Isaiah66chapter 66

Isaiah 66:1-2

The heaven is my throne: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool is quoted at length by Stephen in Acts 7:49-50, verified, the last argument of his speech against a temple trusted as though it could contain the God who made all things. The question that follows, where is the house that ye build unto me?, is not a rejection of the temple's existence but of any confidence placed in a building rather than in the God it was built to serve, a point Barnes and Henry both draw from the same verse Stephen used against his accusers. To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word turns the chapter from architecture to character, naming the dwelling the Lord seeks as a humbled heart rather than a house of stone.

Isaiah 66:3-4

as if he slew a man: Each lawful act of worship is paired with an equivalent atrocity, killing an ox counted as if he slew a man, sacrificing a lamb as if he cut off a dog's neck, an oblation as if he offered swine's blood, incense as if he blessed an idol, because the worshippers named here kept the forms of the law while their soul delighted in their abominations. Gill reads the pairing as exposing hypocritical sacrifice as no better than the pagan rites it formally opposed, the heart behind the hand the same idolatrous heart in both cases. I also will choose their delusions answers their choice with his own, the Lord giving them over to exactly the false confidence they had chosen for themselves, because when he called none did answer.

Isaiah 66:5

ye that tremble at his word: Ye that tremble at his word picks up the same phrase from verse two, naming a party inside Israel identified once again by reverence rather than by descent, the same distinguishing mark chapter sixty-five draws between the servants and the forsakers. Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake describes actual rejection from within the covenant community, the trembling minority persecuted by their own brethren for taking the Lord's word seriously. The mockers' own words are quoted against them, let the Lord be glorified, spoken in scorn, and the verse promises the mockery reversed, he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed, a verse Alexander reads as the book's clearest statement of division inside Israel itself.

Isaiah 66:6

a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence: Three voices are named in one verse, a voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, and a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his enemies, the temple itself becoming the source of judgment rather than only the place where judgment might be sought. Barnes reads the verse historically toward the temple's own coming destruction, the voice from the very house the false worshippers trusted announcing their sentence rather than their safety. The recompence answers directly to the hollow sacrifices of the previous two verses, the Lord rendering to his enemies what their own worship had earned rather than what they supposed it purchased.

Isaiah 66:7-9

Before she travailed, she brought forth: Before she travailed, she brought forth reverses the ordinary order of childbirth, pain expected before delivery, and pictures Zion's restoration arriving without the labor that should have preceded it, a birth completed before the pangs even began. The image answers its own question, who hath heard such a thing, with the report that a nation is born at once, as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children, the whole nation's restoration compressed into a single moment rather than a gradual return. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth answers any doubt with the Lord's own character as the one who completes what he begins, Delitzsch reading the whole unit as a picture of national rebirth rather than a claim about any one woman's labor.

Isaiah 66:10-11

Rejoice ye with Jerusalem: Rejoice ye with Jerusalem calls every reader who loves her into a corporate gladness, the mourning named in this verse and the whole book's earlier grief over the city both answered at once, all ye that mourn for her now summoned to rejoice for joy with her instead. The nursing images that follow, sucking and being satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, milking out the abundance of her glory, picture Jerusalem herself as the source of comfort rather than merely its location, the city feeding her own children. Henry reads the doubled imagery, mourning turned to joy and Jerusalem turned nurse, as the chapter's answer in miniature to everything the book's opening chapters found wrong with the city.

Isaiah 66:12-14

the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: Peace extended like a river and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream both picture abundance arriving by a natural, unstoppable channel rather than by conquest, the Gentiles' own wealth pictured flowing toward Jerusalem the way the Nile fed Egypt in the earlier oracles against the nations. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you makes the comfort personal rather than merely national, the same maternal image carried from the previous unit now spoken directly by the Lord himself. Your bones shall flourish like an herb answers the exile's own despair with a different figure, and Barnes reads the pairing of comfort for the servants with indignation toward his enemies in the same verse as the chapter's consistent refusal to separate blessing from judgment.

Isaiah 66:15-17

with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind: The Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind answers the gentle nursing imagery of the previous unit with its opposite, the same chapter holding comfort for the servants and fire for the enemies within a few verses of each other. By fire and by sword the Lord will plead with all flesh names a judgment reaching beyond Israel to every nation, and the slain of the Lord shall be many states the scale in plain terms rather than figure. The syncretists singled out for this judgment are named by the same practices condemned earlier in the book, purifying themselves in the gardens behind one tree, eating swine's flesh, the abomination, and the mouse, Gill identifying the mouse as an animal eaten in certain pagan rites and forbidden under the law in Leviticus eleven.

Isaiah 66:18-21

I will gather all nations and tongues: I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come, and see my glory turns the judgment just pronounced into an occasion for witness, the nations gathered not only to be judged but to see, a scene the older writers connect to the wider prophetic hope of Gentile inclusion running through the book's second half. The named destinations, Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, Tubal, and Javan, the isles afar off, mark out the known trading world from Spain to inner Africa to Greece, and the escapees sent there are commissioned to declare my glory among the Gentiles, messengers drawn from Israel's own survivors. Whether the priests and Levites taken from among the Gentiles at verse twenty-one describes actual Gentile converts serving in that office, or Israelites scattered among the nations and gathered back to serve, is a question the older commentators answer differently, Delitzsch and Alexander both weighing the Hebrew without settling it the same way.

Isaiah 66:22-23

so shall your seed and your name remain: The new heavens and the new earth from chapter sixty-five return as the guarantee of a lesser promise, as the new creation shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain, the permanence of the renewed cosmos made the measure of the permanence promised Israel's own line. All flesh worshipping from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another extends Israel's own calendar of appointed worship to the whole earth, the monthly and weekly rhythms that marked the covenant people now marking universal worship. Henry reads the verse as the fulfillment toward which the sabbath itself had always pointed, a rest no longer bounded to one nation's calendar but kept by all flesh before the Lord.

Isaiah 66:24

their worm shall not die: The book's last verse turns from the worshippers to the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me, and gives them the words the Lord himself takes up three times in one breath at Mark 9:44-48, verified, their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, applying Isaiah's closing image directly to final judgment. Neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh ends the book on unrelieved judgment rather than comfort, and Alexander notes the deliberate placement, the same worship described in the previous verse continuing in view of this scene, judgment and worship left standing side by side rather than sequenced apart. The bench records that Jewish liturgical practice, when this chapter is read as the closing haftarah, repeats verse twenty-three's words of worship after verse twenty-four's judgment, a synagogue custom named here as the practice it is rather than a change to the text.