Bring no more vain oblations! Incense is an abomination unto me, -- new moon and sabbath, the calling of convocations -- wickedness and the solemn meeting I cannot bear.
God Himself commanded the offerings, the incense, the sabbaths and the assemblies — and here He calls them worthless. Can religious activity reach God while the lives behind it go on in evil?
Everything listed in this verse came out of the law of Moses. God is not rejecting worship people invented. He is rejecting the worship He set up Himself, because of the lives behind it.
They were offering sacrifices and burnt offerings. They were bringing grain offerings and incense. They were keeping new moons, sabbaths, appointed feasts and assemblies, and spreading out their hands in many prayers. Were not these things right, as ordered through Moses? Yes, they were. Yet God called all of it a weariness to Him and an abomination in His sight. The reason was simple: their exact ritual was only a respectable outside, covering a mass of moral evil and uncleanness.
Isaiah's list is not a random pile of religious words. Where the ESV has "vain offerings," older translations read "vain oblations." That is the grain offering, and Isaiah pairs each item exactly as the law does.
Isaiah not only refers to several Mosaic precepts, but shows the same exact knowledge. He puts the grain offering together with incense, because the grain offering required incense. See Leviticus 2:1, 16, and Leviticus 6:14-15. Next to new moons and sabbaths he mentions the calling of assemblies, or holy convocations. These convocations took place at those times, and at the great feasts too. See the whole of the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus.
Isaiah says God finds the incense an abomination. That word has a settled use in the Old Testament, and two things can pull God's own service into it.
The word "abomination" is used in the Old Testament for any iniquity as a holy God sees it. It also marks out what was unfit to be brought into the service of God — an animal with any kind of blemish offered as a sacrifice, for example. The service God had appointed became an abomination to Him when it sank into mere outward observance, or when it went along with iniquity. Isaiah 1:13; Proverbs 28:9.
The people were not careless. They were busy in religion — and that made their worship more offensive to God, not less.
Only Jehovah's mercy kept them back from the doom of Sodom. Morally they were already Sodom. So their sacrifices, feasts, and assemblies were all the more hateful to Jehovah. He felt that their feet profaned His courts, and He refused to hear their many prayers. There was no real repentance, no trembling at His word, only a religious veil over utter and shameless iniquity.
Translations differ on the last clause. An older reading runs, "It is iniquity, even the solemn day of assembly" — the gathering itself is the sin. The ESV reads, "I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly" — God will not hold the two together.
A settled round of religious forms can hide a person's real condition from himself.
They kept up a round of religious forms to worship God, and never saw how little life, faithfulness, and purity marked them. They had a show of godliness, but they had denied its power... There was a moral blindness before the judicial blindness... The very things God had set up or commanded became, in their hands, things He hated. The reason: the conscience of His people did not match His mind.
God rejects their worship, but He does not walk away. He asks for a changed life, and then makes an offer.
God can tolerate iniquity nowhere, least of all in His people. They must therefore cease from evil and learn to do well, proving it in ways of ordinary life. But He adds a gracious invitation that He and they should reason together. They would soon find where the fault lay, and with whom is the grace that is willing to wash the foulest clean.
The warning is not stuck in Isaiah's day. Our meetings, hymns and prayers can carry as little heart as their incense did.
We go, no doubt, week by week to the meetings. We sing our hymns, we read out of the Bible, we say our "Amen" at the end of each prayer — but is there any more heart in it than in the time of Malachi? "Bring no more vain oblations," although addressed to Judah in the days of Isaiah, could well be the message to many of us today.
- Commanded — God had ordered every item on this list through Moses. The fault was never in the form.
- Covered — Exact ritual became a cover for moral evil, a religious veil over shameless sin.
- Corrupted — Worship God appointed turns into an abomination when it sinks into outward form, or keeps company with sin.
- Concealed — Moral blindness came before judicial blindness. A full religious routine hid their own lack of life and purity from them.
- Cleansed — God's answer is not better ceremony. It is to stop the evil and learn to do good — and then His own invitation to reason together with the One willing to wash the foulest clean.
Your new moons and your set feasts my soul hateth they are a burden to me; I am wearied of bearing [them].
Judah's religious calendar was full — new moons, feasts, assemblies. God says He hates the whole round of it, and He is tired of carrying it. The shock is that these feasts were not pagan inventions. They were His own appointments.
Moses had commanded these observances, and the people kept them with care. That is what makes God's verdict so startling.
