Isaiah 1:16 - Exposition

Wash you, make you clean . The analogy of sin to defilement, and of washing to cleansing from sin, has been felt among men universally wherever there has been any sense of sin. Outward purification by water has been constantly made use of as typical of the recovery of inward purity. Hence the numerous washings of the Levitical Law ( Exodus 29:4 ; Le Exodus 1:9 , Exodus 1:13 ; Numbers 19:7 , Numbers 19:8 , Numbers 19:19 ; Deuteronomy 21:6 ; Deuteronomy 23:11 ; etc.); hence the ablutions of the priests in Egypt (Herod; 2.37); hence the appropriateness of the rite of baptism; hence the symbolical washing of hands to free from complicity in blood-guiltiness ( Matthew 27:24 ). "Wash you, make you clean, "could not be misunderstood by the Israelites; they would know that it was a requirement to "wash their hands in innocency" ( Psalms 26:6 ; Psalms 73:13 ), even apart from what follows. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Not "hide it, "for that was impossible; but remove it altogether - in other words, "cease from it." "Cast off all the works of darkness;" get rid of evil, to begin with. So much is negative.