Isaiah 1:10 - Meaning and Application

Here, God calls them, though they call back in vain, to listen to his word, Isaiah 1:10. The title he gives them is striking: “You rulers of Sodom, and people of Gomorrah.” This shows how right it would have been for God to treat them like Sodom and Gomorrah in ruin, since they had made themselves like those cities in sin (Isaiah 1:9). The people of Sodom were wicked and very sinful before the Lord (Genesis 13:13), and Judah was much the same. When the rulers are corrupt, it is no surprise if the people are also corrupt.

The prophet openly rebukes the leaders as rulers of Sodom, because he did not know how to flatter. Jewish tradition says he was later accused for this and put to death, as one who had cursed the gods and spoken against the ruler of his people. God’s demand on them is very reasonable: “Hear the word of the Lord, and listen to the teaching of our God.” They were to pay attention to what God said and treat his word as their rule.

God then justly refuses to hear their prayers or accept their worship, their sacrifices and burnt offerings, the fat and blood of them (Isaiah 1:11), their attendance in his courts (Isaiah 1:12), their offerings, incense, and solemn meetings (Isaiah 1:13), their new moons and appointed feasts (Isaiah 1:14), and even their most earnest prayers (Isaiah 1:15). All of it is rejected because their hands are full of blood. Many people are strangers to the power of true religion, even enemies of it, yet they are eager for its outward form. These people brought sacrifices to the altar of the God of Israel, not to false gods. They brought many offerings, as many as the law required, and perhaps even more.

They did not bring weak or damaged animals, but fed beasts and the fat parts, the best they had. They did not send others in their place, but came themselves before God. They kept the right places and times, the courts of God, the new moons, the Sabbaths, and the appointed feasts. It even seems they called extra meetings for worship. They also prayed, and prayed often, thinking they would be heard because they said much. They spread out their hands as if they were deeply earnest. By outward appearance, they would have seemed to be a devout people.

But their hearts were empty of true devotion. They came to appear before God, or, as the margin says, to be seen before him. They stopped at the outside of religion and cared mainly about being seen. They went no farther than what human eyes could notice. At the same time, their hands were full of blood. They were guilty of murder, robbery, and oppression, while pretending to act under law and justice. The people shed blood, and the rulers did not punish them. The rulers shed blood, and the people helped them, like the elders of Jezreel helped Jezebel in the death of Naboth. In God’s sight, hate in the heart is also murder, so the one who hates his brother has hands full of blood in effect.

When people are under God’s judgments, they will often run to religious duties more easily than they will leave their sins. Their land was now ruined and their cities burned (Isaiah 1:7), and that stirred them to bring sacrifices and offerings more regularly than before. It was as if they hoped to bribe God Almighty into removing the punishment while letting them keep on sinning. When he killed them, then they sought him (Psalm 78:34). In trouble they visited God (Isaiah 26:16). Many people are ready to give up sacrifices, but not ready to give up their sins.

The costly and impressive worship of wicked people, without a true change of heart and life, is not pleasing to God at all. Scripture shows in many ways that obedience is better than sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice without obedience is empty, insulting, and provoking to God. God’s low estimate of ceremonial worship here also hints at what would happen later, when Christ’s death would bring these ceremonies to an end. What was then set aside would in time be abolished. “Sacrifice and offering, and prayer made by their means, you did not desire; then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come.’”

Their sacrifices are described as useless and empty. “What is the purpose of your many sacrifices?” asks God (Isaiah 1:11). They are vain offerings (Isaiah 1:13). In vain do they worship me (Matthew 15:9). Their attention to God’s commands was wasted effort and brought no good result. It was not treated as true duty and obedience to God, because they did not have him in view when they brought these offerings. Also, God was not speaking here to the obedient, but to those whose hands were full of blood and who remained unrepentant.

Their offerings also did not win God’s favor. He took no delight in the blood of their sacrifices, because he was not honored by them. And they would get no relief from him. They prayed, but God would not hear them, because they cared about evil (Psalm 66:18). He would not deliver them, because their many prayers did not come from honest hearts. All their religious service brought them no good.

More than that, their worship was hateful and offensive to him. God did not only refuse to accept it, he detested it. “They are your sacrifices, not mine. I am tired of them.” He did not need them (Psalm 50:10). He did not want them. He had had enough of them, more than enough.

Their coming into God’s courts he calls treading them down, or trampling on them. Even their attendance at his worship was treated as an insult to him. Their incense, though it may have smelled sweet, was hateful to him, because it was burned in hypocrisy and with evil intent.

He could not bear their solemn assemblies. The gathering itself was not evil, but the way they handled it made it sinful. Some translate this as a “vexation,” a provocation to God, because they treated holy things as if they were common. “My soul hates them,” God says in effect. “They are a burden to me, and I am weary of carrying them.”

God is never weary of hearing the prayers of the upright, but he soon grows weary of the costly sacrifices of the wicked. He turns his eyes away from their prayers, because he rejects them and is angry at them. This shows, first, how hateful sin is to God. It is so hateful that it can make even prayers and worship hateful to him. It also shows, second, that false religion is double sin. Hypocrisy in worship is among the most offensive things to the God of heaven.

Jerome applies this to the Jews in Christ’s time. They claimed great zeal for the law and the temple, but they made themselves and all their worship hateful to God. They did this by filling their hands with the blood of Christ and his apostles, and so they filled up the full measure of their sins.