ISAIAH – CHAPTER 65

DIVINE RESPONSE TO ISRAEL’S SUPPLICATION

Vs. 1-7: MERCY AND JUSTICE

1. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul has applied verse 1 TO GENTILES who were willing to yield themselves, in faith, to the lordship of Jesus Christ, (Rom 9:30; Rom 10:19-20; Eph 2:12; comp. Deu 32:21).

a. Isaiah has already shown God’s willingness to save “unto the ends of the earth” – not Jews only, but Gentiles also, (Isa 45:22).

b. The Lord offers a ready welcome to all who are willing to walk in faith-obedience before Him – even though they have not, henceforth, been called by His name, (Hos 1:10; comp. Joh 12:20-25).

c. The grafting of Gentile saints into the stock of Israel adequately solves the enigma, arising so often in the Scriptures, of Israel’s simultaneous loss and gain.

2. By way of contrast, with the faith-obedience manifested by the Gentiles, Isaiah depicts the obstinate unfaithfullness of the elect nation; throughout the age-long day, God has spread out His beckoning hands to a stubborn and rebellious people who insisted on walking in their own way, (vs. 2-5a; Rom 10:21; Isa 1:2-4; Isa 30:1; Isa 30:9; Isa 59:7; Psa 81:11-16).

a. Their national life was characterized by gross idolatry through which they constantly provoked the Lord to His face, (vs. 3-4; Isa 3:8; comp. Isa 1:29; Isa 66:3; Isa 66:17).

b. Yet, in their bigoted blindness, they adjudged themselves more holy than others – refusing to associate with them, (vs. 5a; comp. Mat 9:10-13; Luk 7:39-47; Luk 18:9-14).

3. The ultimate rejection of Israel was not brought about by the sins of a single generation; it was accumulative, (vs. 5b-7); from ancient times they had burned incense (to false gods) upon the mountains and defied the Lord upon the hills – a fact which demonstrates the justice of His judgment, (Pro 16:5; Isa 42:14; Psa 50:3; Psa 50:21; Jer 16:18; Isa 22:14; Isa 30:12-14; Isa 57:7; Eze 20:27-28; Jer 5:29; Jer 13:24-27).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. I have manifested myself. The Prophet now passes on to another doctrine; for he shews that God has good reason for rejecting and casting off the Jews. It is because they have profited nothing by either warnings or threatenings to be brought back from their errors into the right way. But that they might not think that the Lord’s covenant would on that account be made void, he adds that he will have another people which formerly was no people, and that where he was formerly unknown, his name Shall be well known and highly celebrated. The Jews looked on this as monstrous, and reckoned it to be altogether inconsistent with the covenant which the Lord made with Abraham, (Gen 17:7,) if such a benefit were extended to any others than his posterity. But the Prophet intended to strip them of the foolish confidence of imagining that God was bound to the posterity of Abraham; for the Lord had not restricted himself to them but on an absolute condition, and if this were violated by them, they would be deprived, like covenant-breakers and traitors, of all the advantage derived from the covenant. Nor was this promise made to Abraham alone, and to those who were descended from him, but to all who should be ingrafted by faith into his family. But it will be more convenient to begin with the second verse, in which he explains the cause of the rejection, that we may more fully understand the Prophet’s design. (198)

(198) The remainder of our author’s exposition of the first verse will be found at commentary on verse 1. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE CONVERSION OF THE GENTILES
(Missionary Sermon.)

Isa. 65:1. I am sought of them that asked not for Me, &c.

It was Gods design from the beginning to call the Gentile nation into His Church, and, in due time, to admit them to all the blessings and privileges of the Gospel. The Jews, indeed, were His peculiar people; but this distinction in their favour was made only for a particular purpose, and for a limited season. They were chosen especially for this end, that they might preserve in the world the knowledge of the true God, and then prepare the way for the coming of the promised Redeemer, who, when He should come, was to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, &c. It is to this great event that our text refers, as we are taught by St. Paul, who cites it as an expressive prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles (Rom. 10:20). The passage sets before us

I. The wretched state of the Gentiles before their conversion to Christianity. Many of the Gentile nations were neither savages, nor sunk in want and ignorance, nor destitute of the necessaries, conveniences, or even elegant comforts of life. In all these respects they came very little, if at all, behind ourselves; they were rich and powerful, and produced many eminent men, whose talents and exploits have commanded the admiration of mankind. Yet they were wretched; they knew not God. Darkness covered the earth, &c. They made no inquiry after Him, &c. Surrounded by the wonderful works of God, they yet asked not who was the maker of them. They bowed down to idols, &c. (Rom. 1:21-32).

II. The surprising and glorious change which was then wrought in them. They sought and found God. Their idols they cast away. Their vices they abandoned. A moral transformation took place in them, even more wonderful than those physical ones, which the prophet depicts (Isa. 35:1-7; Isa. 55:13).

III. The simple but powerful means by which this great work was accomplished. The Lord, by His Word, revealed His grace and glory to them, &c.

CONCLUSION.

1. We are deeply concerned in these facts, and ought to regard them with feelings of most lively gratitude. Such was once the state of this country, such, at this moment, would have been our state if God had not sent His light and truth among us.

2. The condition of the heathen nations is as lamentable today as it was of old. The character of the most degraded of them admits of as complete and glorious a transformation. We have witnessed these moral miracles in our own day. The means by which this glorious transformation may be effected has been intrusted to us (2Co. 5:18; Mat. 28:19-20). Shall we be unfaithful to so great a trust? Gratitude to God, and compassion for our fellow-men, should make us diligent in its discharge.E. Cooper.

God justifies His dispensation towards the Jews because of their manifold apostacies from Him, and then shows that He had conferred His favour upon the Gentiles, who had made no application to Him.

I. Why we must behold Him.

1. Because our whole interests are bound up in His favour. Consider who it is that asks you to behold Him as a God reconciled in Christ. Think of the contrast between the parties. He calls a world of rebels to His footstool, &c.
2. Because He delights to raise up trophies of His grace when and where we might least expect it (see former outline).
3. Because, though He is sometimes found of those who seek Him not, He is always found of those who seek Him.

II. Where shall we behold Him? Everywhere; the kingdom of nature; the volume of His Word; the economy of providence; the terrors of Sinai, but specially in the cross of Calvary.

III. When, &c. Now. Always.S. Thodey. (See p. 233240.)

Isa. 65:2-7. The rejection of Israel. I. Preceded by special privileges. II. Occasioned by sin. Ingratitude. Idolatry. Hypocrisy. III. Clearly predicted. As a warning. IV. Judicially sealed.Dr. Lyth.

Isa. 65:2. The conduct of Israel excites our astonishment, but it finds its parallel among ourselves. ObserveI. Gods conduct toward men.

1. Gracious. Rebels against His laws, &c., having every element of iniquity (Isa. 65:2-4).

2. Earnest. Outstretched handsattitude of entreatywilling to receive to favour.
3. Forbearingwithout intermission. Day of life often protracted. II. Mans conduct toward God.
1. Ungrateful.
2. Insulting.
3. Obstinate.

4. Criminal. Such a rejection of mercy must secure punishment (Pro. 1:24; Psa. 107:11).A. Tucker.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

E. REFINING OF ZION, CHAPTER 65
1. CLEANSED

TEXT: Isa. 65:1-12

1

I am inquired of by them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.

2

I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, that walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts;

3

a people that provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense upon bricks;

4

that sit among the graves, and lodge in the secret places; that eat swines flesh, and broth of adominable things is in their vessels;

5

that say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

6

Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, yea, I will recompense into their bosom,

7

your own iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith Jehovah, that have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I first measure their work into their bosom.

8

Thus saith Jehovah, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants sakes, that I may not destroy them all.

9

And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah and inheritor of my mountains; and my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.

10

And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.

11

But ye that forsake Jehovah, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for Fortune, and that fill up mingled wine unto Destiny;

12

I will destine you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but ye did that which was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delighted not.

QUERIES

a.

What is the practice of sitting among graves (verse four)?

b.

Where is the valley of Achor?

c.

Who is Fortune?

PARAPHRASE

This is what the Lord says in answer to Zions complaint: While some seek Me and do not find Me, others who never before sought Me will find Me! I will reveal Myself to a people I have not chosen. However, the rebellious people I have chosenwith whom I have been continually pleading to come to Methey have chosen to follow their own evil ideas and desires. These people of Mine insult Me continually, and Blatantly to My face, worshiping in the idol-gardens and burning incense to images on heathen altars. They go out at night to the graveyards and other secret places to hold seances and try to contact the dead; they indulge in the pagan rituals of eating swines flesh and rotten food. These have so completely given themselves over to pagan ritual and mystery-cults they think they have attained extra-ordinary sanctity and do not wish to associate with their fellow countrymen so they say, Stay away from me, you are not in the same class as I am in wisdom and religion. The Lord says of these, They are as vexatious and repulsive to Me as smoke in the nose from a fire that smolders continually. I have been recording their deeds and I have written down a decree that I will no longer restrain Myself toward these rebels. I am going to pay them with a full penalty for their rebellion. I am going to dump this entire mess of ungodliness they have made right back into their laps. I am going to punish them, not only for their own sins, but also for the sins of their forefathers too, says the Lord, because their forefathers taught them to worship idols on the hilltops and profane My name and insult My name; I will pay them back for the centuries of profanity with which they profaned Me.
But I will not destroy them all, says the Lord; just as one does not want to throw away a cluster of grapes because there are some good grapes mixed with the bad ones, so there are some good people in Zion I do not want to destroy. There are a few in Zion who are My good servants. I will save a small group and these will provide seed to form a people who will receive the inheritance and the dwelling I have promised them. This inheritance and dwelling place will be one of prosperity and security like Sharon s plains and the valley of Achor for those who seek Me. But as for the rest of you, who worship the gods of Good Luck and Destiny, and who forsake My temple and forget Me, I will destine you to slaughter by your enemys sword. You are marked for the slaughter because when I plead with you to come to Me you did not answer My pleading; when I commanded, you did not obey. In fact, you deliberately did what I had said was evil and your every desire was what I told you was undesirable to Me.

COMMENTS

Isa. 65:1-7 SIN REPAID: It may have appeared up to this point in Isaiahs prophecy that he was pronouncing doom upon the whole nation. However, the prayer in chapter 64 shows that there was a small remnant of people who had turned to the Lord for help. This small group had the testimony of Isaiah bound up and sealed among them and were the prophets disciples. They had turned to the teaching and to the testimony (cf. Isa. 8:16-20). Chapter 65 is the verification that Isaiah had been declaring all along the whole nation was not to be doomed but that there would be a sifting and God would indeed answer the prayer for deliverance by the remnant. Those who blaspheme the Lord will be recompensed with judgment; those who trust Him will become a seed and provide heirs to Judahs promises.

The apostle Paul helps us understand that these final verses of Isaiahs book have to do with the Messiahs kingdom (the church) for he quotes Isa. 65:1-2 in Rom. 10:20-21 as fulfilled at the preaching of the gospel and its reception by Gentiles. Isaiah is predicting that a refining, sorting, culling process is going to take place as a consequence of the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent centuries of the Jewish indignation (cf. our comments Daniel, College Press, pages 343353 and 429435). From the Babylonian captivity, through the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth, through the Seleucid domination and the Maccabean revolt, and through the early Roman domination the Jewish nation would undergo a spiritual sifting until thoroughly prepared (with a remnant of godly servants like Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, etc.) for the new creation (Isa. 66:18-24) (the Messiahs Zion). This sifting must take place because of the abominable rebellion of a majority of Israel in Isaiahs day. Many of these rebels will never find Jehovah even though He has plead with them (through prophets and leaders) for century after century. They would not give up their idols. So it is predicted that God will have a people turn to Him in the future who had never inquired about Him before. This will be the goiy (singular of goiym), Isa. 65:1 substantiates Eph. 3:1-6 that Jehovah did not in ancient times make known to the Gentiles the messianic program as He did to the Jews. But Isa. 65:1 predicts a time when the Gentiles would find Him; the Gentiles will behold Him and they will be called by His name. The time will come, says Isaiah, when God will reveal Himself and invite the Gentiles, behold Me, behold Me! That invitation will be through the preaching of the gospel of Christ says Paul in Rom. 10:14-21.

