Isaiah 59:8
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
The verse describes a dreadful unrighteous condition and calamity of a nation that has forsaken and forgotten God, chosen other gods, and followed its own corrupt ways until God has turned from it. The people are without the way of peace and without right judgment in their conduct because they have trampled upon the law of God and broken His everlasting covenant. That covenant was given on condition of obedience, and its breaking came through continual transgression, including despising the Sabbath. Turning away from God and His righteous government in this way leaves men increasingly under the sway of seducing spirits.
The same lack of true peace and right judgment and crookedness of ways characterized the priests, rabbis, scribes and Pharisees in the time of Christ, in the setting of God's vineyard worked by the unrighteous. It was the condition of people over whom Satan was exercising power. Their crooked ways included false reasoning about the Messiah by holding up prophecies of His glorious reign and making contemptuous comparisons with the humble appearance of Jesus. By so perverting prophecy they misled many who were convinced He was the Son of God. Had they laid aside prejudice and carefully compared written prophecy with the facts of His life, work, rejection and sufferings they would have seen a beautiful harmony between prophecy and its fulfillment, but God does not compel unbelief to cease and they chose darkness and error.
The verse belongs to the definition of Christ's work given in Isaiah 59, 60, 61 and 62, describing the condition of those Christ came to save in working out the purposes planned in the counsels of heaven. He came to set the vineyard in its right light and to counterwork this sin. God gave His only begotten Son so that believers should not perish but have everlasting life. The verse also describes the state of the world just prior to the second coming of the Lord, when even men professing godliness indulge their own traits of character and become self-indulgent and self-centered unless conscientiously under the control of God.
Men who reject light from heaven and follow unsanctified plans to provide for themselves, hinder God's work and turn means into selfish channels do not know the way of peace. Their works are works of iniquity and their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, with violence, wasting and destruction in their paths, running to evil and hasting to shed innocent blood. They make crooked paths for themselves, and whoever walks in those paths will not know peace. It likewise describes people who do not know the way of life and peace because pride and vain folly leave them ignorant of it and unable to find true happiness.
This condition calls for deep humility on the part of God's people, with each one asking if he is prepared for the day of God and able to stand the trying test. Those in this crooked and peaceless way are urged to forsake the wicked way and unrighteous thoughts and return to the Lord while He may be found, for He will have mercy and abundantly pardon because His ways and thoughts are higher than theirs. They need conversion and the peace and rest found in Jesus.