Isaiah 1

Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, people of Gomorrah. Wesley: so called for their resemblance of them in wickedness; the law is the message from God, their great lawgiver.

1:9’s survivors are still addressed as Sodom. The resemblance is moral. An earnest word still finds ears.

Calvin: milder treatment than Sodom is mercy, not lesser guilt. Rulers named Sodom, people Gomorrah: not two different crimes, but one bundle. He strips disguises—Abraham’s name, ceremonies, national grandeur.

The word unmasks. Sodom and Gomorrah as names for Judah’s rulers and people. Sacrifices are next.

What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Wesley: God is a spirit, and cannot be satisfied with carnal oblations; he expects hearts and lives as well as bodies and sacrifices. Even the fat and blood reserved for Him are rejected here.

Offerings, refused. Quantity is not devotion. The command was never “more rams.”

Calvin: God speaks so the lawgiver interprets His own law. Sacrifices were appointed not as a satisfaction by which He should be appeased, but as aids to piety. Hypocrites make all holiness consist of the services.

Ceremonies without the word as their soul are empty. The Lord is full of burnt offerings. Judah’s altar is the scene.

When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Wesley: the three solemn feasts or other occasions; what He commanded was not chiefly external sacrifice, but true repentance, faith in the promises, and sincere resolutions of devotion.

An appearing that misses the thing required. Courts can be trodden by feet that will not turn. Agency under a God who actually required the heart.

Calvin: who hath required this at your hand? He will not be worshipped in any way but what He has enjoined. Obedience is what remains (1 Sam 15:22). Their close attendance is only treading pavements.

Will-worship is labor thrown away. Shared: appearing, trampling. Vain offerings follow.

Bring no more vain offerings; incense an abomination; new moon, Sabbath, convocations—He cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Wesley: the solemn meeting is the last and most solemn day of each of the three feasts.

Appointed days, emptied. Sabbath and assembly are not the problem; iniquity in them is.

Calvin: not only unprofitable but detested, because the name of God is falsely employed. Ceremonies were for training children toward faith; hypocrites keep the form and leave out faith, repentance, and Christ.

“Vain”—a deceitful mask. Incense, new moon, Sabbath.

My soul hates your new moons and your appointed feasts; they are a burden to me, and I am weary of bearing them. The calendar is theirs now—“your” moons—because they have made it a cloak.

A weariness in God toward a burden. The feasts remain His appointments; the soul-hate falls on the use. Judah can still keep a day and lose the Day-giver.

Calvin: not merely useless but wicked when spiritual truth is absent. Superstition is either inventing what God has not commanded, or fixing on the outward form of what He has. He heaps expressions because men are wanton in contriving worship.

God detests His glory infringed. Held in common: burden, weary.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes; many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wesley: blood—you are guilty of murder and oppression.

Their hands are spread in prayer, yet God will not listen. Blood here is oppression in Judah’s courts, not a slogan. Many words do not pry the eyes open.

Calvin: spreading hands is not condemned; hypocrisy is. Faith is the mother of calling on God; without it, empty mockery. Hands full of blood: not only open killers but those who take a neighbor’s life by fraud and starve the simple. God judges hidden tricks as murder.

He is deaf to the cry that will not drop the knife. Wash is the next word.

Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Wesley: wash—cleanse your hearts and hands.

A serious command to these rulers and this people. Hearts and hands, not a new pile of rams. The call is not a fake warning and not a works-gospel: scarlet will be snow in v. 18. They are to cease, under a King who actually commands.

Calvin: nothing pleases God unless it proceed from a pure conscience. He does not mean that men repent by their own free-will; there is no other remedy than that they appear pure before God. Sacred writers attribute to men what the Spirit works; Ezekiel’s clean water is His, and to Him belongs repentance.

The imperative names the gift’s fruit. Both traditions agree: wash, clean, cease.

Plead for the widow’s cause. Wesley: begin to live soberly, righteously, and godly; show religion to God by practising justice to men; defend and deliver them.

Neighbor-justice is the evidence. Fatherless and widow in Judah’s gates. They can begin—this is the same people told to wash.

Calvin: fruits of repentance in the whole life. Two heads: cease to do evil, and do well. He will not have us keep from harm and skip kindness, nor rob one to endow another. Fatherless and widow: those from whom men expect no reward; the Lord takes their charge.

Outward fruit of an inward washing the Spirit gives. Both traditions agree: justice, oppression, fatherless, widow.

Come now, and let’s reason together: Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Shared gospel in the verse: the Lord invites a stained people, and names a whitening He performs.

“Come”—an invitation to reason, not a trap. Scarlet is theirs; snow is His. The next verse’s willing is not payment for the wash. Pardon is offered to these same hands that were full of blood.

Calvin: He does not refuse to dispute; hypocrites will still be speechless. He does not pursue offenses to the utmost. If we sincerely turn, He immediately returns to favor and blots out all remembrance of sins—makes us as white as snow. He is satisfied with cleanness of heart.

The reasoning is His kindness, not a bargain among equals. The if of v. 19 is the fork.

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. Wesley: if you are fully resolved to obey all my commands; together with pardon, you shall receive temporal and worldly blessings.

The offer is conditional and sincere. Arminian readers see grace in v. 18—scarlet sins made white—setting up a free choice in vv. 19–20: willingness brings the good of the land; refusal brings the sword.

Calvin: papists torture this as if happiness were at the disposal of free will. The Lord does not here describe the extent of our ability. Sinners are justly the voluntary agents of their calamities. It is a special gift of God when a man aims at what is good; it is their own wickedness that hinders the reprobate. Nothing but our ingratitude keeps us from the goodness He freely offers.

The willing is inside the gift, not a bare permission after snow is offered. Willing, obedient, eat the good.

If you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the LORD’s mouth has spoken. The fork of v. 19 still stands: refusing is as true as willing. The sword is the Lord’s spoken end, not a slogan against empires.

They can still say no after snow is offered. The mouth has spoken; the rebel still refuses.

Calvin: there will be no end of calamities till they are destroyed. Heavier judgments await if they imagine they have already suffered enough. The mouth of the Lord: not a mortal’s word, not changeable. He mentions that mouth to terrify the slumber of vice.

Obstinacy is theirs; the sword is His decree. Common to both: refuse, rebel, sword, the mouth has spoken.