  Our goal was to characterize the distant gaseous and dust activity of comet
C\2012 S1 (ISON), inbound, from observations of H2O, CO and the dust coma in
the far-infrared and submillimeter domains. In this paper, we report
observations undertaken with the Herschel Space Observatory on 8 & 13 March
2013 (rh = 4.54 - 4.47AU) and with the 30m telescope of Institut de
Radioastronomie Millim\'etrique (IRAM) in March and April 2013 (rh = 4.45 -
4.18 AU). The HIFI instrument aboard Herschel was used to observe the H$_{2}$O
$1_{10}-1_{01}$ line at 557 GHz, whereas images of the dust coma at 70 and 160
{\mu}m were acquired with the PACS instrument. Spectra acquired at the IRAM 30m
telescope cover the CO J(2-1) line at 230.5 GHz. The spectral observations were
analysed with excitation and radiative transfer models. A model of dust thermal
emission taking into account a range of dust sizes is used to analyse the PACS
maps. While H$_{2}$O was not detected in our 8 March 2013 observation, we
derive a sensitive 3 $\sigma$ upper limit of QH$_{2}$O < 3.5 x 10$^{26}$
molecules/s for this date. A marginal 3.2 $\sigma$ detection of CO is found,
corresponding to a CO production rate of QCO = 3.5 x 10$^{27}$ molecules/s. The
Herschel PACS measurements show a clear detection of the coma and tail in both
the 70 {\mu}m and 160 {\mu}m maps. Under the assumption of a 2 km radius
nucleus, we infer dust production rates in the range 10 - 13 kg/s or 40 - 70
kg/s depending on whether a low or high gaseous activity from the nucleus
surface is assumed. We constrain the size distribution of the emitted dust by
comparing PACS 70 and 160 {\mu}m data, and considering optical data. Size
indices between -4 and -3.6 are suggested. The morphology of the tail observed
on 70 {\mu}m images can be explained by the presence of grains with ages older
than 60 days.