But until the time comes for Jehovah to open the messianic kingdom to the Gentiles, He spreads out His hands all the day to a rebellious people. Jehovah was more than patient, more than merciful, more than just with Israel. Century after century He plead with them through His prophets (cf. 2Ch. 24:18-19; 2Ch. 36:15-16; Jer. 7:13; Luk. 11:50, etc.). But they would not listen (cf. Hos. 11:1-2; Hos. 12:10-14; Mic. 2:6-11; Isa. 30:8-11; Jer. 5:3; Jer. 6:16-19; Jer. 7:27-28; Jer. 8:5-6, etc.). The Hebrew word soorer is translated rebellious but is more specifically, stubborn. They have their own ways and their own ideas and they stubbornly refuse Gods thought and ways. With centuries of evidence behind them that Gods ways result in good and mans result in evil, they still reject Gods ways! The Hebrew phrase in verse three, haam hammakeisiym, is literally, the people, the ones angering me to My face continually. The Hebrew word is actually stronger than provokeit emphasizes anger! The sin of Israel here depicted is insensitive and blatant. Knowing it angers Jehovah, they persist; not only do they persist, they invent new ways to provoke Him.

1.

Sacrificing in gardens: making the ritual offerings in the groves of trees and flower gardens dedicated to pagan idols (see comments Isa. 57:1-8).

2.

Burning incense upon bricks: incense is usually associated with prayer. They were praying to idols by burning incense upon brick altars.

3.

Sit among graves, and lodge in the secret places: apparently this refers to the practice of trying to contact the dead. The Hebrew word loon is translated lodge in in secret places but means simply, lodge all night. They were practicing the common pagan ritual of necromancy which was strictly forbidden by their scriptures (cf. Deu. 18:11; 1Sa. 28:3; Isa. 57:9). Jerome refers to a practice called incubation in the temples of the idols where they were accustomed to lie upon the skins of the victims stretched upon the ground, to gather future events from their dreams.

4.

Eat swines flesh, and broth of abominable things: Swines flesh was offered by the heathen in sacrifice to their idols and then eaten as a ritual of dedication and holiness (cf. 2Ma. 6:18-22; 2Ma. 7:1-2). It was forbidden for the Hebrews (cf. Lev. 11:7 ff; Deu. 14:8). The Hebrew word pigguliym is translated abominable things and according to Eze. 4:14; Lev. 7:18; Lev. 19:7 it is things that are legally unclean. Young calls it rotten things; Keil and Delitzsch says the word means a stench, a putrefaction, broth made either of such kinds of flesh or such parts of the body as were forbidden by the law. It was a disgusting and revolting practice evidently a part of pagan cultic worship.

Those who became initiates into the pagan mystery cults did so through secret rituals and orders. They went out in the dark of night to the groves and hilltops; they talked in a cryptic language about mysterious rites and ceremonies; they glanced and smiled knowingly when asked about their worship. All of this made the cult worshipers consider themselves the in group, the wise people, and, religiously above everyone else. Any person not a member of the cult was considered ignorant, unsophisticated and not one with whom to be associated. Therefore, they said (literally), Be off to yourself, that is, Stay away from me, you do not know all the secret things I know and we just are not in the same class of people. Such arrogance by men who have rejected goodness and purity for wickedness and rottenness vexes Jehovah (The absolutely righteous One) like the smoke smoldering from a garbage heap in the nostrils of a man.
The Hebrew word shillametiy comes from the root shalam which primarily means complete, entire, finish, make good, repay, or requite. It is translated in verse six recompense. The Hebrew kheygam is from khooq which means lap, or bosom. Jehovah has written down in His heavenly books the bill of goods on these profane, blasphemous people and He is going to pay them back and dump the whole mess into their laps. Sin pays wages (Rom. 6:23). Jehovah has ordered His moral creation so that man and nature may receive in their own persons the due penalty for their error (Rom. 1:28). When men plow iniquity, they reap injustice; when they sow falsehood, they eat the fruit of lies (cf. Hos. 10:13). God is not mocked, what a man sows, that shall he reap (Gal. 6:7-10). Generations of men reap the fruit of lies because they follow willingly in the lies of their ancestors (cf. 2Ch. 33:9; 2Ki. 24:3; Jer. 15:4 for the classic illustration of this in Manasseh). The idolatry and blasphemy characterized by Isaiah here was practiced by the Hebrews from the days of Solomon (cf. Hos. 4:13; Isa. 57:7; Jer. 2:20; Jer. 3:6 ff; Jer. 17:2, etc.). Those who dance must pay the fiddler. Israel and Judah paid the consequences of their idolatrous indulgence with sword, pestilence and famine for centuries and centuries until they finally filled up the cup of their iniquity by rejecting Jehovahs Servant, the Messiah, and forfeited their birthright, lost their national identity and surrendered their only salvation.

Isa. 65:8-12 SEED REPLANTED: Out of the captivities Jehovah will refine a small remnant. When the husbandman of a vineyard gathers clusters of grapes he does not throw away a whole cluster if he sees some good grapes in it. So Jehovah saw in this rotten nation a few good people who would be a blessing to the world and form the messianic remnant. The Lord did not destroy the whole nation, (cf. Jer. 46:28). Many died of famine, pestilence and the sword during the Babylonian attacks (606, 597, 586 and 582). Many fled into the hills and caves of Palestine from the Babylonian attacks and died there of starvation. Jeremiah says there were approximately 4,600 Jews taken back to Babylon as captives. The number is 10,000 in 2Ki. 24:14 plus some additional ones later (2Ki. 25:8-17). A few of the very poor and physically infirm were left in Judea to farm the land. In addition, some whom the emperor of Babylon gave special favors, such as Jeremiah, and roving bands of deserting soldiers also remained (see comments Old Testament History, by Smith & Fields, College Press, pgs. 665676, and First and Second Kings, by James E. Smith, College Press, pgs. 733755). Altogether, about 15,000 were deported to Babylon from Judea. The Assyrian emperor, Sargon, noted on an inscription (discovered in 1842 by Botta) that he took 27,290 Jews captive from the northern ten tribes (Israel) when that nation fell in 722 B.C. About 42,000 people were taken captive between 722 B.C. and 582 B.C. (140 years). Some 50,000 returned at the release of the captives granted by the edict of Cyrus (536 B.C.). From the fall of the northern ten tribes (Israel) to the return to Palestine was 186 years. The Hebrew nation was begun at the exodus with approximately 2,500,000 people (see Old Testament History, Smith & Fields, College Press, pg. 155). After its purging through Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, it was begun again with 50,000. That is about a two-percent remnant!

With those statistics in mind, one is much more impressed with the promise of Jehovah to Isaiah concerning the holy seed (cf. Isa. 6:13). Jehovah is going to bring forth a seed out of Jacob (Isa. 65:9) and this seed shall be replanted in the land and it shall produce servants to inherit the spiritual blessings which shall come through the messianic kingdom. Isaiah has a goal in mind for the seed of Jacob beyond the physical return of the Jews to Judea because the seed is to consist not only of Jews but of Gentiles as well (Isa. 65:1)! Those who came to Jesus, the Messiah, inherited the rest God had promised His chosen (cf. Heb. 3:1 to Heb. 4:13). Those who came to Zion, the N.T. church, inherited Jehovahs mountain (cf. Heb. 12:22-29). Jehovah promised to multiply the seed to inherit the messianic promises (cf. 2Sa. 7:12-17; Isa. 44:3; Isa. 54:3; Isa. 59:21; Isa. 66:22; Jer. 33:19-22, etc.). And the seed was multiplied and did include the Gentiles (cf. Rom. 4:1-23; Rom. 8:12-17; Rom. 9:6-8; Gal. 3:16; Gal. 3:28-29).

The restful, prosperous pastoral scene is figurative of the spiritual rest and prosperity that will be inherited by the people of the Good Shepherd (cf. Eze. 34:1-31; Jer. 33:14-26; Hos. 3:5; Joe. 3:1-3; Amo. 9:11-15; Oba. 1:21; Mic. 5:2-4; Zep. 3:9-20; Zec. 12:1 to Zec. 14:21). Sharon s plain was well known for its fertility and Achor is probably the same as the Wadi Kelt which descends through a deep ravine from the Judean hills and runs between steep banks south of the modern Jericho to the Jordan river. In all the five places where it is mentioned it is described as the emek, the arable valley of Achor. Hosea pictures the comforting aspect of the terrible event for which the valley is famous (Achans execution, Jos. 7:24-26); it was a doorway of hope for chastened Israel (Hos. 2:15).

Gesenius identifies Fortune (Heb. gad) and Destiny (Heb. meniy) with Jupiter and Venus, the Greater and Lesser Good Fortunes of the astrologers. However, the ISBE (Vol. I, pg. 299) says, . . . it is more probable that they are the two beautiful starclusters that stand on the head and the shoulder of the Bull at the old commencement of the zodiac . . . the Hyades and Pleiades . . . Both groups were considered traditionally as composed of seven stars; and the two names . . . taken together give the meaning of the Fortunate Number, i.e., seven . . . The . . . spreading of the table and mingling the wine to Gad and Meniy at the beginning of the year to secure good fortune throughout its course, were therefore held about the time of the Passover, as if in parody, if indeed they were not a desecration of it; heathen rites added to one of the most solemn services of Jehovah.

Jehovah will save a seed through the process of refining and purifying (cf. Mal. 3:1-4), but as for those who make a mockery of His commandments and think they can blaspheme Him by adding heathen rites to their worship, He will arrange for their destiny to be the slaughter of war. There is a very obvious sarcasm in the use of the word meniy (destiny) in Isa. 65:12. The people worshiped and trusted in the god Destiny; Jehovah will show them who controls destiny! They will receive a destiny which they deserve, for when Jehovah called, they did not answer and when He commanded they did not (shama hear) obey. It is well to note here that God came to His people by words (a propositional revelation, not mystical and subjective) and those words were to be obeyed, not merely noticed or felt. It is also well to note that those to whom the revelation came had the freedom to choose and chose to disobey. The Hebrew syntax is interesting in the last phrase of Isa. 65:12; the construction (. . . that which I delighted not in, you chose) puts emphasis on that in which Jehovah delighted not! The Lord is justified in His rejection of these people for they have, in fact, rejected, mocked and deliberately chosen against Him.

QUIZ

1.

Who are those who found Jehovah having not sought Him?

2.

Who are the rebellious people being sought by Jehovah?

3.

Name the abominable practices of the rebellious people.

4.

Why did they consider themselves holier than others?

5.

How does God recompense them?

6.

What is the figure of the new wine in the cluster?

7.

Who were the seed brought forth?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

LXV.

(1) I am sought of them . . .Is this the answer to the previous prayer? Most commentators say Yes; but there is, at least, an apparent absence of continuous sequence. A more probable view is that it was written after an interval more or less considerable, and that the prophet utters what had been revealed to him as explaining why the plaintive appeal of Isa. 64:12 did not meet at once with the answer that might have been looked for.

A further question meets us, which has received different answers. Do the opening words speak, as St. Paul implies they do, of the calling of the Gentiles, contrasting their faith with the unbelief of Israel (Rom. 10:20)? Taking the text as it stands, the most natural interpretation (there being no reference afterwards to the Gentiles) seems to be that Jehovah speaks to the same people in Isa. 65:1-2, and that both alike speak of indifference and hardness. On this view the words may be translated, I was ready to answer those who did not enquire, was nigh at hand to be discovered by those who did not seek. . . . Such words were a true description of the state of Israel, as they have been of Christian Churches since, and are in close agreement with what follows. On this view St. Pauls free use of the LXX. rendering must be looked on as analogous to the like application of Hos. 1:10; Hos. 2:1, by him (Rom. 9:25-26) and by St. Peter (1Pe. 2:10), though in these instances it is beyond question that the words primarily referred to the Jews, and not to the Gentiles.

