15 And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.
Then they will be crying to the Lord for help, but he will not give them an answer: yes, he will keep his face veiled from them at that time, because their acts have been evil.
But your sins have come between you and your God, and by your evil doings his face has been veiled from you, so that he will give you no answer. For your hands are unclean with blood, and your fingers with sin; your lips have said false things, and your tongue gives out deceit.
Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me:
Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose. For this reason I will let loose my wrath: my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity.
When the master of the house has got up, and the door has been shut, and you, still outside, give blows on the door, saying, Lord, let us in; he will make answer and say, I have no knowledge of where you come from. Then you will say, We have taken food and drink with you, and you were teaching in our streets. But he will say, Truly, I have no knowledge of you or where you come from; go away from me, you workers of evil. There will be weeping and cries of sorrow when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are shut outside.
But a curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! because you are shutting the kingdom of heaven against men: for you do not go in yourselves, and those who are going in, you keep back.
And it came about that as they would not give ear to his voice, so I would not give ear to their voice, says the Lord of armies:
Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight. They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing. Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us.
When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease.
See, you put your faith in false words which are of no profit. Will you take the goods of others, put men to death, and be untrue to your wives, and take false oaths, and have perfumes burned to the Baal, and go after other gods which are strange to you; And come and take your place before me in this house, which is named by my name, and say, We have been made safe; so that you may do all these disgusting things?
And I will be waiting for the Lord, whose face is veiled from the house of Jacob, and I will be looking for him.
Give praise to the Lord, lifting up your hands in his holy place.
<To the chief music-maker, on Neginoth. Maschil. Of David.> Give hearing to my prayer, O God; and let not your ear be shut against my request.
Fears overtake him like rushing waters; in the night the storm-wind takes him away.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 1
Commentary on Isaiah 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah
Chapter 1
The first verse of this chapter is intended for a title to the whole book, and it is probable that this was the first sermon that this prophet was appointed to publish and to affix in writing (as Calvin thinks the custom of the prophets was) to the door of the temple, as with us proclamations are fixed to public places, that all might read them (Hab. 2:2), and those that would might take out authentic copies of them, the original being, after some time, laid up by the priests among the records of the temple. The sermon which is contained in this chapter has in it,
And all this is to be applied by us, not only to the communities we are members of, in their public interests, but to the state of our own souls.
Isa 1:1
Here is,
Isa 1:2-9
We will hope to meet with a brighter and more pleasant scene before we come to the end of this book; but truly here, in the beginning of it, every thing looks very bad, very black, with Judah and Jerusalem. What is the wilderness of the world, if the church, the vineyard, has such a dismal aspect as this?
Isa 1:10-15
Here,
Isa 1:16-20
Though God had rejected their services as insufficient to atone for their sins while they persisted in them, yet he does not reject them as in a hopeless condition, but here calls upon them to forsake their sins, which hindered the acceptance of their services, and then all would be well. Let them not say that God picked quarrels with them; no, he proposes a method of reconciliation. Observe here,
"And now life and death, good and evil, are thus set before you. Come, and let us reason together. What have you to object against the equity of this, or against complying with God's terms?'
Isa 1:21-31
Here,
Now all this is applicable,