Isaiah 1:1. The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
During the time in which Isaiah prophesied, the worship of God was, upon the whole, maintained in Judah; yet, prosperous as the times appeared to be, there was visible to the eye of the Lord much iniquity. He who seeth not as man seeth, but who looks beneath the surface, and into the hearts of men, saw that the condition of the people was exceedingly unsatisfactory. Do not forget that these upbraiding words were spoken during the reigns of comparatively good kings, and try to imagine how the Lord must have felt towards the people who lived in the reigns of bad kings.
Isaiah 1:2-3. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
God's own people were worse than the brutes that perish; they had no gratitude towards their Maker and Preserver. Am I not addressing many persons of the same kind, who have little or no thought concerning him who made them, and who supplies all their wants? God seems here as if he were tired of appealing to his people, so he speaks to the heavens and the earth, as if he knew that even inanimate things would be more capable of feeling than hardened Judah was.
Isaiah 1:4. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.
If I am now addressing any who have backslidden from God, let them take these words of his to heart, he observes how you have forsaken him; he feels grieved at your provoking him; he mourns over your going backward from him. May you be moved by the Holy Spirit to mourn, too!
Isaiah 1:5. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
One of God's ways of bringing people to himself is by chastisement sad affliction. He had tried that method upon Judah; he had used his rod so long that, at last, he exclaimed, «Why should ye be stricken any more?» What is the good of my sending any more affliction upon you? «Now, whenever the rod is of no more use, there will be a sharper instrument to follow. When men can no longer be chastened for their good, the axe of execution is ready to be brought forth. What a sorrowful description is here given of the people of Judah and their land!
Isaiah 1:6-8. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and purifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
The Lord had suffered invaders to pillage the land until it was almost reduced to a desert, yet, even then, the people did not, and would not, bow unto their God. It is a terrible thing when sickness, or loss of property, or frequent bereavements do not bring men to their knees. Unsanctified afflictions prophesy certain condemnation to us. «He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.»
Isaiah 1:9. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
The state of the country, even under godly kings, had become so bad that, if there had not been a remnant according to the election of grace, there would have been no help for the land and its inhabitants, and they would have been burnt up, like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Isaiah 1:10-15. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me; saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of ram, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them; And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
It is very possible for people to be outwardly very religious, and yet really to be very wicked. The fact is, that the multiplication of rites and ceremonies, the observance of forms, and feasts, and fasts, and new moons, and all the rest of mere external ritual, may rather indicate an increase of sin than an increase of anything else. Often, in proportion as men's hearts get further and further away from God, they have more and more of outward ritual, more Roman rags on the priest's back, more smoking intense, more gorgeous architecture; more of all the externals of religion, the less they have of the internal and eternal. If a man is conscious that he needs something in the shape of godliness, and he knows that he has none of it in his heart, he often tries to get it outside; but this is what God says:
Isaiah 1:16-17. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well;
Repentance, practical change of life, renewal of heart, the giving up of evil, the following of right, this is what the Lord approves. Otherwise, all your fripperies and trickeries of worship are loathsome to him. Think you that your finest music is sweet to the ear of him who listens to the angels everlasting song? Do you imagine that you can build temples worthy of him who made the heavens and the earth? What careth he for temples made with hands? He despises all material things where the heart goes not with them, but purity, holiness, true spiritual worship, these are the things in which he delighteth.
Isaiah 1:17. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
This is better than all your incense, or the fat of rams and he goats.
Isaiah 1:18. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
This, too, is what God loves, confessed sin, pardoned by his infinite mercy and grace.
Isaiah 1:19-20. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.