A nation that was not called by my name.Better, with the LXX., as in Isa. 43:22; Isa. 64:7, that has not called on my name. The meaning, on either rendering, is that Israel has sunk to the level of the heathen.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1, 2. Sought of them that asked not The first verse refers to the Gentiles; the second to the Jews. So St. Paul in Rom 10:20-21. The rendering of Delitzsch is: “I was discernible to those who did not inquire.” They had the ability to apprehend God from natural reason, and from pervasive influence of the ever-revealing Logos.

Found of them that sought me not “The grace of God, that bringeth salvation,” Which “hath appeared to all men,” (Tit 2:10,) was a gift to heathen consciences, and when Messianic light first dawned on the world very many heathen welcomed it. But the Jew, with light, promise, and entreaty, during all his history, was still wont to walk in his own light, and withhold himself from God. He was of a rebellious nature, as a whole, to the last.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

THE LAST CONTROVERSY WITH ISRAEL, Isa 63:7 to Isa 65:25.

Israel’s former Mercies and Sins.

There are various schemes of division of the matter now following. The one here adopted as best, is that of two well-defined sections, namely, The Last Controversy of Israel, with subdivisions as the topics vary, (Isa 63:7 to Isa 65:25,) and The Full Redemption of Zion, comprising chapter 66.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

God Reply Is That He Will Act Sovereignly To Call A People To Himself And Will Form A New Nation ( Isa 65:1 ).

Isa 65:1

“I am enquired of by those who did not ask for me,

I am found by those who sought me not,

I said, Behold me, behold me to a nation,

Which was not called by my name.”

This is Yahweh’s reply to the question as to whether He will save the undeserving. He will create a new nation. Those who had no intention of asking things of Him, or of seeking Him, will find Him and enquire of Him, because He, Yahweh, will cause it to be so. He will say, ‘Behold me, behold me’ to a nation which was ‘not called by His name’, that is a new nation which He will form but which up to this point has not borne His name. It will be composed of those who in the past were not seen as His or responsive to Him, and had not claimed membership of the covenant, but to Whom He will sovereignly say, ‘Look to Me’, and they will look.

So by His own powerful call He will bring to His feet some who have constantly had nothing to do with Him. This is probably to be seen as including some of those referred to in chapter 64. 5-8. The Potter will mould the clay (Isa 64:8). But it probably also has in mind the future call of the Gentiles. They too will come.

‘A nation’. This may possibly refer to a nation within the nation, a minority from whom He will form a new nation. But it is probably, in the light of His words, intended to include the fact that Gentiles also will come, for they especially were not called by His name. Thus He is declaring that hope has not gone because, although He must judge His people, He will form for Himself a new nation to replace the old, which will include all Whom He brings to Himself, a nation composed of the least expected. He will produce an Israel which is truly of God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Isa 65:1-16 The Judgment of Israel and the Acceptance of the Gentiles Isa 65:1-16 tells us of how God will one day graft in the Gentiles into the vine and cut wickedness off the seed of Israel so that only a remnant will remain. Paul explains this event in Romans 9-11.

Isa 65:1 I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.

Isa 65:1 Comments – Isa 65:1 is a prophecy of God grafting in the Gentiles into the vine of the people of Israel. Paul calls it the mystery hidden from the ages. This verse is quoted in Rom 10:20.

Rom 10:20, “But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.”

Isa 65:2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;

Isa 65:2 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Isa 65:2 is quoted in Rom 10:21.

Rom 10:21, “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

Isa 65:20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.

Isa 65:20 Comments – We find a similar description in The Book of Jubilees of people living a long life. It appears that during the Millennial Reign of Christ on earth that people will return to righteousness and will be able to extend their life to a thousand years as it was in the beginning.

“And in those days the children shall begin to study the laws, and to seek the commandments, and to return to the path of righteousness. And the days shall begin to grow many and increase amongst those children of men till their days draw nigh to one thousand years. And to a greater number of years than (before) was the number of the days. And there shall be no old man nor one who is satisfied with his days, for all shall be (as) children and youths. And all their days they shall complete and live in peace and in joy, and there shall be no Satan nor any evil destroyer; For all their days shall be days of blessing and healing.” ( The Book of Jubilees 23.26-29) [91]

[91] The Book of Jubilees, trans. R. H. Charles, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English With Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes to the Several Books, vol 2, ed. R. H. Charles, 1-82 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 49.

Isa 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

Isa 65:25 Comments – We find a beautiful description in Isa 65:25 and a similar one in Isa 11:6-9 of God’s creatures living in harmony.

Isa 11:6-9, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

The original order of the animal kingdom was for them to eat plants. It was not God’s plan for animals to be carnivorous. Rather, in the Story of Creation God gave the green herbs for meat to all the beasts of the field.

Gen 1:30, “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.”

We see in the book of Isaiah how the lion will one day in the new heavens and new earth return to this order and eat straw like the ox.

Today, scientists tell us of the “food chain” in nature where small animals are eaten by larger animals. In the land of Palestine, it was probably the wolf, the lion and the leopard mentioned in these two verses that were at the top of this food chain. We find a comment on the original harmony of God’s creation in one of the inter-biblical writings of the Jews called The Book of Jubilees. It tells us how the order of animals was originally not to devour one another, but to live together peacefully. It says that this corruption of order in nature took place in Genesis 6 when men became so corrupt that God had to destroy the earth with the flood.

“And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth – all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other , and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men (was) thus evil continually. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its orders , and all that were upon the earth had wrought all manner of evil before His eyes. And He said that He would destroy man and all flesh upon the face of the earth which He had created. But Noah found grace before the eyes of the Lord. And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) separate.” ( The Book of Jubilees 5.1-7) [92]

[92] The Book of Jubilees, trans. R. H. Charles, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English With Introductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes to the Several Books, vol 2, ed. R. H. Charles, 1-82 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 20.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Israel’s Redemption – The chapters that follow the prophecy of Christ’s sufferings in Isa 53:1-12 tell the children of God to rejoice; for Christ has given them the victory over sin, death and the grave. However, these chapters speak of Christ’s redemption from the perspective of the nation of Israel rather than from the perspective of the Gentiles; for the book of Isaiah contains prophecies of the future destiny of Israel. Later in redemptive history, the Church will be grafted into these prophecies as members of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Lord’s Refusal

v. 1. I am sought of them that asked not for Me, the Gentiles being represented as having access to the Lord and His mercy, although they were not members of God’s covenant people; I am found of them that sought Me not, His free grace and mercy being revealed to all men without any merit or worthiness on their part. I said, Behold Me, behold Me! unto a nation that was not called by My name, that did not belong to Israel according to the flesh. The universality of the Gospel-message is here set forth in unmistakable terms. By way of contrast the Lord now describes the behavior of Israel.

v. 2. I have spread out My hands all the day, during the entire period when His covenant relation with Israel was in force, unto a rebellious people, stiff-necked and stubborn in all its actions, which walketh in a way that was not good, utterly at variance with God’s holy will, after their own thoughts, which were always evil and therefore led to destruction; Cf Rom 11:7;

v. 3. a people that provoketh Me to anger continually to My face, with a bold impertinence that challenged the wrath of the Lord; that sacrificeth in gardens, in groves, after the manner of the heathen, and burneth incense upon altars of brick, like the idol-worshipers of Babylonia;

v. 4. which remain among the graves and lodge in the monuments, passing the night in hidden recesses, for the purposes of necromancy and Spiritism, which eat swine’s flesh, a custom which was expressly forbidden in the Ceremonial Law, Lev 11:7, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels, Cf Lev 7:18; Lev 19:7;

v. 5. which say, Stand by thyself, thus declaring their rejection of Jehovah, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. Thus the idolaters give voice to the thoughts of their hearts, with whom they no longer desire to be identified, since they consider themselves members of a better religious class than His worshipers represent. These are a smoke in My nose, most disagreeable to Him, a fire that burneth all the day, causing consuming wrath to be kindled in Him.

v. 6. Behold, it is written before Me, so that He has it before His eyes all the time. I will not keep silence, this being God’s answer upon their final appeal, Isa 64:12, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, with a thoroughness which they would not be apt to forget,

v. 7. your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord, so that the guilt of both would be laid upon them, Exo 20:5, which have burned incense upon the mountains, in an excess of idolatry which had so often been rebuked by the Lord, and blasphemed Me upon the hills, where the worship of Baal, Ashtaroth, and other heathen idols was carried on. Therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom, letting them bear the full burden of their transgressions. As it was true then, so it is true today: “God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ” Gal 6:7.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

SECTION XI.GOD‘S ANSWER TO THE EXILES‘ PRAYER (Isa 65:1-25.)

EXPOSITION

Isa 65:1-7

ISRAEL‘S SUFFERINGS THE JUST MEED OF THEIR SINS. God’s mercy is such that it even overflows upon those who are outside the covenant (Isa 65:1). It has been offered to Israel, but Israel has rejected it. Their rebellion, their idolatries, and their pride have caused, and must continue to cause, their punishment (Isa 65:2-7).

Isa 65:1

I am sought; rather, inquired of, or consulted (comp. Eze 14:3; Eze 20:3, Eze 20:31). The application of the text by St. Paul (Rom 10:20) to the calling of the Gentiles will be felt by all believers in inspiration to preclude the interpretation which supposes Israel to be the subject of Isa 65:1 no less than of Isa 65:2-7. I said, Behold me. This was the first step in the conversion of the Gentiles. God called them by his messengers, the apostles and evangelists. A nation that was not called by thy Name (so Gesenius, Delitzsch, Kay, and others). Bishop Lowth, Ewald, Diestel, and Mr. Cheyne, following the Septuagint and other ancient versions, render, “a nation that has not called upon thy Name.” But this requires an alteration of the vowel-points, which seems unnecessary.

Isa 65:2

I have spread out my hands. Not exactly in prayer, but in expostulation (comp. Pro 1:24, “I have stretched out my hand,” where the verb in the Hebrew is the same). All the day; or, all day long, as in Rom 10:21; i.e. continually, day after day, for yearsnay, for centuries. A rebellions people (comp. Isa 30:1; and see also Isa 1:4, Isa 1:23; Hos 4:16; Jer 5:23; Jer 6:28). The “rebellions people” (‘am sorer) is undoubtedly Israel. In a way that was not good; rather, in the way that is not good; i.e. the “way of sinners” (Psa 1:1)the “way that leadeth to destruction” (Mat 7:13).

Isa 65:3

That sacrificeth in gardens (comp. Isa 1:29; Isa 57:5; Isa 66:17). The groves and “gardens” of Daphne, near Antioch. became famous in later times as the scene of idolatrous practices intimately bound up with the grossest and most shameless sensualism. We have few details of the ancient Syrian rites; but there is reason to believe that, wherever Astarte, the Dea Syra, was worshipped, whether at Daphne, or at Hierapolis, or at Balbek, or at Aphek, or at Damascus, or in Palestine, one and the same character of cult prevailed. The nature-goddess was viewed as best worshipped by rites into which sensualism entered as an essential element. Profligacy that cannot be described polluted the consecrated precincts, which were rendered attractive by all that was beautiful and delightful, whether in art or nature-by groves, gardens, statues, fountains, shrines, temples, music, processions, showsand which were in consequence frequented both day and night by a multitude of votaries. And burneth incense upon altars of brick; literally, upon the bricks. It is not clear that “altars” are intended. More probably the incense was burnt upon the tiled or bricked roofs of houses, where the Jews of Jeremiah’s time “burned incense unto all the host of heaven” (Jer 19:13; Jer 32:29; Zep 1:5). Brick altars are nowhere mentioned. The Assyrians and Babylonians made their altars of either stone or metal. The Hebrews in early times had altars of earth (Exo 20:24). The “altar of incense” in the tabernacle (Exo 30:1-3) was of wood plated with gold; that of burnt offering, of wood plated with bronze (Exo 27:1, Exo 27:2). Solomon’s altars were similar. Elijah on one occasion made an altar of twelve rough stones (1Ki 18:31). The Assyrians used polished stone, as did the Greeks and Romans.

