Isaiah 59:10

We grope for the wall like the blind. The image is of someone bereft of sight, hands outstretched, feeling for any landmark, any shelter. And the second line piles on the emphasis: we grope as if we had no eyes. Not merely as blind people do, but as if we were blind from birth, as if we had never possessed the faculty of sight. The metaphorical meaning is clear: the people have lost their spiritual perception. They cannot read the signs God places before them. They cannot discern the way.

Then Isaiah adds a detail that deepens the horror: we stumble at noon day as in the night. Even when light is available, when clarity should be possible, we cannot navigate. Our steps are not sure. We trip over what should be visible. And finally: we are in desolate places as dead men. The image is of a graveyard, of the living who feel already buried. This is the deepest point of the lament, the cry from the pit. Yet it is only from such a point of complete acknowledgment of loss that rescue becomes possible.