Commentary on Isaiah 1:10-18

Isaiah 1 is—and is not—a beginning. Rashi, the great 11th-century CE French sage, points out that Isaiah’s call in chapter 6 is properly regarded as the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry. Everything that comes before that is prologue. And the first chapter is probably best understood as a sort of academic abstract; that is, this is a summation of the work at the beginning so that we know what we are getting into with Isaiah.  

Immediately, verse 2 shapes the theology and anthropology of the rest of the book: God is a loving but betrayed father, who seeks reconciliation with rebellious children. Natural consequences flow from national faithlessness, and Isaiah forecasts destruction and exile such that Jerusalem will be like a hut for harvesters that is abandoned after the fields are picked clean (verse 8). If God would not have left an exiled remnant, the people of Judah would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah (verse 9). 

After the prolepsis of destruction, exile, and return, our reading picks up with Judahite kings over 150 years before the exile. The rulers of the Southern Kingdom are compared to the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah. In a way, they are worse. They know to whom they need to offer worship. And it seems like at least in their religious punctiliousness God finds no fault. All sacrifices are offered correctly and on time. 

Nevertheless, God cannot stand the rites because of iniquity and bloodshed within the assembled congregation (verses 13, 15). God cannot tolerate even correctly offered worship because of the hypocrisy of worshiping a God whose commandments on neighbor-love are ignored. This concern of prioritizing obedience and inter-human peace over sacrificial worship is widespread in scripture (1 Samuel 15:22; Hosea 6:6–8; Jeremiah 7:1–15; Matthew 5:23–24). God would prefer, if it were indeed a zero-sum game between worship and obedience—though it must not be!—that the people would first practice righteousness and only then attend to worship.

In a summation for the rest of Isaiah, and perhaps the rest of scripture, Isaiah famously enumerates what Rashi calls the “10 exhortations of repentance” in verses 16–18. This reading offers an overview of what Isaiah, and the rest of the prophets, will offer to rebellious people as a pathway back to their Heavenly Parent, who longs for reconciliation. 

The first verb is “to wash.” The prophet understands the bloodshed of the preceding verse as literal. God cannot hear anything over the blood that cries out for vengeance (Genesis 4:10). The human who has shed blood cannot begin a path to repentance until they have, at the very least, recognized that hands should not be bloody. At the beginning of the 12 steps, one must admit that there is a problem. Removing the physical blood from hands represents acknowledgment that bloodshed is wrong. 

Second, after the physical blood has been removed, the guilt of bloodshed must be removed by the process of cleansing the moral stain of violence. Cleansing is more than simply washing; it is removing the infecting power of sinful action from the human soul. 

Third, after the evidence of sinful violence has been removed from the individual, it must also be removed from God’s notice. This is repentance proper—to make restitution and repay for good the penalties for violence (Exodus 21:12–27). Central to this moral calculus is the notion that unpaid blood-debt nags at God’s attention and is in front of God’s eyes until removed (verse 16). 

Fourth, after removing evidence of bloodshed from the human person, and then from God’s notice, the offenders are to intentionally cease causing bloodshed. God’s people are called to remove interpersonal violence as an option from the behavioral repertoire. I can hear Bob Newhart here shouting, “Stop it!”

Fifth, of course, bad habits of violence need to be replaced with good habits. As any parent will verify, children need to be taught to do what is good, not just to stop doing the wrong thing. Performing righteousness is a learned behavior and is not to be confused with simply ceasing to practice evil. It involves an active educational process where righteousness is taught. Christians will naturally identify this process as discipleship. Just as the early Christians had to cease practices of debauchery and participation in the empire’s violence and replace those habits with love feasts and sharing resources, so too were Isaiah’s hearers to cease participation in violence and replace it with neighbor-love and care for strangers. 

Sixth, one of the key areas for the repentant sinner to focus attention, according to Isaiah’s schema, was in the pursuit of righteous authorities to pronounce what is just and unjust. Just as someone going through repentance does not naturally know how to do what is right until taught, so a person does not know how to decide between parties in cases of justice without seeking to study with righteous judges. There are multiple layers of learning and apprenticeship in Isaiah’s vision of repentance.  

Seventh, while attending the judgments of the elders at gates or in law courts, the repentant person will have opportunities to meet many who were victims of robbery or abuse. Upon learning that another person has been harmed, the repentant is to strengthen those who have been robbed. Just as they once made restitution for their own crimes, now the repentant person works to undo the harm caused by another individual. 

Eighth, the repentant person moves from helping correct the wrongs done to a victim of individual crime, and attends to victims of structural inequities. They now turn to working for justice for the orphans, who do not have fathers to seek justice for them. 

Ninth, the repentant person is to plead the case of the widow, who has no husband to intercede for her with the judges. The repentant person becomes a sort of ombudsperson who repays a blood-debt to God and society by seeking justice denied to someone else. 

Tenth and last, after spending time in the earthly court, learning and practicing justice, the repentant person is to come and reason with God and to learn about God’s mercy and forgiveness. At the end of the process, the bloodstained hands are no longer crimson, but white as snow. 

Isaiah 1 offers an overview of the rest of the book. God is an aggrieved parent. But God calls out to rebellious children, offering an intentional, systematic pathway back into right relationship with God that creates a healthy society in the process.