The religious leaders and the people were zealous and exact observers of the ritual of Judaism. What were they doing? They were offering sacrifices and burnt offerings, bringing offerings and incense, observing new moons, sabbaths, appointed feasts and assemblies, spreading out their hands with many prayers. Were not these things right, as ordered through Moses? Yes, they were. Yet God declared all this a weariness to Him and hateful in His sight. As verses 16 and 17 show, their exact ceremony was only a decent exterior covering a mass of moral evil and uncleanness.
If God ordered the feasts, how can He hate them? The answer lies in the conscience of the people, not in the ceremony.
There was much piety of a worldly kind. They kept up a round of religious forms to worship God. They never noticed the lack of life, faithfulness and purity that marked them (v. 10-13). Having a show of godliness they had denied its power... There was a moral blindness before the judicial blindness... The multitude of sacrifices did not make their ways true in relation to God. So (v. 14, 15) the very things God had set up or commanded became in their hands things He hated, because the conscience in His people was not according to His mind.
Their zeal did not soften the case against them; it sharpened it. Being God's people, with God's courts and God's ordinances, made their state worse, not better.
There was no lack of zeal in religion. They did look for a remedy for the obvious troubles of their day, but their remedies were worse than useless. Divine privileges only made their moral state more alarming and intolerable... their sacrifices, feasts, and assemblies were all the more hateful to Jehovah. He felt that their tread defiled His courts, and He refused to hear their many prayers. There was no real repentance, no trembling at His word. There was only a religious veil over open, shameless wickedness.
God does not call them My feasts here. He calls them yours. The same change of name shows up again later in Scripture.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 2:13, we read of the Passover, the first of "the feasts of Jehovah." But here it is not called the "Feast of Jehovah." It is "the Jews' Passover." In chapter 7:2 we read, "The Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand." "The Feasts of Jehovah" have become the "Feasts of the Jews." The outward form was there, but the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, had been rejected. What joy could God have in empty forms?
The same test falls on worship today. The question is not whether the form is correct, but whether heart, hands and feet match it.
Why was this? Was it not because the people kept the feasts in a formal, empty way, while they were defiled with sin and going on with evil?... Does the Lord like a correct form and fine outward worship any better, if the heart is away from God, the hands are defiled with sin, and the feet are not walking in the truth? The Lord says plainly, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22).
God does not end at hatred. Two verses later He gives the cure, and its order matters.
"Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good." There is the weighty matter. Have a good conscience before God: if not, you make yourselves blind before God blinds you. God distinguishes between actions. One cannot learn to do good before ceasing from evil. One cannot have the light in the conscience without first leaving what wounds the conscience.
- Commanded — the new moons, sabbaths and feasts were God's own arrangements through Moses. Isaiah's hearers kept them with care.
- Corrupted — the ritual was only a decent outside covering moral evil. They had a show of godliness, but denied its power.
- Hated — because the conscience was wrong, the things God Himself set up became hateful in their hands. They defiled His courts, and He closed His ear to their prayers.
- Disowned — God calls them your feasts, not His. In the Gospel of John the feasts of the LORD have become the feasts of the Jews.
- Cleansed — the cure follows at once: stop doing evil, then learn to do good. Obedience comes before sacrifice, and a clear conscience before acceptable worship.
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.
Judah kept the whole religious calendar — sacrifices, incense, new moons, feasts — and then lifted their hands to pray. God's answer is to look away, which raises two questions: why does He refuse to hear, and can that refusal ever end?
God Himself had commanded the worship listed in these verses. That is what makes His refusal so startling.
They were offering sacrifices and burnt offerings. They brought offerings and incense. They observed new moons, sabbaths, appointed feasts and assemblies, and spread out their hands with many prayers. Were not these things right, as ordered through Moses? Yes, they were. Yet God called all of it a weariness to Him and an abomination in His sight. The reason appears in verses 16 and 17: their ceremonial exactness was only a decent exterior covering a mass of moral evil and uncleanness.
Zeal was not their problem, and more praying did not help.
They did not lack zeal in religion. They did look for a remedy for the clear problems of their day, but their remedies were worse than useless. Divine privileges only made their moral state more alarming and intolerable. Only Jehovah's mercy kept them from the doom of Sodom; morally they were Sodom already. So their sacrifices, feasts, and assemblies were all the more offensive to Him. He felt that their tread profaned His courts, and He refused to hear their many prayers. There was no real repentance, no trembling at His word, but a religious veil over utter and shameless wickedness.
The reason God gives is not vague displeasure. He names what those hands had done.
Jehovah called the leaders of the people "rulers of Sodom," because of the corruption among them. Because of the violence He said, "your hands are full of blood."
