Lord’s covenant with his people, like Moses was. 

Also, he’s the Lord’s mouth to his people.  There are two mouths in the Book of Isaiah.  The king of Assyria mouths off, he spouts off words against the Lord and against his people.  Like I mentioned in the Book of Daniel, he’s called a mouth speaking great things against the Most High and against his people.  But so is the servant a mouth, or mouthpiece, for the Lord to his people, to his covenant people.  These are spokesmen, the Lord’s spokesmen, his prophet, his messenger.  When he says:  My Spirit which is upon you and my words which I have placed in your mouth…  it means that he has filled the servant with his spirit so that he can speak the words of God to his people, and we’ve seen that before as in 50:4:  My Lord Jehovah has endowed me with a learned tongue, that I may know how to preach to those grown weary a word to wake them up.  He preaches, he’s a preacher. Then in other places in the Book of Isaiah we have that same kind of concept.  The servant is mouth to the Lord’s people, but when they, themselves, are endowed, they also become mouth.  They can follow the paradigm of the Lord’s servant.  Those to whom they minister they can be a mouth to, they can be God’s mouth to them, because on the spiritual ladder that Isaiah teaches, those above minister to those below.  If you are endowed with the Spirit of the Lord, then you are able to minister the word of God to those below you.  That’s a generational thing, down the generations, because it talks about offspring and the mouth of their offspring, and their offspring, and so forth.  …from now on and forever.