Isa 65:4

Which remain among the graves. The rock tombs of Palestine seem to be meant. Persons “remained among” these, in spite of the ceremonial defilement thereby incurred, either with the object of raising the dead, and obtaining prophecies from them, or of getting prophetic intimations made to them in dreams (see Jerome’s ‘Comment.,’ ad loc.). And lodge in the monuments; or, in the crypts. “N’tsurim may refer to the mysteries celebrated in natural caves and artificial crypts” (Delitzsch). An account of such mysteries is given by Chwolsohn in his’ Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus,’ vol. it. pp. 332, et seq. Which eat swine’s flesh. Not in mere defiance of the Law, but in sacrificial meals (Isa 66:17) of which swine’s flesh formed a part. Swine were sacrificial animals in Egypt (Herod; 2.47, 48), in Phoenicia (Lucian, ‘De Dea Syra,’ 54), and with the Greeks and Romans. They do not appear to have been employed for the purpose either by the Assyrians or the Babylonians. It was probably in Palestine that the Jews had eaten “swine’s flesh,” at sacrifices to Baal or Astarte (Ashtoreth). In later times to do so was regarded as one of the worst abominations (1 Macc. 1:41-64; 2 Macc, 6; 7.). Broth of abominable things. Either broth made from swine’s flesh, or from the flesh of other unclean animals, as the hare and rabbit (Le Rom 11:5, Rom 11:6), or perhaps simply broth made from the flesh of any animals that had been offered to idols (Act 15:29).

Isa 65:5

Stand by thyself; i.e. “keep aloofcome not into contact with me; for mine is a higher holiness than thine, and I should be polluted by thy near approach.” Initiation into heathen mysteries was thought to confer on the initiated a holiness unattainable otherwise. Thus the heathenized Jew claimed to be holier than the true servants of Jehovah. These are a smoke a fire (comp. Psa 18:8, “There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it”). The heathenized Jews are fuel for the wrath of God, which kindles a fire wherein they burn continually (comp. Isa 66:24).

Isa 65:6

It is written before me. The misconduct of his people is “written” in God’s book, which lies open “before him,” so that their sin is ever in his sight (comp. Psa 56:8; Mal 3:16; Rev 20:12). I will not keep silence (comp. Psa 1:3). “Keeping silence” is a metaphor for complete inaction. But will recompense, etc.; rather, until I have recompensed, yea, recompensed [them] into their bosoms (comp. Luk 6:38). Gifts were given and received into the fold of the beged, or cloak, which depended in front of the bosom.

Isa 65:7

Your iniquities. This is a new sentence, not a continuation of Isa 65:6, which should be closed by a full stop. It is an incomplete sentence, needing for its completion the repetition of the verb shillamti, “I will recompense.” Which have burned incense upon the mountains (see 2Ki 17:11; Hos 4:13; Eze 6:13; and comp. Isa 57:7). And blasphemed me; rather, reproached me (see Isa 37:4, Isa 37:17, Isa 37:23, Isa 37:24). Therefore will I measure their former work; rather, therefore will I, first of all, measure their work into their bosom. The expression, “first of all,” prepares the way for the encouraging promises of Isa 65:8-10.

Isa 65:8-10

SALVATION PROMISED TO A REMNANT. In Isaiah, and especially in the “Book of Consolation” (Isaiah 40-66.), promises are almost always intermingled with threatenings. The threats extend to the bulk of the nation; the promises are limited to “a remnant,” since a remnant only could be brought to “seek” and serve God (verse 10). Here the announcement that a remnant would be spared is introduced by a simile from men’s treatment of their own vineyards (verse 8).

Isa 65:8

As the new wine is found in the cluster; rather, as when new wine is found in a grape-bunch; i.e. as when even a single cluster of grapes is spied on a vine-stem, the vine-pruners say one to another, “Destroy not that stem, but spare it,” so will God refrain from destroying those stocks in his vineyard, which give even a small promise of bearing good fruit. Destroy it not. The words are thought to be those of a well-known vintage-song, which is perhaps alluded to in the heading (Altaschith) prefixed to Psa 57:1-11; Psa 58:1-11; Psa 59:1-17. “Each of these psalms was probably sung to the air of this favourite song” (Cheyne). A blessing is in it; i.e. “a boon from God” (comp. Isa 36:16; 2Ki 5:15).

Isa 65:9

A seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah. Scarcely, “the people of the two captivities” (Delitzsch), though no doubt many Israelites of the ten tribes did return with Zerubbabel (1Ch 9:3; Ezr 2:2, Ezr 2:70; Ezr 3:1; Ezr 6:17; Ezr 8:35, etc.). Rather, a mere pleonasm, as in Isa 9:8; Isa 10:21, Isa 10:22; Isa 27:6; Isa 29:23; Isa 40:27; Isa 41:8, etc. (see the comment on Isa 40:27). An inheritor of my mountains. The whole of Palestine is little more than a cluster of mountains. The cluster may be divided into three groups:

(1) The mountains of Galilee, extending from Hermon to Tabor, separated from the next group by the plain of Esdraelon;

(2) the mountains of Samaria and Judaea, extending from Carmel and Gilbea to the plateau of Mature above Hebron, which is 3600 feet above the sea;

(3) the mountains of the trans-Jordanic region, including those of Bashan, Gilead, Moab, and Edom, separated from the two other groups by the Jordan valley. The highest elevation attained is that of Hermon; other minor heights are Jebel Jurmuk, in Galilee, 4000 feet; Safed, also in Galilee, 2775 feet; Ebal and Gerizim, in Samaria, 2700 feet; Sinjil, 2685; Neby Samwill, 2650; and the Mount of Olives, 2724 feet. The plateau of Mature reaches a height of 3600 feet. The only Palestinian plains are those of Esdraelon, Sharon, and the Ghor, or Jordan valley. Thus the land may well be spoken of as “my mountains.” Mine elect (comp. Isa 43:20; Isa 45:4). The same expression is used of Israel in 1Ch 16:13; Psa 89:3; Psa 105:6, Psa 105:43; Psa 106:5. God “chose” Israel out of all the nations of the earth to be his “peculiar people.”

Isa 65:10

Sharon shall be a fold of flocks. “Sharon,” instead of being “like a wilderness” (Isa 33:9), shall once more be “a place for flocks “a rich pasture for the flocks and herds of the returned exiles. (On the position and fertility of Sharon, see the comment upon Isa 33:9.) The valley of Achor (see Jos 7:24-26). The ‘Emeq ‘Akor was near Jericho. The two places seem to be selected on account of their position, one on the eastern, the other on the western border. My people that have sought me; or, inquired of methe same verb as that used at the beginning of the chapter.

Isa 65:11-16

A MIXTURE OF THREATS WITH PROMISES. The prophet returns, in the main, to his former attitude, and resumes his denunciations (Isa 65:11, Isa 65:12); but, with Isa 65:13, he begins to intermingle promises of favour to God’s servants with threats against the rebellious, and finally (in Isa 65:16) turns wholly towards the side of grace and favour, announcing the coming of a time when “the former troubles” will be altogether “forgotten,” and the kingdom of truth and right will be established.

Isa 65:11

But ye are they that forsake the Lord; rather, but as for you who forsake the Lord. And forget my holy mountain; i.e. either, literally, forget Zion. being absent from it so long (Psa 137:5), or, possibly, neglect Zion, though you might worship there if you pleased. That prepare a table for that troop; rather, that prepare a table for Gad. There is ground for believing that “Gad” was a Phoenician deity, perhaps “the god of good fortune” (Cheyne), though this is not clearly ascertained; sometimes worshipped as an aspect of Baal, whence the name, Baal-Gad (Jos 11:17; Jos 12:7); sometimes connected with other deities, as Moloch and Ashtoreth. The practice of “preparing tables” for the heathen gods was a common one, and appears in Herod; 1.181; in Baruch 6:30; in Bel and the Dragon, verse 11; and in the Roman lectisternia. The tables prepared for the dead in Egyptian tombs were not very different, and implied a qualified worship of ancestors. And that furnish the drink offering unto that number; rather, and that fill up mixed drink for M‘ni. M’ni appears, like Gad, to have been a Syrian deity, the name Ebed-M’ni, “servant of M’ni,” occurring on Aramaeo-Persian coins of the Achaemenian period. The word may be suspected to be cognate to the Arabic “Manat,” a god recognized in the Koran as a mediator with Allah; but can scarcely have any connection with the Aryan names for the moon deity, , Mena, and the like. Its root is probably the Semitic manah, “to number” or” apportion,” the word designating a deity who” apportions” men’s fortunes to them (, LXX.).

Isa 65:12

Therefore will I number you; or, apportion you (maaithi)a play upon the name of M’ni. The sword slaughter. Not, perhaps, intended literally. Wicked men are God’s sword (Psa 17:13), and deliverance into their hand would be deliverance to the sword and slaughter. The exiles suffered grievously at the hands of their Babylonian masters (Isa 47:6; Isa 49:17, etc.). The character of their sufferings is given in the ensuing verses (Isa 65:13, Isa 65:14). When I called, ye did not answer (see 2Ch 36:15, 2Ch 36:16; Pro 1:20-25; Isa 66:4).

Isa 65:13

Therefore thus saith the Lord God; rather, thus saith the Lord Jehovah (comp. Isa 7:7; Isa 25:8; Isa 28:16; Isa 30:15; Isa 40:10; Isa 48:16; Isa 49:22; I. 4, 5, 7, 9; Isa 52:4; Isa 56:8; Isa 61:1, etc.). My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry, etc. This entire series of contrasts may be understood in two ways; literally, of the two classes of exiles, the religious and the irreligious; metaphorically, of God’s servants and his adversaries at all times and in all places. The religious exiles would return to the land of promise as soon as permitted, and would there prosper in a worldly sensehave abundance to eat and drink, rejoice, and sing for joy (Ezr 3:11-13). The irreligious, remaining in Babylonia, would suffer hunger and thirst, endure shame, cry and howl for sorrow and vexation of spirit. This would be one fulfilment of the prophecy; but there would also be another. God’s servants at all times and in all places would be sustained with spiritual food, and “rejoice and sing for joy of heart.” His adversaries would everywhere feel a craving for the “meat” and “drink,” which alone satisfy the soul, and would be oppressed with care, and with a sense of shame, and suffer anguish of spirit.

Isa 65:15

Ye shall leave your name for a curse (comp. Jer 29:22). In their formulas of imprecation the Jews were in the habit of saying, “The Lord make thee like” this or that person, or this or that class of persons. The name of the exiles should be used in this manner. Unto my chosen (see the comment on Isa 65:9). The Lord God shall slay thee (see the comment on Isa 65:12). Some, however, take the words as part of the formula of imprecation. And call his servants by another name (compare what is said of “new name” in Isa 62:2).

Isa 65:16

That he who blesseth himself; rather, so that he who blesses himself. The sequence of the argument is not altogether clear. Perhaps it is recant that God will call them by his own Name (Amo 9:12)”the people of God” (Heb 4:9); and thence it will become natural for them to use no other name, either when they call for a blessing on themselves, or have to confirm a covenant with others. In the God of truth; literally, in the God of the Amen; i.e. the God who keeps covenant and promise, to which the strongest formula of consent was the word “Amen” (see Num 5:22; Deu 27:15-26; 1Ki 1:36, etc.). Similarly, St. John calls our Lord “the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness” (Rev 3:14). Because the former troubles are forgotten. When the blessed time has come wherein men call themselves by the Name of the Lord, and know of only one God as the Source of blessing and the confirmation of an oath, then the former state of human affairs, with all its “troubles,” will have passed away, and the new era will be inaugurated, which the prophet proceeds to describe at length (verses 17-25).

Isa 65:17-25

A PROMISE OF NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH. The final answer of God to the complaint and prayer of his people (Isa 64:1-12.) is now given. The entire existing state of things is to pass away. God will create a new heaven and a new earth, and place his people therein; and the old conditions will be all changed, and the old grounds of complaint disappear. In the “new Jerusalem” there will be no sorrow, neither “weeping” nor “crying” (Isa 65:19); life will be greatly prolonged (Isa 65:20); men will always enjoy the fruit of their labours (Isa 65:21, Isa 65:22), and see their children grow up (Isa 65:23). Prayer will be answered almost before it is uttered (Isa 65:24). Finally, there will be peace in the animal world, and between the animal world and man. No living thing will kill or hurt another in all God’s “holy mountain” (Isa 65:25).