Isaiah later returns to the same charge and states the principle behind the hidden face. God's silence is never weakness on His side.
"Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear." And what a picture follows in the verses just after! "For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity..."
The verse turns from history into self-examination the moment we ask God to act in our own day.
And can God not intervene again in answer to the cries of His people? He can, blessed be His name... He has set a limit to the tides of evil, and it is our part to pray. And yet the question ought to be raised in many of our hearts as to whether we are ready and fit to pray.
The New Testament sets the same standard for lifted hands. The ESV reads "lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling"; the older wording quoted below says "doubting."
But right moral condition still stands — "raising up holy hands, without anger and doubting," or perhaps "reasoning." The holiness meant here is godly integrity, not the holiness of a person set apart... A man who knew of evil in himself that he had not judged should not take so solemn a part, or any part, in the assembly.
The warning is not only for ancient Israel.
Let us never forget one thing. With God, right moral condition matters far more than ceremonial exactness in Judaism, or even correct church procedure in Christianity. If careful church correctness encourages moral carelessness, it becomes an abomination to God.
The hidden face is not the last word. The next verses call for a washing that is real, not ritual.
Yet Jehovah stoops to call them to repentance and to the fruits that suit it. The language draws on the ceremonial washings so familiar to the Jews, but moral reality is the point... God can tolerate evil nowhere, least of all in His people. They must therefore stop doing evil and learn to do good, proving it in ordinary daily life. But He adds a gracious invitation that He and they should reason together. Soon they would find where the fault lay, and with whom is the grace that is willing to wash the foulest clean.
- Hands raised. God Himself had commanded Judah's worship, yet He calls it weariness. Their exactness was only a decent exterior over a mass of moral evil.
- Hands stained. The charge is specific: violence and blood. Privilege did not soften the verdict; it made the state more alarming.
- Eyes hidden. God's ear is not dull and His hand is not short — sins made the separation and hid His face.
- Hands examined. Before we ask God to act, we must ask if we are fit to pray. Holy hands mean godly integrity: evil judged, not carried into the assembly.
- Hands washed. The washing God asks for is moral, not ritual: stop the evil, learn to do good. Then comes His invitation to reason together — His grace washes the foulest clean.
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; -- cease to do evil,
Isaiah's hearers were busy with worship — sacrifices, feasts, prayers — but God did not want a better ceremony. He tells them to wash, which raises the question of the whole chapter: how can such people make themselves clean?
The problem was not lack of religious effort. It was religion laid over a life God could not look at.
They had plenty of religious zeal. They also looked for a remedy for the obvious troubles of their day. But their remedies were worse than useless. Their divine privileges only made their moral state more shocking and unbearable. Apart from the Lord's mercy they were close to the doom of Sodom. Morally they were Sodom already. So their sacrifices, feasts, and assemblies were all the more hateful to the Lord. He felt their tread profaned His courts, and He refused to hear their many prayers. There was no real repentance and no trembling at His word — only a religious veil over open and shameless wickedness.
The wording sounds like Israel's ritual washings. But that is not what God is after, and He does not leave them to clean themselves alone.
Yet the Lord still stoops to call them to repentance and to the fruits that suit it. The wording comes from the ceremonial washings so familiar to the Jews. But moral reality is the point, as the next words make plain. God can tolerate iniquity nowhere, least of all in His people. They must therefore stop doing evil and learn to do good, proving it in the ways of ordinary life. But He also adds a gracious invitation: that He and they should reason together. Then they would soon find where the fault lay, and with whom is the grace that is willing to wash the foulest clean.
God aims this call at the heart, and He still makes it. Yet the washing it asks for is work He Himself takes up.
One thing is certain. Ordinary water could never remove the defilement of the Jew, or the blood-guilt of the Gentile (Job 9:30-31). And God's appeal still goes out: "O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, so that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?" (Jer. 4:14). "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes" (Isa. 1:16)… But there can be no real national response until they look to Him whom they pierced. Then the Lord Himself will undertake their purification. He promised long ago: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses" (Ezek. 36:25).
The verse ends where the next one begins, and the order cannot be swapped.
So the word is (vv. 16, 17): "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean … cease to do evil, learn to do good." There is the weighty matter. Have a good conscience before God: if not, you become blind of yourselves before you are blinded by God. God distinguishes between actions. No one can learn to do good before ceasing from evil. No one can have light in the conscience without first leaving what wounds the conscience.
A common reply is that a person cannot leave what is wrong until he has found something better. The verse cuts that reply off.
