[1] Jehovah here challenges Israel to a formal trial: _nocach_ is thus used in a reciprocal sense, and with the same meaning as _nishpat_ in ch. xliii. 26 (Ges. § 51, 2). In such a trial Israel must lose, for Israel's self-righteousness rests upon sham righteousness; and this sham righteousness, when rightly examined, is but unrighteousness dripping with blood. It is taken for granted that this must be the result of the investigation. Israel is therefore worthy of death. Yet Jehovah will not treat Israel according to His retributive justice, but according to His free compassion. He will remit the punishment, and not only regard the sin as not existing, but change it into its very opposite. The reddest possible sin shall become, through His mercy, the purest white. On the two _hiphils_ applied to colour, see Ges. § 53, 2; though he gives the meaning incorrectly, viz., "to take a colour," whereas the words signify rather to emit a colour, not _colorem accipere,_ but _colorem dare. Shâne, bright red (the plural _shânim,_ as in Prov. xxxi. 21, signified materials dyed with _shâni_) and _tolâ,_ warm colour, are simply different names for the same colour, viz., the crimson obtained from the cochineal insect, _color coccineus._ The representation of the work of grace promised by God as a change from red to white is founded upon the symbolism of colours, quite as much as when the saints in the Revelation (ch. xix. 8) are described as clothed in white raiment, whilst the clothing of Babylon is purple and scarlet (ch. xvii. 4). Red is the colour of fire, and therefore of life: the blood is red because life is a fiery process. For this reason the heifer, from which the ashes of purification were obtained for those who had been defiled through contact with the dead, was to be red; and the sprinkling-bush, with which the unclean were sprinkled, was to be tied around with a band of scarlet wool. But red, as contrasted with white, the colour of light (Matt. xvii. 2), is the colour of selfish, covetous, passionate life, is which is self-seeking in its nature, which goes out of itself only to destroy, and drives about with wild tempestuous violence: it is therefore the colour of wrath and sin. It is generally supposed that Isaiah speaks of red as the colour of sin, because sin ends in murder; and this is not really wrong, though it is too restricted. Sin is called red, inasmuch as it is a burning heat which consumes a man, and when it breaks forth consumes his fellow-man as well. According to the biblical view, throughout, sin stands in the same relation to what is well-pleasing to God, and wrath in the same relation to love or grace, as fire to light; and therefore as red to white, to black to