Isa 65:17

I create. The same verb is used as in Gen 1:1; and the prophet’s idea seems to be that the existing heaven and earth are to be entirely destroyed (see Isa 24:19, Isa 24:20, and the comment ad loc.), and a fresh heaven and earth created in their place out of nothing. The “new Jerusalem” is not the old Jerusalem renovated, but is a veritable “new Jerusalem,” “created a rejoicing” (Gen 1:18; scrap. Rev 21:2). The germ of the teaching will be found in Isa 51:16. The former shall not be remembered. Some suppose “the former troubles” (see Isa 51:16) to be meant; but it is best (with Delitzsch) to understand “the former heavens and earth.” The glory of the new heavens and earth would be such that the former ones would not only not be regretted, but would not even be had in remembrance. No one would so much as think of them.

Isa 65:18

I create Jerusalem (comp. Rev 21:2, “I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”). The description which follows in Isa 65:11, Isa 65:12 is quite unlike that of the old Jerusalem. A rejoicing. The “new Jerusalem” was to be from the first all joy and rejoicinga scene of perpetual gladness. Her people also was to be “a joy” or “a delight,” since God would delight in them (Isa 65:19).

Isa 65:19

The voice of weeping shall be no more heard (comp. Rev 21:4). The reasons there given are satisfactory: “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow neither shall there be any more pain.” But these reasons scarcely apply here. For Isaiah’s “new Jerusalem” is not without death (verse 20), nor without sorrow, since it is not without sin (verse 20), nor, as there is death there, is it without pain. Isaiah’s picture, according to Delitzsch, represents the millennial state, not the final condition of the redeemed; but this traitthe absence of all weepingcan only be literally true of the final state.

Isa 65:20

There shall be no more thence an infant of days; i.e. there shall not go from the new Jerusalem into the unseen world any infant of a few days old. On the contrary, even “the youth” shall reach a hundred; i.e. one who dies when he is a hundred shall be regarded as cut off in his youth. The general rule shall be, that old men shall “fill their days,” or attain to patriarchal longevity. Even the sinner, who is under the curse of God, shall not be cut off till he is a hundred. What is most remarkable in the description is that death and sin are represented as still continuing. Death was spoken of as “swallowed up in victory” in one of the earlier descriptions of Messiah’s kingdom (Isa 25:8).

Isa 65:21

They shall build houses, and inhabit them. The curse pronounced on apostasy in Deu 28:30 shall no more rest on God’s people. They shall have the fruition of their labours. No enemy shall be able to deprive them of their crops and houses.

Isa 65:22

As the days of a tree are the days of my people. Trees endure for many hundreds, perhaps for thousands of years. The cedars of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, were known to have an antiquity of centuries. Isaiah may have had a knowledge of other trees to which attached the tradition of a yet longer existence. In our own day Brazil and California have furnished proofs of vegetable growths exceeding a millennium. Mine elect shall long enjoy; literally, shall wear out; i.e. have the full use and enjoyment of the work of their hands.

Isa 65:23

They shall not bring forth for trouble. Their women shall not bear children to see them carried off after a few days, or months, or years, by disease, or accident, or famine, or the sword of the invader. There shall be an end of such “troubles,” and, God’s blessing resting upon those who are his children, their children shall, as a general rule, “be with them;” i.e. remain to them during their lifetime, and not be lost to them by a premature decease.

Isa 65:24

Before they call, I will answer. God is always “more ready to hear than we to pray.” In the “new Jerusalem” he will be prompt to answer his people’s prayers almost before they are uttered. It is involved in this, as Delitzsch notes, that the will of the people shall be in harmony with the will of Jehovah, and that their prayers will therefore be acceptable prayers.

Isa 65:25

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together (comp. Isa 11:6-8; Hos 2:18). The portraiture here is far less elaborate than in the earlier chapter, to which the present passage may be regarded as a refer-once. (For the sense in which the entire picture is to be understood, see the comment upon Isa 11:6-9). Dust shall be the serpent’s meat. Here we have a new feature, not contained in the earlier description. Serpents shall become harmless, anal instead of preying upon beasts, or birds, or reptiles, shall be content with the food assigned them in the primeval decree, “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen 3:14). Mr. Cheyne appositely notes that “much dust is the food of the shades in the Assyrio-Babylonian Hades”. They shall not hurt nor destroy. Repeated from Isa 11:9, word for word. In neither case should we regard the subject of the sentence as limited to the animals only. The meaning is that there shall be no violence of any kind, done either by man or beast, in the happy period described.

HOMILETICS

Isa 65:6

Men’s sins recorded in God’s book.

As far back as the time of Moses, God announced through him that men’s sins were “laid up in store with him, and sealed up among his treasures” (Deu 32:34). The later prophets (Mal 3:16), with the Psalms (Psa 56:8), and the Revelation of St. John (Joh 20:12-15), speak of “a book,” or “books, of remembrance,” which contain the record of human frailty. Jeremiah says, “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond” (Jer 17:1); and Daniel, like St. John, tells of a time when the judgment will be set, and “the books opened” (Joh 7:10). The heavenly registers record the acts of men, both good and bad; and in one register seem to be written the names of those whom God regards as “living ones” (Isa 4:3). This register is called “the book of life” (Rev 3:5; Rev 13:8; Rev 17:8; Rev 20:12, Rev 20:15). Such are the biblical statements on the subject. The expressions used are doubtless accommodations to human modes of thought, and are not to be taken literally. The great truth, however, which they convey is to be understood in the most absolute literalness. Men’s sins will not be forgotten, even when they are forgiven. They are all registered in God’s memory; and perhaps it may be found that each man’s sins are also registered in some secret place of his own memory, though at present he is unable to recall the greater part of them. All will be taken into consideration at the time of judgment, and all will be set forth in the sight of men and angels. There is nothing “secret” which shall not then be “revealed,” or “hid” which shall not be “known.” Men will be judged and sentenced “according to their works” (Rev 20:13)”according to that they have done, whether it be good or evil” (2Co 5:10).

Isa 65:8-10

Where sin abounds, grace yet more abounds.

The portrait of Israel in Isa 65:2-7 is painted in such dark colours as to suggest that it must almost necessarily be followed by the absolute renunciation of the whole nation. A people “rebellious,” “walking in the way that is not good,” “provoking God to anger continually,” given over to a sensualistic idolatry, and yet proud, piquing itself upon its elevated religious position as a participant in certain heathen mysteries (Isa 65:5),what can be done with such a nation of backsliders? Must not God sweep it from the earth? Certainly, if it were not for God’s abounding mercy; if the sight of a people given up to sin did not raise in him as much pity as indignation, as much compassion as resentment. After all, they are his children; they are his people; they are “all the work of his hands” (Isa 64:8). God, in his compassion, pours out his grace freely under such circumstances. He seeks among the lost, if so be that any among them may be saved. He offers his grace to them all, presses it upon them, “spreads out his hands all the day” to the rebels, entreating them to return and submit themselves, and be saved. What mercy does he show to Nineveh! Because it is “a bloody city all full of lies and robbery” (Nah 3:1), because “their wickedness is come up before him” (Jon 1:2), therefore he goes out of his way to send his prophet to preach repentance to them. He forces his prophet to go to them; he puts his word into his prophet’s mouth, and makes that word, for the moment at any rate, effectual. Nineveh “repents at the preaching of Jonah,” and, on its repentance, is “spared” for above two centuries. Israel now is spared, invited to return to Judaea, bidden to “dwell there” and “inherit it.” And “a remnant” hearkens, and returns, and repents, and “does the first works” (Rev 2:5), and becomes a great and flourishing and religious people.

Isa 65:13-15

The contrasts of the religious with the irreligious life.

The prophet notices three main contrasts.

I. GOD‘S SERVANTS ARE FED WITH A FOOD THAT SATISFIES; HIS ADVERSARIES ARE TORMENTED BY A CEASELESS CRAVING. Man is so constituted that nothing short of his highest good contents him. Earthly blessings, health, wealth, success, fame, power, glory, leave a void in the heart which nothing earthly can fill up. The worldling is always dissatisfied, always desires more than he has, craves some fresh excitement, desires some “new pleasure.” “Hungry and thirsty, their souls faint in them” (Psa 107:5). With God’s servants the case is different. A Divine contentedness fills their hearts. They have been given to drink of a water of which “whosoever drinketh shall never thirst,” but it “shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Joh 4:14). They have God for their Saviour; they are at one with him; and in this communion they rest satisfied; they neither hunger nor thirst.

II. GOD‘S SERVANTS SING FOR JOY OF HEART; HIS ADVERSARIES HOWL FOR VEXATION OF SPIRIT. “The voice of joy and thanksgiving is in the dwellings of the righteous” (Psa 118:15). The love of God, which “casts out fear” (1Jn 4:18), reigns in their hearts, and elevates them above the troubles and anxieties of ordinary human life. They “know whom they have believed;” they know in whom they trust. All their care they have cast upon God; and hence they are without care; their souls are full of an ineffable joy and satisfaction; they want nothing, unless it be to have their communion with God complete (Rom 8:23; 2Co 5:2, 2Co 5:4; Php 1:23, etc.). But the adversaries of God are always vexed in spirit. Worldly cares trouble them; worldly disappointments annoy them; doubts and misgivings with respect to the future weigh on them; an awful fear lest they have entirely mistaken the true end and aim of life broods over them. In the expressive language of Scripture, they “howl” through anguish of heartcomplain, murmur, proclaim themselves pessimists. The world, to their thinking, is the worst of conceivable worlds; the scheme of the universe, if there be any such scheme, a gigantic fraud and mistake.

III. GOD‘S SERVANTS BRING A BLESSING UPON THE EARTH; HIS ADVERSARIES LEAVE THEIR NAME AS A CURSE TO IT. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”: (1Co 5:6). God would have spared Sodom if it had contained “ten righteous” (Gen 18:32). It is the existence of his servants upon the earth that especially commends the earth to his care, and causes him to watch over it, to sustain it, and to bless the increase of it. Moreover, the servants of God are a blessing to mankind at large,

(1) as an example to them;

(2) as a real help to them if they desire to amend their ways;

(3) as in many respects ameliorating and elevating their condition.

God’s adversaries, on the contrary, are in every respect a curse to the earth. They debase its moral tone; they stir up strife in it; they are the authors of war, bloodshed, enmities, calumnies, uncleanness, variance, sedition, heresy, blasphemy, and the like; they caused God once to “repent that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6), and they cause him continually to look upon the earth with more or less of disfavour. Their presence pollutes the earth, and makes it necessary that “the first heaven and the first earth” shall “pass away” (Rev 21:1), and he superseded by “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness“ (2Pe 3:13).

Isa 65:17-25

The new creation.

It is difficult to harmonize the various passages of Scripture which touch on “the new creation.” In one place (Act 3:21) it is called an , in another (Mat 19:23) a . Sometimes its scene appears to be the present world purified (Isa 2:2-4); sometimes an entirely new world created for the habitation of God’s people (Isa 65:17, Isa 65:18). Perhaps the best explanation is that of Delitzsch, that there are to be altogether three worlds, or three ages.

1. The first age, or ordinary human life, as we have hitherto known ita checkered scene of sin and holiness, of happiness and misery, of sorrow and rejoicing.

2. The second age, or the period of the millennium, in which “the patriarchal measure of human life will return, in which death will no more break off the life that is just beginning to bloom, and in which the war of man with the animal world will be exchanged for peace without danger.”

3. And the third age, or a final state of happiness in heaven; or the heavenly Jerusalem, when death will be destroyed, and sin will be no more, and tears will be wiped from all eyes, and the former things will be passed away altogether (Rev 21:4). The three ages are distinctly marked only in the apocalyptic vision of St. John the divine (Joh 20:1-31; Joh 21:1-25.). Isaiah and the other Old Testament prophets have an indistinct view, in which the second age and the third age are confused together, the characteristics being chiefly those of Age II; but some of the characteristics of Age III. being intermingled. Age I. and Age III. are common to all the redeemed. Age II. will belong only to a select few”the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands,” who will “live and reign with Christ a thousand years” (Rev 20:4).

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Isa 65:1-10

Threatenings and promises.

Both, as it would appear, addressed to the chosen people, though many, including St. Paul, apply the earlier part of the passage to the conversion of the Gentiles. There is a polytheistic party, and a party of true believers in the nation.

