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.
Come now ... let us reason together. God deigns to argue the case with us, that all may see the just, nay, loving principle of His dealings with men (Isaiah 43:26).
Though your sins be as scarlet - the colour of Jesus Christ's robe when bearing our "sins" (Matthew 27:28). So Rahab's thread, the type (Joshua 2:18: cf. the "scarlet" used in cleansing the leper, Leviticus 14:4). The Rabbins say that when the lot used to be taken, a scarlet fillet was bound on the scapegoat's head, and after the high priest had confessed his and the people's sins over it, the fillet became white;-the miracle ceased, according to them, 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem - i:e., exactly when Jesus Christ was crucified-a remarkable admission of adversaries. The Hebrew х shaaniym (H8141, from shaanah, to repeat twice] for "scarlet" radically means double-dyed: so the deep-fixed permanency of sin in the heart, which no mere tears can wash away.
They shall be as white as snow - (Psalms 51:7.) Repentance is presupposed, before sins can be made white as snow (Isaiah 1:19-20); it, too, is God's gift (Jeremiah 31:18, end; Lamentations 5:21; Acts 5:31).
Though they be red - refers to "blood" (Isaiah 1:15).
They shall be as wool - restored to its original undyed whiteness. This verse shows that the old fathers did not 'look only for transitory promises' (Article 7:, 'Book of Common Prayer'). For sins of ignorance, and such like, alone had trespass offerings appointed for them; greater guilt, therefore, needed a greater sacrifice, for "without shedding of blood there was no remission;" but none such was appointed, and yet forgiveness was promised and expected; therefore spiritual Jews must have looked for the One Mediator of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, though dimly understood.