Isaiah 1:10-18 Commentary

Commentary:

As Worship Sourcebook:

While the point Isaiah is making is that Israel’s worship is unacceptable to God because it does not match their behavior toward the most vulnerable in society, this text is also — kind of accidentally — a primer on the central aspects of worship among the faithful in Jerusalem. We can learn something about the regular rhythm of worship for God’s people, even as these activities are being called out in this circumstance. Key components of worship listed in this section of Scripture include: burnt sacrifice rams, bulls, sheep and goats. Israelites regularly brought offerings of incense for various celebrations and festivals like New Moons and Sabbath.  Prayer, with arms extended seem to be a regular and accepted posture.

Robert Alter offers some other insights into the text that we might miss on first glance.  For example, the idea of worship as a coming to appear before God might be better translated “when you come to see My face?” Alter elaborates that this notion of seeking God’s face is “the original conception of the pilgrimage to the Jerusalem temple.”

As Poetry:

Just as is the case, today, some of our best theology is sung.  This text is considered by some commentaries to be not just a poem but a hymn, sung in worship. Against a backdrop expressed by Otto Kaiser in the Old Testament Library commentary on Isaiah:  “At a time when Judaism had taken shape as a cultic community around the sanctuary in Jerusalem, with its ancestral country under alien control as a Persian province, it must have seemed natural to urge Yahweh to intervene on behalf of his people by increasing the number of sacrificial offerings,” in fact here the hymn writers are concerned not with the quantity but the quality of those sacrifices!  Indeed, Kaiser writes, “As there is not only an accusation, but positive instruction at the end, this prelude gives the whole discourse the character of an emphatic call to repentance; it becomes a lesson in how the people doomed to destruction can still escape divine judgment.”

This poem (or hymn) is made up of three stanzas.  In the first, accusation, the command to stop doing unrighteousness, in the second, a command to take up justice and righteousness. Again from Kaiser, “The command explaining the instruction, to cease doing evil, is now followed in sharp contrast by the twofold summons to stop doing harm and instead to learn to do good.” Finally, the third stanza comes, as we might expect following a call to confession is the possibility of some kind of resolution or response, like an assurance of pardon beautifully granted in verse 18.

As Ethical Guidance:

Throughout the lengthy book of Isaiah, the words justice and righteousness appear often, as twins.  Here, at the outset, Isaiah gives us an illustration how the two must be embodied together in the life of God’s people. By all accounts, their Temple worship hits the required marks but it does not match the character of their lives outside the Temple and this is what sets their acts of devotion outside God’s acceptance.  Robert Alter writes, “It should be noted that Isaiah’s outrage, as it is spelled out in verse 17, is not chiefly with cultic disloyalty, as it would be for the writers in the school of Deuteronomy, but with social injustice—indifference to the plight of the poor and the helpless, exploitation of the vulnerable, acts represented here as the moral equivalent of murder.”

We may, though unintentionally add to this bifurcation between formal worship and everyday worship by acting as though the priests and the prophets were divided on the issue.  Priests demanded cultic ritual, pure and on the mark.  Prophets called people to live justly and generously in the world.  In fact, there is not much daylight between the two and each would certainly have the others’ back. While the priest’s role was to facilitate ritual, it was the prophet who ensured that the offerings brought and the words spoken matched the giver’s quality of life beyond the temple.

As Christians interpreting this text we have an awareness of Christ who serves as both our prophet, priest and king, which is all the more reason we are to hold the justice of our lives together with the righteousness of our worship.  All of it in service to our king!

Worship Idea:

In the Northern Hemisphere, November is often synonymous with harvest season.  In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving at the end of the month.  I wonder, then, if this text at the start of November could highlight a theme to carry through the month — that of making sure that our acts of worship at church are met with equal acts of worship in our homes and workplaces?  Do we praise God on Sunday and berate our employees or children with that same mouth on Monday?  Are we generous with our wallet on Sunday but withholding when it comes to calculating end-of-year bonuses for our employees on Monday? Are we eager to volunteer our extra time for church-related causes but begrudging about the time we spend “on the clock” at work? How can we bring these desperate practices into alignment?

The shape of our “harvest prayers” will depend greatly on the vocational context in which we preach however, the Worship for Workers website has a lot of great ideas for how you might invite people to prepare for a Thanksgiving offering by considering what the “harvest” of their hands might look like.   Here are a couple of options (one written by yours truly.)