I. GOD BEFOREHAND WITH MEN. He “allows himself to be consulted;” he “offers answers,” or “is heard” by those who came not to consult him. He was “at hand to those who did not seek him.” To a nation that did not call on him he cried, “Here I am!” (Isa 64:7; Isa 43:22). It is actually he who “spreads out his hands”“in the gesture of prayer; what a condescension!” (cf. Pro 1:24). And this “all the day,” or continuously”as if God did beseech you.” It is a thought full of deep pathos and Divine beauty, that God no less seeks men than they seek him. He in a sense prays them to be reconciled to him. While, therefore, prayer is in one aspect the going forth of active desires after God, on the other hand it is the response to his action upon us. Not a day passes but the gentle mercy and love expressed in his providence offers its silent plea to heart and conscience: “Child of man! I love thee; come to me, and be at peace.”

II. THE STUBBORNNESS OF MAN. The people are described as “unruly,” and as “walking in a way which is not good, after their own thoughts.” In the will and its licence, falsely called liberty, lies the mischief. The carnal mind is not “subject to God, neither indeed can be.” In “will-worship“ the indulgence of the senses and the caprices of the fancy, lies the source of idolatry. And thus they irritate Jehovah to his face continually. They sacrifice in the gardens and on the bricks, i.e. the tiles of the houses (2Ki 23:12; Zep 1:5; Jer 19:13), or on altars of materials forbidden by the Law (Exo 20:24, Exo 20:25). They appear to be guilty of necromancy, of the consultation of dreams or citation of the departed. They incur ceremonial pollution by eating of swine’s flesh and other animals. And, initiated into some heathen rites, they had actually assumed a superior holiness to that of the people of God, thus caricaturing the true religion.

III. THE WRATH AND VENGEANCE OF JEHOVAH. Here, again, the strongest figures arc employed. These abominations are “a smoke in his nose, a fire burning all the day long.” Nothing can more strongly express what is offensive and irritating. So in Deu 32:22, “A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell” (cf. Psa 18:5; Eze 38:18). And with equal force the certainty of Divine vengeance is described. Either the sin of the Jews, or the Divine decree for its punishment, is written before Jehovah. The allusion is to the custom of kings of recording decrees in a volume or on a tablet, and kept in their presence, so that they might not be forgotten. Moreover, “the fortunes of men, past, present, and future, are all noted in the heavenly registers” (Deu 4:3; Psa 66:8; Dan 7:10). A book of remembrance was written before Jehovah (Mal 3:16). From this follows the justice of Divine punishment. He will not keep silence; nothing shall suppress his just edict or sentence. He will certainly recompense, and in full measure; the large and loose besom of the Oriental garment being, by a figure, viewed as the receptacle of those Divine penalties (Psa 79:12; Jer 32:18; Luk 6:38; Exo 4:6, Exo 4:7; Pro 6:27). The firm scriptural doctrine that the consequences of ancestral sin pass over to posterity here appears (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:7; Job 21:19; Num 14:18; Luk 11:50, Luk 11:51). There seems to have been a founding and an accumulation of crime which now threatens to sweep down every barrier before it.

IV. THE BEAM OF HOPE. In this extreme of denunciation and despair a transition, as ever, occurs. His mercy is not “clean gone for ever.” The majority of Israel may be evil, for all that there is ever a “remnant” according to the election of grace. The vintagers, finding but a few good grapes on a cluster, say to each otherperhaps it is the snatch of a vintage-song”Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it.” We are too ready to deal with men in the lump and in the massthey are a “bad lot,” in familiar language we say. But the Divine eye marks the element of worth amidst the most corrupt and worthless mass (cf. Isa 1:9; Isa 7:3; Isa 10:21; Isa 11:11-16). That which has the germinal principle, the seed-life in it, he cherishes; he will, in spite of all that is of another quality in the midst of which it may be imbedded, preserve. So here, the mountains and the whole land from east to west shall be preserved by the people (Isa 33:9; Jos 7:24-26). Tillage is the very symbol of peace, plenty, prosperity (Isa 30:23, Isa 30:24). A traveller may see in the valley of Sharon, when the sun gilds the mountain-top, and the flocks are returning to their fold, a visible expression of the future Paradise of God. “What a Paradise was here when Solomon reigned in Jerusalem, and sang of the roses of Sharon! What a heaven upon earth will be here again, when he that is greater than Solomon shall sit on the throne of David; for in his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth!”J.

Isa 65:11-16

The doom of the idolaters.

I. THE SINS. On the one hand it is the forsaking of Jehovah, the forgetting of his holy mountain. It is the keeping aloof from the true worship celebrated on Mount Moriah. But the heart of man knows no deeper need than that of worship; and the setting of the tables before the images of heathen deities (lectisternia) witnesses, even as an aberration and a caricature, to that yearning for communion with the Divine which true religion and revelation recognize and offer to satisfy. Here Gad, a Canaanitish god, is named; and M’ni, a Syrian deity. Similar rites prevailed among the Greeks and Romans, and other peoples of antiquity. In the first ‘ Iliad,’ at the sacrificial feast, the god is supposed to be present, himself a partaker, and a listener to the people’s song of praise. Between such worship and that of the Eternal, the sole and incomparable Holy One of Israel, there could be no compromise.

II. THE CAUSE. The sword. There may be an extreme of human obstinacy and perversity for which there is no cure but the sword. And thus we may even see in war a Divine purgative, and allow some truth in the stern saying of one of our poets, “Yea! carnage is thy daughter.” So the invasion of the Chaldeans was recognized as a scourge sent to chastise the abominations of the priests and the people (2Ch 36:14, 2Ch 36:16, 2Ch 36:17). Want and poverty, and all the associated sufferings. And here again it must be admitted the “curse does not causeless come.” There is a general connection at least between poverty, famine, and some neglect of Divine commands; and it may be seen in the lore of ancient nations in general. The time of drought was ever recognized as a time for special prayers and sacrifices. The name of the unfaithful ones shall become as a byword in formulas of imprecation.

III. THE FAITHFUL AND TRUE GOD. Ever, against the background of human infidelity and fickleness, he shines out in the splendour of self-consistency, the “God of the Amen,” the “Faithful and True Witness.” The “Amen” seems to refer to the solemn associations of the oath and the covenant (Deu 27:15). He stands in a sacramental mutual relation to his people. “They my people, I their God.” If they be true to him, he will be certain to bless them. Religion has a deep mystical roota conscience toward God, which in purity is the fount of all blessing, the defilement of which is the origin of all curse.J.

Isa 65:17-25

The new creation.

It seems that the leading thought of the prophet is the transformation of nature in harmony with the changed nature of man. Its grandeur needs not to be pointed out. Ordinarily, indeed, we think of man’s dependence on nature. If the thought be pushed to its limits, it ends in materialism. Spiritual religion, on the contrary, sees in the changes of nature a human pathos; its waste and desolation the effect of human sin, of violated Divine laws; its flourishing aspect and fertility the effect of human obedience and true religion (cf. Isa 11:6-9; Isa 30:26; Isa 43:19; Isa 51:16). Upon the difficult interpretation of such language much difference of opinion naturally arises; but it is open to all to catch the inspiration of the thoughts.

I. THE DIVINE EXULTATION ON THE NEW CREATION. It Was said of the Creator at the beginning that he looked with complacent joy upon his works. All was very good. It was the “joy of God to see a happy world.” How much deeper the Divine complacency in moral renewal! Note the emphasis and iteration of the thought. Rejoicing, exultation, is the very key-note of the passage; weeping and the sound of crying is to be as unheard as at the gayest scene of festival. And may we not feel that beneath all the sadness, the discord, the gloom of this enigmatic world, the prophetic pulse of the Divine creation, love, is ever exultantly beating? May we not believe that there is ever before his eye the picture, rising to clearness of outline and brilliancy of colour out of Erebos and Chaos, of eternal day, of the new heavens and earth wherein dwell righteousness? There should be in every heart a prophetic sympathy, which should vibrate in unison with these oracles of God.

II. PARADISAIC PICTURES. Under imagery, partly endeared to the Hebrew heart and fancy, partly of Oriental tinge in general, the heart of man resents the doom of an “untimely” deathit seems contrary to the intention of nature; and aspires to length of days as a good. Here it is predicated that no death in infancy shall occur; that one who dies at the age of a hundred shall be regarded as early lost, and even the wicked shall not be cut off before their hundredth year. “The number of their days shall they complete, and they shall grow old in peace, and the years of their happiness shall be many” (Book of Enoch, 5.9). Similar is the picture of the silver race in the ‘Works and Days’ of Hesiod, ver. 130. The human race shall attain the longevity of the oak, the terebinth, the cedar, or the cypress. The proverbial sic vos non vobis will have lost its applicability. One will not build, and another enter the finished habitation; one will not sow, and another reap; but each man will “see the fruit of his labour;” the work of their hands the elect shall use to the full. The rising hope of parents shall not be nipped in the bud; nor shall the travail of body or of mind be mocked, as it too often seems now, by an empty result. That element of contradiction or seeming contradiction to the benevolent scheme of the world, which has perplexed the thought of sages in every time, shall disappear even from the animal world. The wild animals shall lose their ferocity, and the malignant infernal serpent, as it would seem, shall be banished to his subterranean domain. Here, again, we find parallel pictures in Oriental poets, and in the Romans Virgil and Horace. Perhaps few would be disposed to take these descriptions literally. It is, perhaps, impossible to conceive of the animal world remaining what it is in other respects, yet with its native instincts changed. Yet how great a marvel is the conversion of a single human soul! If the savage passions which rage there can be subdued and brought under the obedience of Christ, why need we despair of a nation, of a race? At any rate, all things assume a changed aspect to the renewed soul, which means the purged eyes, the deeper insight into the perfect wisdom and love which preside over the universe. The discontent we feel with the present scheme of things is a hint that the soul is secretly acquainted with their other, their ideal or Divine side.J.

HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM

Isa 65:23

Requited toil.

“They shall not labour in vain.” This is God’s comfort to all his faithful servants. Success is not to be measured by our sight, or by the statistics and seemings of superficial men.

I. HARVESTS ARE SOMETIMES LONG DELAYED. It has been so in our foreign mission fields, and it is so often here at home in our Christian Churches, and it is so in our families. But the Divine seed only “slumbers;” it does not “perish.” Harvests often sprout in greenness and wave in golden glory over men’s graves.

II. HARVESTS ARE NOT TO BE MEASURED BY THEIR FIRSTFRUITS. There, in a school or a church, some Henry Martyn, some Wilberforce, some Heber, some Livingstone, is brought into Christ’s fold. Perhaps that soul is the only one soul we can make estimate of in a whole year’s toil. We may, perhaps, feel disappointedonly one; but that one soul may be, under God, the means of giving spiritual life to a new continent. We must wait and work, and never weary, for Christ must reign. And the sower shall in due season reap, if he faint not.W.M.S.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Isa 65:1-7

The offensiveness and the doom of sin.

The passage brings out in a very graphic form

I. THE OFFENSIVENESS OF SIN.

1. Assumption. “Walking after their own thoughts” instead of reverently inquiring God’s will (Isa 65:2).

2. Positive disobedience in the manner of Divine worship (Isa 65:3).

3. Superstitious practices, implying discontent with the disclosures God had made in his holy Word (Isa 65:4).

4. Irreligious self-indulgence (Isa 65:4).

5. Spiritual pride. “I am holier than thou” (Isa 65:5) All these things were hateful to the Holy One of Israel; they constituted “rebellion” in his sight (Isa 65:2); they amounted to a defiant provocation of his wrath (Isa 65:3); they were as a continual smoke in the nostrils (Isa 65:5). All sin, whatever be its form or name, is “an abominable thing which God hates:” it is to his pure eyes unutterably loathsome; it is as the leprous skin to the eyes of manhe “cannot look upon” it. It draws down his righteous condemnation.

II. ITS INEVITABLE DOOM.

1. We must not argue non-observance or indifference from temporary silence. “Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence” (Isa 65:6; Psa 1:1-6 :21).

