Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow… Sins are here likened to scarlet and crimson dye, and with good reason, indeed. For, first of all, scarlet and crimson are the most glaring and flaunting of colours; and sin is the most audacious as well as self-delusive appearance, under which man affronts the majesty of God in the sight of heaven and earth. Scarlet and crimson, also, are the blush of shame. And what so shameful as sin, or rather what can be shameful but sin! Scarlet and crimson are also the colour of blood; and blood is on the head of every sinner, as St: Paul, told the unbelieving Jews when they refused to be converted from their sins: Your blood be upon your own heads" And scarlet and crimson were (whatever they may be now) colours which it was beyond all men's power and skill to discharge from the cloth which had been ones dyed with them. And is it not equally beyond all man's power to cleanse his own soul from the dye of sin? (R. W. Evans, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Come now, and 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. |
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