they omitted; nay, it should seem, they called extraordinary assemblies, and held solemn meetings, for religious worship, beside those that God had appointed; yet this was not all, they applied themselves to God not only with their ceremonial observances, but with the moral instances of devotion; they prayed, they prayed often, made many prayers, thinking they should be heard for their much speaking; nay, they were fervent and importunate in prayer, they spread forth their hands as men in earnest. Now we should have thought these, and no doubt they thought themselves, a pious, religious people; and yet they were far from being so, for, (1.) Their hearts were empty of true devotion; they came to appear before God, (v. 12. ) to be seen before him; so the margin reads it; they rested in the outside of the duties, they looked no further than to be seen of men, and went no further than that which men see. (2.) Their hands were full of blood; they were guilty of murder, rapine, and oppression, under colour of law and justice. The people shed blood, and the rulers did not punish them for it; the rulers shed blood, and the people were aiding and abetting, as the elders of Jezreel were to Jezebel in shedding Naboth's blood. Malice is heart-murder, in the account of God; he that hates his brother in his heart, has, in effect, his hands full of blood.
2. When sinners are under the judgments of God, they will more easily be brought to fly to their devotions, than to forsake their sins, and reform their lives. Their country was now desolate, and their cities burnt; (v. 7.) and this awakened them to bring their sacrifices and offerings to God more constantly than they had done, as if they would bribe God Almighty to remove the punishment, and give them leave to go on in the sin. When he slew them, then they sought him, Ps. lxxviii. 34. Lord, in trouble have they visited thee, ch. xxvi. 16. Many that will readily part with their sacrifices, will not be persuaded to part with their sins.
3. The most pompous and costly devotions of wicked people, without a thorough reformation of the heart and life, are so far from being acceptable to God, that really they are an abomination to him. It is showed here in a great variety of expressions, that to obey is better than sacrifice; nay, that sacrifice, without obedience, is a jest, an affront and provocation to God. The comparative neglect which God here expresses of ceremonial observances, was a tacit intimation of what they would come to at last, when they would all be done away by the death of Christ; what was now made little of, would, in due time, be made nothing of. Sacrifice and offering, and prayer made in the virtue of that, thou wouldest not; then said I, Lo, I come. Their sacrifices are here represented,
(1.) As fruitless and insignificant. To what purpose is it? v. 11. They are vain oblations, v. 13. In vain do they worship me, Matth. xv. 9. It was all lost labour, and served not to answer any good intention; for, [l.] It was not looked upon as any act of duty or obedience to God; Who has required these things at your hands? v. 12. Not that God disowns his institutions, or refuses to stand by his own warrants; but in what they did they had not an eye to Him that required it, nor indeed did he require it of them, whose hands were full of blood, and who continued impenitent. [2.] It did not recommend them to God's favour; he delighted not in the blood of their sacrifices, for he did not look upon himself as honoured by it. [3.] It would not obtain any relief for them. They pray, but God will not hear, because they regard iniquity; (Ps. lxvi. 18.) he would not deliver them, for though they make many prayers, none of them came from an upright heart. All their religious services turned to no account to them. Nay,
(2.) As odious and offensive, God did not only not accept them, but he did detest and abhor them. "They are your sacrifices, they are none of mine; I am full of them, even surfeited with them." He needed them not, (Ps. 1. 10.) did not desire them, had had enough of them, and more than enough. Their coming into his courts he calls treading them, or trampling upon them, their very attendance on his ordinances was construed into a contempt of them. Their incense, though ever so fragrant, was an abomination to him, for it was burnt in hypocrisy, and with an ill design. Their solemn assemblies he could not away with, could not see them with any patience, nor bear the affront they gave him. The solemn meeting is iniquity; though the thing itself was not, yet, as they managed it, it was. It is a vexation, (so some read it,) a provocation, to God, to have ordinances thus prostituted, not only by wicked people, but to wicked purposes; "My soul hates them, they are a trouble to me, a burthen, an incumbrance; I am perfectly sick of them, and weary to bear them." He is never weary of hearing the prayers of the upright, but soon weary of the costly sacrifices of the wicked. He hides his eyes from their prayers, as that which he has an aversion to, and is angry at.
All this is to show, [1.] That sin is very hateful to God, so hateful that it makes even men's prayers and their religious services hateful to him. [2.] That dissembled piety is double iniquity. Hypocrisy in religion is of all things most abominable to the God of heaven. Jerom applies it to the Jews in Christ's time, who pretended a great zeal for the law and the temple, but made themselves and all their services abominable to God, by filling their hands with the blood of Christ and his apostles, and so filling up the measure of their iniquities.
16. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17. Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow. 18. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Though God has 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,
1. A call to repentance and reformation; "If you would have your sacrifices accepted, and your prayers answered, you must begin your work at the right end; Be converted to my law," (so the Chaldee begins this exhortation,) "make conscience of second-table-duties, else expect not to be accepted in the acts of your devotion." As justice and charity will never atone for atheism and profaneness, so prayers and sacrifices will never atone for fraud and oppression; for righteousness toward men is as much a branch of pure religion, as religion toward God is a branch of universal righteousness.
1. They must cease to do evil, must do no more