2. Guilt accumulates with time (Isa 65:7). God mercifully postpones punishment, thus giving opportunity for repentance and escape. But if there be impenitence and continuance in sin, there is an awful “treasuring up of wrath,” an accumulation of guilt against a day of account. Nations, families, Churches, individual souls, may well take earnest heed to this solemn truth.

3. There is an absolute certainty and fulness of penalty to the obdurate. “I will recompense, even recompense,” etc.; “I will measure their work,” etc.

4. Those who have abused their trust must look for a humiliating displacement (Isa 65:1). God will remove the chosen instrument of his truth and grace, and he will find another to do his work. Let the too-confident “children of the kingdom” beware lest they have to make room for those whom they have been accustomed to despise.C.

Isa 65:5

The hopeless.

The husbandman is often tempted to tear up the vine, or to pluck up the herb, or to plough up the crop, when patience and painstaking would result in flower and fruit. In the spiritual world, it is often found that where death seemed to prevail, there was life beneath the surface.

I. THE APPEARANCE OF SPIRITUAL DEATH. The Church is so degenerate, that the teaching of Divine truth is found to be ineffectual; the nation so corrupt, that the statesman and the magistrate and the teacher are powerless; the family so depraved, that it is a pest to the community; the child so wayward, that parental authority is no restraint. Then is entertained

II. THE POLICY OF ABANDONMENT. Those who are pure, reverent, loyal; they to whom iniquity is found to be hateful; men that are anxious to use their opportunities, so as to get some spiritual returns:these say, or are inclined to say,” Let us leave these souls so fast imbedded in sin whom we cannot extricate, and let us seek and save those who can be reached and rescued.” Then comes

III. THE PLEA OF FAITH AND PITY. “Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it.” “Let it alone this year” (Luk 13:6-9). That root that looks dead is not dead, and under careful nourishment it will revive. That soul that seems dead is not dead; there is a seed of life in it still; beneath all its folly, its waywardness, its vice, its guilt, there is a possibility of true repentance; there is a sensibility which will respond to patient, human love; there is a spiritual capacity which the truth of God, made mighty by the Spirit of God, will touch with renewing power, and from which unsuspected beauties and graces will arise. Within the ugliest and most worthless souls there may lie concealed germs of real nobility. Wait long, very long, before you abandon to destruction. Over them, and of them, the Divine voice may be whispering, “There is a blessing in them for the loving, patient, prayerful workman.”C.

Isa 65:9, Isa 65:10

From depression to prosperity.

We learn here

I. THAT THE PEOPLE OF GOD MAY FALL INTO A STATE OF SAD DEPRESSION. “Jacob” and “Judah,” at the time of this prophecy, were reduced to a very low estate. It seemed as if they would produce nothing.

II. THAT COMFORT MAY THEN BE FOUND IN GOD‘S RELATION TO THEM. They are still “mine elect;” still those whom the Divine Father pities and purposes to bless, for whom the Divine Saviour died, with whom the Divine Spirit pleads.

III. THAT THEY SHOULD SPEND THEIR STRENGTH IN SEEKING AND IN SERVING. “My servants shall dwell there for my people that have sought me.” In the time of difficulty and distress let good men be earnest and constant in prayer; let them be consistent in life and active in holy labour. Then they will find

IV. THAT THEY MAY LOOK FOR A RENEWED AND A NOBLE HERITAGE. From end to end of the land (from Sharon to Achor) the scenes of pastoral industry shall be witnessed, and God’s servants shall dwell in the land; there shall be fulness and permanence of blessing.C.

Isa 65:20

The Christian view of age.

These words are not to be taken literally; they are distinctly pictorial, highly hyperbolical; they indicate a state of future blessedness, employing images most likely to be impressive and inspiring at the time of utterance. They may suggest to us the Christian aspect of old age.

I. THAT CHRISTIAN LIFE TENDS TO LENGTH OF DAYS, Health, and therefore life, depends most on habit. What shortens life is folly, irregularity, excess, anxiety, sorrow; Christian principles guard against these, or materially modify them. What lengthens life is purity, temperance, serenity, and cheerfulness of spirit; Christian principles are a security for these.

II. THAT CHRISTIAN LIFE TENDS TO PRESERVE THE CHILD–HEART IN THE AGED MAN. A beautiful object is a “green old age;” an excellent thing it is when “he that is a hundred years old dies a youth.” The best preservative of freshness of spirit, openness of mind, youthfulness of heart, is an unselfish habit. Disinterestedness of soul, broad and generous sympathies, active participation in all onward movements,this will keep the heart of youth in the form of age.

III. THAT THE CHRISTIAN PROMISE POINTS TO THE LONG FUTURE. “The shorter life, the earlier immortality.”

IV. THAT WE MAY DIE YOUNG, AND YET FILL UP THE MEASURE OF OUR DAYS. Our Lord died a young man, and yet he “finished the work which the Father gave him to do.” Many martyrs, many devoted labourers in the field of usefulness, have failed to reach extreme old age, but they have not failed to accomplish the task which the great Leader had set them. The excellency of life depends on its quality, not on its quantity. “One day in thy courts is better than a thousand,” etc. “Though the sinner die a hundred years old, he shall be accursed,” and his life will be a bane and a blot. A very few years (or months) of holy service may be of inestimable service to the cause of Christ and of man.C.

Isa 65:24

The Divine readiness.

Man is slow to respond.

1. His limited intelligence makes him slow to apprehend what is needed.

2. His imperfect sensibility makes him slow to feel the urgency of the need.

3. His feebleness of execution makes him slow to inter.pose and to effect. God is not under these limitations. His perfect readiness is seen in

I. HIS ANTICIPATION OF OUR NECESSITIES. Providing this world for our habitation; preparing its soil and its seed; storing its coal and its metals, etc.; providing for our wants in sunshine and in rain, etc; which come without our asking for them; having all kinds of truth and knowledge ready for our inquiry; etc.

II. HIS ANSWERS TO OUR PRAYERS.

1. Sometimes literally granting our requests at the very time of our asking (Dan 9:20, Dan 9:21).

2. Always virtually meeting us with an immediate response; for when he does not grant us all we ask instantly, as he could not do with any regard to our real and spiritual interests, he does hear us and heed us, and determine in what way he will bless us.

III. HIS RESPONSE TO OUR APPEAL IN SORROW AND IN PENITENCE. There are two things in regard to which the words of our text are emphatically true.

1. When in sorrow we ask for his sympathy. When the cares, anxieties, disappointments, losses, separations of life, overtake us, then the stricken heart of man turns and looks for the healing hand of God, then the troubled child goes to his heavenly Father; and never vainly. For in the very act of an appeal, while we are yet upon our knees, before we have left the sanctuary, God has laid his kind hand upon us, Jesus Christ has spoken “peace” to our agitated spirit.

2. When in penitence we ask for his pardon. When, away in the far country of unbelief, or of wrong-doing, or of irreligion, or of unfaithfulness and Backsliding, or of indecision and procrastination, we hear the summons from the Father’s home, and when we say, “I will arise and return,” what happens then? A Divine readiness to receive us, even as the great Teacher has shown us. Then the Father of souls does not wait to be convinced, and to be induced to pardon and reinstate us. He comes forth to meet us; he anticipates our action; he breaks in upon our confession with his words of forgiving and accepting love (Luk 15:21, Luk 15:22); he overwhelms us with the proofs of his Divine affection.C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Isa 65:1-3

Divine reproaches.

In the two previous chapters we find. the prophet, pleading in the name of Israel, had urged that God kept strange silence when his people were so long held captive, and their land lay so desolate. In this chapter we have the Divine answer to the prophet’s plea. There was good reason for the long delay. Instead of the people reproaching their God, their God might much more reasonably reproach them, for they had rejected his long and earnest appeals; they had put the stumbling-blocks in the way of their own restoration. They were not “straitened in God;” they were “straitened in their own selves.” “He has called his people, but in vain; they have been obstinately deaf to him, unfaithful, and superstitious. The unfaithful shall be punished; but a faithful remnant shall be saved and restored to Zion, and from them the promises shall take effect” (Matthew Arnold). The Divine reproaches here may be regarded as addressed to three classesthe negligent, the wilful, and the insolent.

I. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE NEGLIGENT. There are always among us those who give no heed to God, whether he speaks in thunder-voice, or with the still small voice; in judgments or in mercies; from Sinai or from Zion. This is the most perplexing difficulty with which God’s ministers have to deal. Men hear, but give no heed. They even recognize the truth and importance of what is declared, but fail to see any relation in which it stands to them. No harder work is set before the servants of God than to break down pride and self-satisfaction, and awaken personal concern. Indifference to heavenly and Divine things keeps men away even from God’s “feast of fat things, and wines on the lees well refined.” Ministers have constantly to be the arousing trumpet-blast, which cries, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

II. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE WILFUL. The secret of wilfulness is over-confidence in self. A man persuades himself that it “is in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Or, as Isaiah puts it, a man is quite comfortable, walketh “after his own thoughts,” even though he goes in a way that is not good. Such a man opposes all Divine voices and messages, because he finds the beginning of every one of them is this, “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.” Wilful people will have their way, but they will not have God’s way.

III. DIVINE REPROACHES OF THE INSOLENT. (Verse 3.) “Provoketh me to anger continually to my face.” It is strange that we must recognize a more hopeful condition in active opposition to God, than in dogged and sullen resistance, or in weak indifference. The man who can oppose has strength of character, and Divine reproach may be convincing to him.R.T.

Isa 65:5

The pride of superior holiness.

Dr. W. Kay has a suggestive note on this verse: “A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascination which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The Law humbled them at every turn with mementoes of their own sin, and of God’s unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the midst of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man who had been offering incense on the mountain-top despised the penitent who went to the temple to present ‘a broken and contrite heart.’ If Pharisaism led to a like result, it was because it, too, had emptied the Law of its spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols.” Henderson says, “The conceit of imaginary holiness, accruing from certain external relations, and the performance of certain ritual or bodily exercises, such as the Jews have long entertained, and which is also awfully prevalent among nominal Christians, Jehovah here declares to be peculiarly offensive to him.” The illustration of this “stand-by’ attitude is found in our Lord’s parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

I. HOLINESS OF RITUAL. Religion may be a doing or a being. The religion of doing is the minute and careful observance of ritual. It may be ritual as appointed by God, or it may be ritual as arranged by man. A certain goodness, righteousness, bringing with it much self-satisfaction, and a great disposition to despise others, may come out of a religion of doing. Thousands have been fascinated by it in every age. And yet it is but an external matter, of the senses and of the mind; and it has always been found possible to keep it up along with heart-impurities and life-immoralities. The ritualist is not at all bound to be a clean-living man. Pharisees thought themselves holy, on the ground of their precise obediences; and it was a Pharisaic commonplace to live in self-indulgence and sin. Matthew Arnold, writing of such mere ritual holiness, says,:’ Doing all this out of superstition, and out of the vain notion that it will be of religious avail to them, they insolently repel their unsuperstitious and faithful brethren as less holy than themselves.” In a thousand ways, and constantly, it is needful to press on attention that ritual is an aid to holiness, not holiness, and the danger of ritual is

(1) that it may blind us to the goodness of those who are not holy in the same way; and

(2) it may make us indifferent to the claims of spiritual holiness.

II. HOLINESS OF HEART. (See the kind of holiness acceptable to God, shown in former homily on Isa 66:1, Isa 66:2.)R.T.

Isa 65:13-15

Contrasted lots of those who serve God and those who forsake him.

This passage should be compared with Luk 6:20-26. “The blessedness of those that serve God, and the woeful condition of those that rebel against him, are here set, the one over against the other, that they may serve as a foil to each other.”

I. CONTRAST THE TWO KINDS OF LIFE. The man who fears God and sets his heart upon serving him, finds the promises fulfilled”Verily thou shalt be filled;” “None of them that trust in him shall be desolate.” He may take his place in anxious and troublous times, but since he is God’s servant, he shall be even as Elijah, fed by ravens, or by poor widows, if need be. The man who fears not God is left to ordinary human devices, and may be left hungry and thirsty and desolate. He holds no guarantee. The Giver of all good is under no covenant-pledge to see that he wants no good thing. “God’s servants shall eat and drink; they shall have the bread of life to feed, to feast upon continually, and shall want nothing that is good for them. But those who set their hearts upon the world, and place their happiness in it, shall be hungry and thirsty, always empty, always craving. In communion with God and dependence upon him there is full satisfaction; but in sinful pursuits there is nothing but dissatisfaction and disappointment.”

