Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
As we have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, so here we have the Lamentations of Isaiah; the subject of both is the same - the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the sin of Israel that brought that destruction - only with this difference, Isaiah sees it at a distance and laments it by the Spirit of prophecy, Jeremiah saw it accomplished. In these verses, I.
Commenting on Isaiah 64:6-12
But we are all as an unclean thing,.... Or "we have been" (t); so all men are in a state of nature: man was made pure and holy, but by sinning became impure; and this impurity is propagated by natural generation, and belongs to all, none are free from it; and there is no cleansing from it but by the grace of God and blood...
unclean thing--legally unclean, as a leper. True of Israel, everywhere now cut off by unbelief and by God's judgments from the congregation of the saints. righteousness--plural, "uncleanness" extended to every particular act of theirs, even to their prayers and praises. True of the best doings of the unregenerate (Phi 3:6-8; Tit 1:15; Heb 11:6). filthy rags--literally, a "menstruous rag" (Lev 15:33; Lev 20:18; Lam 1:17). fade . . .