"though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..."
This week we will be teaching out of Isaiah 1:2-20. Take a moment and read though the passages. Below is a short commentary on the passages taken from the ESV Study Bible. I hope this opens your eyes and allows you to see the true beauty and mercy of God. I know that studying through these passages I have gained a greater love and admiration for what God has done for us.
It is my prayer and God's heart that you would hear him say to you, "Come now, let us reason together..." and that you would be, "willing and obedient" to his offer.
Isaiah 1:2-20 Commentary (ESV Study Bible)
Isa. 1:2–9 Isaiah indicts Judah's mindless revolt against God.Isa.
1:2 heavens … earth. Isaiah calls on the entire cosmos as a faithful witness to God's word (Deut. 30:19; 31:28; Ps. 50:4). Children … they.
These emphatic words accent the contrast between God's grace and his
people's ingratitude. Thus Isaiah summarizes Israel's history up to his
time. Israel as a whole is God's “son” (Ex. 4:22–23), and individual Israelites are also “sons” (see esv footnote; Deut. 14:1); this privilege should have led to gratitude, but it did not. rebelled. See Isa. 66:24.
Isa. 1:4 Ah is a cry of pain and indignation. sinful. Isaiah's complex vocabulary uses a number of evocative Hebrew words for sin (translated here as iniquity and corruptly) that reveal to the people their true character. the Holy One of Israel. As described above (see Introduction: Date),
this is Isaiah's characteristic title for God, occurring 25 times in
the book (and rarely anywhere else in the OT); it reflects a central
theme in Isaiah's thought. Perhaps it originated in the seraphic cry,
“Holy, holy, holy” (6:3).
When Isaiah saw God high and lifted up in infinite holiness, it defined
his knowledge of God as the Holy One who is righteous (5:16), incomparable (40:25), redemptive (47:4), and lofty (57:15), and who has given himself to Israel. To despise the Holy One is to scorn, in practical ways, all that God is. they are utterly estranged. Their backwardness is beyond self-remedy.
Isa.1:5 Why? Not even painful experience makes an impact. Their minds are closed.
Isa. 1:7–8 This imagery merged into reality in the foreign invasions during Isaiah's lifetime. the daughter of Zion. The city of Jerusalem (37:22).
Isa. 1:9 Only the power of the Lord of hosts has preserved God's people (1 Kings 19:18). See Rom. 9:29,
where Paul quotes this verse to teach God's gracious purpose to
preserve a remnant that is truly his people. There is nothing within
their own nature to keep God's people from the worst of paganism and
its appropriate judgment (see Gen. 13:13; 18:16–19:28; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 7; Rev. 11:8).
Isa. 1:10–17
God rejects his people's worship, however lavish, because they use it
as a pious evasion of the self-denying demands of helping the weak (cf.
James 1:27). Even lifting their hands in prayer avails nothing, for your hands are full of blood (Isa. 1:15; see 59:3).
Isa. 1:10–20
These verses highlight the hypocrisy of the people's worship. Isaiah,
like other prophets who comment on sacrificial practices, recognizes
that God appointed the system of worship and authorized the central
sanctuary. But these ordinances were always intended to foster true
piety among God's people, which would move them to humble purity of
heart and energetic promotion of others' well-being. Isaiah denounces
the way his contemporaries have divorced the ordinances from their
proper purpose. It seems that they treated their worship as a way of
manipulating God; they also mixed in elements from Canaanite religions (v. 29). See note on Amos 4:4–5.
Isa. 1:17 seek justice, correct oppression. Doing good in God's sight includes seeking the just functioning of society (note, by contrast, v. 23).
Isa. 1:18–20 let us reason together.
Rather than continue in their incomprehension, the people are urged to
consider thoughtfully their actual position before God. though your sins are like scarlet … red like crimson. Their hands, red with blood (v. 15), can be cleansed (Ps. 51:7). But they must make a deliberate choice (Isa. 1:19–20).