Are you doing what you know to be wrong? Does anything tie you to what you admit is against Scripture? Then listen to the word of the Lord: "Cease to do evil." And be sure of this: once you obey this word, you will not stay in the dark about your path for long. It is sheer unbelief that makes us say, "I cannot cease to do evil until I find something better."
The verse is half of a pair. To treat the cleansing as the whole work is its own danger.
In the Old Testament God's people heard, "cease to do evil" and "learn to do good." In the New Testament we hear, "Abhor what is evil" and "hold fast to what is good," and the like (Isa. 1:16-17; Rom. 12:9). In Spirit-led, God-fearing souls these always go together. To rest in having separated from evil would be a real danger. It might soon lean toward greater evil, or end in cold and dry orthodoxy.
- Clean, not busier. Their worship was full and their lives were foul. More sacrifices could not answer a state that was Sodom under a religious veil.
- Clean in reality. The wording borrows Israel's ritual washings. God asks for a moral cleansing, shown in ordinary life.
- Clean by God. No water ever washed away such defilement. God promises to sprinkle clean water Himself and make His people clean.
- Clean first, then taught. No one learns to do good while the conscience is still wounded. Stop the evil, and light comes.
- Clean is not the finish. Ceasing and learning belong together. Stopping alone can drift into greater evil, or into dry orthodoxy.
learn to do well seek judgment, gladden the oppressed, do justice to the fatherless, plead for the widow.
God has just told a religious nation that He hates their feasts and sacrifices. Now He says what He wants instead: not better worship, but justice for people who have no one to defend them.
God puts the two halves of His demand in a fixed order. One writer, commenting on the call to wash and put away evil, ties it to the conscience:
That is the serious matter. Have a good conscience before God. If you do not, you blind yourselves before God blinds you. God distinguishes between actions. No one can learn to do good before he stops doing evil. No one can have light in the conscience without first leaving what wounds the conscience.
That order is not a delay tactic. It is how God teaches anyone at all:
Separation from evil is always insisted upon throughout the Bible. It is especially stressed as a prime necessity for the godly soul in days of ruin. By it one gives a visible proof of the activity of a divine nature that hates evil and loves good and desires to obey and honour the Lord. "Cease to do evil; learn to do well" (Isa. 1:16, 17); this is always God's order. The first step is to separate from evil and then God will teach that one His will and will show him the next step.
The list that follows the command is not ceremonial at all. God had refused their feasts, and then named what He was after instead:
Study the prophets, the greater and the minor, and you will find that their ministry always had this one end. It was to bring the people into moral conformity with God. Because this was missing, the time came when even their sacrifices and feasts were an abomination. However carefully they tried to carry out the temple worship, God would not accept it. These are the terrible words from the lips of Isaiah, "Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates." Then he tells them what the Lord requires: "seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." Again, "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?" (Isa. 1 and 58).
Two of these duties name people who have no one to speak for them. Writing on the laws God gave Israel about the same two groups, one commentator explains why they head the list:
God next commends the helpless to their hearts. Of all the helpless ones who appeal to our compassion, the widow and the fatherless surely have the first claim. So God surrounds them here with the powerful defence of His own arm. If anyone afflicted them, he would be killed, and his own wife and children would be left a widow and orphans. All through Scripture God marks out these two groups as the special object of His care, so they should be the object of our compassionate concern. So James says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27.)
The verse says "seek justice" before it names the fatherless. Another writer, on a psalm with the same demands, holds justice and pity together:
But this cared for, they must show Him also on His salvation side, in His regard for the poor, the weak, the defenceless, and the oppressed. "Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute." It must still be justice: pity for the poor must never violate it. There was a special commandment about this (Ex. 23:3). Yet his poverty should still make him an object of special and tender interest.
Much of Isaiah 1 belongs to Israel. One writer says this call does not stay there:
God can tolerate iniquity nowhere, least of all in His people. So they must cease from evil and learn to do well, proving it in the ways of ordinary life… In the earlier of these verses there is much that we can freely take to ourselves now. God's unchanging principle is to join repentance to faith, and to insist on suitable works and ways in everyone He draws to Himself. The words apply in a special way to believers who shirk responsibility and trifle with a clear conscience.
- Cease. Drop the evil first; a conscience with a wound in it cannot take in light.
- Learn. Doing good has to be learned, and God keeps the order: leave the evil, then learn the good.
- Seek. God answered rejected sacrifices with a call for justice; the prophets aimed at people in moral conformity with God.
- Defend. The fatherless and the widow have the first claim on compassion. God surrounds them with the defence of His own arm.
- Prove it. The call reaches everyone God draws to Himself, and ordinary daily life is where it shows.