John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 1:15

"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." — Isaiah 1:15 (ASV)

When you spread out your hands—the ancient custom of spreading out the hands in prayer did not arise from superstition, nor did that practice, like many others, become common through foolish and idle ambition, but because nature itself prompts people to declare, even by outward signs, that they turn to God.

Accordingly, since they cannot fly to Him, they raise themselves by this sign. No command, certainly, respecting this sign, was given to the forefathers; but they used it as people divinely inspired. By this very sign, all idolaters are convicted of gross blindness; for, while they declare by an outward attitude that they turn to God, in reality they turn to idols.

To convict them more strongly, the Lord permitted the uninterrupted use of this custom to continue among them. The Prophet, therefore, does not condemn the spreading out of the hands, but their hypocrisy, because they assumed the appearance of people who called on God, while in their heart they were wholly turned away from Him, as He elsewhere declares more fully that

“This people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me” (Isaiah 29:13).

The Lord says that He is near, but it is to those who call upon Him in truth (Psalms 145:18).

Where hypocrisy is, there can be no true calling on God. And yet this passage does not contradict what is said elsewhere, “When they spread out their hands, I will hear.” For in that passage the Lord speaks of that calling which proceeds from confidence in Him. Faith is the mother of calling on God; and if that is absent, nothing is left but empty mockery.

Yes, when you make many prayers—He amplifies the former statement by threatening that He will be deaf to their cries, to whatever extent they may multiply prayers, as if He had said, “Though you are constant in prayer, that diligence will be of no use to you.” For this also is a fault that belongs to hypocrites: the more their prayers abound in words, the more they think they are holy and will more easily obtain what they wish. Thus, their idle talkativeness is indirectly rebuked.

Your hands are full of blood—Here He begins to explain more fully the reason why He disapproves, and even disdainfully rejects, both their prayers and their sacrifices. It is because they are cruel and bloody, and stained with crimes of every sort, though they come into His presence with hypocritical display.

Though He will afterwards add other kinds of crime, yet as He had mentioned the spreading out of the hands, so He speaks of the hands, and says that in them they carry and hold out a testimony of their crimes, so that they need not wonder that He thrusts them back so harshly.

For, on the other hand, the phrase to lift up clean hands was employed not only by prophets and apostles (1 Timothy 2:8), but even by secular authors, who were driven by mere instinct to reprove the stupidity of people—if it were not that God perhaps forced them to make this confession, so that true religion might never be without some kind of attestation.

And yet the Prophet does not mean that they were robbers or murderers, but reproves the tricks and deceit by which they obtained possession of the property of others.

God judges differently from humans. For the hidden tricks and wicked arts, by which wicked people are accustomed to deceive and take advantage of simpler people, are not taken into account by society; or if they are, they are at least downplayed and not assessed at their true weight.

But God, dragging out into the light those very individuals of dazzling reputation who under false pretenses had been concealing their unjust practices, plainly declares that they are murderers.

For in whatever way one kills a person—whether by cutting their throat or by taking away their food and the necessities of life—one is a murderer.

Consequently, God does not speak of people who are openly wicked, or whose crimes have made them openly infamous, but of those who wished to be thought good and who maintained some kind of reputation.

This circumstance should be carefully observed.

For on the same grounds, we must now deal with wicked people who oppress the poor and weak through fraud, violence, or some kind of injustice, and yet cloak their wickedness with plausible disguises.

But with whatever impudence they may exclaim that they do not resemble thieves or assassins, we must reprove them with the same severity that the Prophet employed towards people of the same kind.

For when we speak in the name of God, we must not judge according to human views and opinions, but must boldly declare the judgment that the Lord has pronounced.