II. CONTRAST THE TWO KINDS OF DISPOSITIONS. Trust in God brings peace and heart-rest. Those who know what soul-rest is, find it easy to sing and give thanks. “The joy of the Lord is their strength.” There is good cheer and high hope in their souls. “God’s servants shall rejoice and sing for joy of heart; they have constant cause for joy, and there is nothing that may be an occasion of grief to them but may have an allay sufficient for it. But, on the other hand, they that forsake the Lord shut themselves out from all true joy, for they shall be ashamed of their vain confidence in themselves, and their own righteousness, and the hopes they had built thereon. When the expectations of bliss, wherewith they had flattered themselves, are frustrated, oh, what confusion will fill their faces!” (Matthew Henry). “The joy of the world resembles a torrent. As upon a glut of rain, you shall have a torrent come rolling along with noise and violence, overflowing its banks, and bearing all before it; yet it is but muddy and impure water, and it is soon gone and dried up: such is all the joy this world can give. It makes a great noise, it is commonly immoderate, and swells beyond its due bounds; yet it is but a muddy and impure joy; it soon roils away, and leaves nothing behind but a drought in the soul. Now, since the world’s joy is but such a poor empty thing as this, it is most gross folly for us to lay out our best love upon that which cannot repay us with the best joy” (Bishop Hopkins).R.T.

Isa 65:17

A new earth.

The idea is that God will be sure to take care that a man’s surroundings match the man himself. He will have a new earth for regenerate men. He will have heaven for those who can be “holy still.” The fundamental idea of the verse is that nature itself must be transformed to be in harmony with regenerate Israel. Long life shall be one of the marked peculiarities of the “new earth.” Cheyne quotes the following similar passage to Isa 65:20 from the Book of Enoch: “And they shall not be punished all their life long, neither shall they die by plagues and judgments; but the number of their days shall they complete, and they shall grow old in peace, and the years of their happiness shall be many, in everlasting bliss and peace, their whole life long.” Some take this text as a poetical representation of the new condition into which the returned exiles entered; and in that view we have an ideal picture of what ought to have been. We, however, take the more general principle that God makes a new earth for the new-born man; everything to him becomes new. And God makes a new earth for his sanctified Churchdoes make it, in a sense, now, and will make it, in a larger sense, by-and-by. In what sense, then, can we be said to want a “new earth”?

I. NOT IN THE SENSE OF A CHANGED WORLD OF THINGS. It is not possible for us to conceive of anything better, more restful, more satisfying, than this paradise of earth, which God has made and decked for us, with its hills, and vales, and streams, and seas, and flowers, and trees, and hoar-frost, and harvest-fields, and spring-time greenery, and autumn tinting. We love our earth, fair earth, and do not want it changed.

“‘Twas a fair scenea land more bright

Never did mortal eye behold!
Those valleys and their fruits of gold

Basking in heaven’s serenest light;
Those groups of lovely date trees bending

Languidly their leaf-crown’d heads,

Like youthful maids, when sleep descending

Warns them to their silken beds;

Those virgin lilies, all the night

Bathing their beauties in the lake,

That they may rise more fresh and bright

When their beloved sun’s awake.”
(T. Moore.)

We can, indeed, only conceive of heaven as like earth, all of it as beautiful as some of the earth is to us. Poetry anticipates that

“There, on a green and flowery mound,

Our weary souls shall sit.”

And Scripture figures heaven as a city in a paradise. No sense of wanting relief from the ever-exquisite associations of earth comes to us. Even earth’s dark things, her night, her winds, her storms, her winter, are precious to us, and we scarce would have them otherwise.

II. BUT IN THE SENSE OF A CHANGED WORLD OF BEINGS. There are lands where

” every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile;”

and it is just that “vileness of man” which has made earth so sad, life so bitter, and death so terrible. Could we clear the human race away, as with another flood or fire, and start again the cleansed earth with a race in whom righteousness should dwell, then, verily, we should want no other heavenearth would be heaven. Illustrate these points:

1. The good man makes a new earth of his sphere.

2. The good parents make a new earth of their home.

3. The holy Church helps to make a new earth of social life.

4. The well-principled statesman tries to make a new earth of the nation.

5. Those who believe in God and know his redemption strive to make a new earth of the sorely smitten heathen lands. We all want that new earth in which holiness shall be every-where-holiness the glorifying sunshine that makes earth to be summer-time always; holiness shall jingle from the very bells of the horses. Call that new earth what you may please, it will be heaven.R.T.

Isa 65:20

The woe of aged sinners.

There are three special periods of life in which men are peculiarly exposed to the power of temptation and sin. Most men that fall, fall either into young men’s perils, full-grown, men’s indulgences, or old men’s sins. A pure, humble, godly old man is one of the noblest sights to be seen under heaven. And by so much as that is beautiful, a godless, characterless, debased old man is a shame and contempt. “A hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.” Yet old age has its special evils. Temptations to those sins which the Bible gathers up into the word “uncleanness.” Often uncleanness of word and conversation; often, alas! of life and conduct also. It would appear that bodily lust and passion gathers itself in old age for one last struggle to gain the mastery. The flame flares up in the socket, and old men need to keep very near to God, very much in the power of the sanctifying Spirit, if, having withstood all the perils of youth and manhood, they do not fall under the temptations of old age. What an awful sight is the foul-mouthed, leering-eyed, depraved old man, tottering on the very edge of the eternal, where “he that is filthy shall be filthy still”! The prophet tells of the time when there shall be no confusions about the state of aged sinners, because they are in great state, or are spared long. “The sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.”

I. THE WOE OF AGED SINNERS COMES IN BITTERNESS OF SUFFERING. The self-indulgent life ensures an unusually suffering old age. There are natural and necessary penalties, which are first smitings of Divine judgment.

II. THE WOE OF AGED SINNERS COMES IN THE ESTIMATE OF THOSE WHO TEND THEM. The aged sinner outlives his so-called friends, who shared his self-willed doings, and might have sympathized with him. He is put, for tending, into the hands of a new generation, who only see the wreck and ruin of body and character which the life has led to. He feels despised; he feels the misery of being despised. He knows well enough that they wish him gone.

III. THE WOE OF AGED SINNERS COMES IN FEARS OF THE FUTURE. It comes on a man sooner or later that he will have to “give an account of his stewardship.” His body was not his own; his time was not his own; his talents were not his own; his possessions were not his own; his relations were not his own. Presently he asks himselfWhat have I done with God’s property, which was entrusted for a while to my care? Conscious of having diverted God’s property to his own uses, he may well fear to meet his offended God.R.T.

Isa 65:24

Swift answers to prayer.

The answer comes even when the prayer is but a thought, is only a sigh; for God is the Infinite Thought-reader.

“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

The failing of a tear;

The upward glancing of an eye.

When none but God is near.”

One of the wonderful revelations of the day that is coming will be God’s showing us the many answers he sent to prayers of ours that never took shape in human words, that were no more than the outlook and uplook of our souls. The point impressed by the prophet here is that, by reason of man’s sinfulness, delays in answering his prayers are often necessary, delay doing a very essential disciplinary and corrective work. But if a man were holyin fall harmony with God’s willthere would never be any question about his prayers, never any need for delay in answering them. God could respond at once. “In man’s experience of men, often, as things are now, in his relations with God, there is an interval between prayer and answer. In the new Jerusalem the two would he simultaneous, or the answer would anticipate the prayer.” God’s present method in relation to prayer may be illustrated from Dan 9:23; Luk 18:1-7; 2Co 12:8.

I. WHAT IS IT IN US THAT MAKES ANSWER TO PRAYER SLOW AND EVEN UNCERTAIN. It is certain that God is more willing to hear than we are to pray. He has made large and firm promises of answer if we pray; and yet sometimes his answer is a refusal, and at other times it is a delay, and at yet other times the gift of something which we did not desire. The explanation is in us; we either ask for wrong things, or else we ask in. a wrong spirit. We need rebuff, or we need correction. Art unanswered prayer should always set us upon “examining ourselves.”

II. WHAT IS IT IN US THAT MAKES ANSWER TO PRAYER. COME SWIFTLY? The conformity of our desires with God’s will, and the offering of ourselves in the spirit of submission, dependence, and trustful love, which becomes obedient children.

“Lord, teach us how to pray aright.”R.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Isa 65:1. I am sought, &c. I am made known to those that asked not for me, &c. Lowth. You observe here the Divinity introduced, urging an argument of his grace, in calling the Gentiles to his communion, and soon after complaining of the obstinate disobedience of the refractory Jews, who had for so long a time despised the divine power. I have spread out my hands, in the next verse, signifies, “I have taught, intreated, or called;” to each of which actions spreading out of the hands belongs. See Neh 8:9 in the original.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

V.THE FIFTH DISCOURSE

The Death and Life-bringing End-Period

Isaiah 65-66

These two chapters are closely connected. They form one discourse. Their commencement is obviously related to the preceding prayer, in which the people had been regarded as a unity without distinguishing between the godly and the wicked. In chap. 65 it is shown that Israel will neither be entirely saved (Isa 65:1-7), nor entirely cast off (Isa 65:8-12). The true and righteous God will act according to the rule suum cuique (Isa 65:13-16). The Prophet then describes the salvation destined for the godly as new life. He depicts it, Isa 65:17-25, from its outward side, and, Isa 66:1-3 a, from its inward side. I must regard the verses Isa 66:3-6 as an interpolation. [But see the exposition.D. M.] In Isa 66:7-9 the Prophet describes the new life in a quite peculiar relation. He shows the wonderfully intensive power with which the new life will unfold itself, and find its realization in posterity that cannot be numbered. The fundamental, ethical character of the new order of life, which will express itself both in the relation of the redeemed to one another, and in the relation of the Lord Himself to the redeemed, shall be maternal love (Isa 66:10-14). In conclusion, the Prophet draws another comprehensive picture of the time of the end, in which he first views collectively all its elements of judgment, and then shows how the distinction between Israel and the Gentile world will cease, and the entire human race will be one new Israel, raised to a higher elevation (Isa 66:15-24).

1. NOT ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED

Isa 65:1-7

1I am sought of them that asked not for me;

I am found of them that sought me not;

I said, Behold me, behold me,
Unto a nation that was not called by my name.

2I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,

Which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;

3A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face;

That sacrificeth in gardens,
And burneth incense 1upon altars of brick,

4Which remain among the graves,

And lodge in the 2monuments,

Which eat swines flesh,
And 3 4broth of abominable things is in their vessels;

5Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me;

For 5I am holier than thou.

These are a smoke in my 6nose,

A fire that burneth all the day.

6Behold, it is written before me:

I will not keep silence, dbut will recompense,

Even recompense into their bosom,

7Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord,

Which have burned incense upon the mountains,
And blasphemed me upon the hills:

eTherefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isa 65:1. The dative after the passive stands here as Eze 14:3; Eze 20:3; Eze 20:31; Eze 36:37, according to a well-known usus loquendi. is to be supplied before . [Ges., Gr., 123, 3.] The Pual of is of not unfrequent occurrence in the latter part of Isa 48:8; Isa 48:12; Isa 58:12; Isa 61:3; Isa 62:2. Isa 65:6. has the accent on the final syllable on account of the future signification, to distinguish it from the first , which has the accent on the penult.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Chaps. 65 and 66 are a Yesbut [an affirmative answer with qualifications] to the prayer of the church. For that prayer shall assuredly be heard, but quite otherwise than she imagines [?]. First of all the Lord makes a distinction, which was not made in the prayer, between the persons, according to their religious and moral condition. The prayer takes the people as an undistinguished unity in what is good as in what is bad. The good are not excepted where the transgression of the people is spoken of (Isa 63:10; Isa 63:17; Isa 64:4-6), and where deliverance and salvation are spoken of, the evil are not excepted (Isa 63:16; Isa 54:7-8). [It is not the case that the prayer altogether ignores the distinction between the good and the bad in the community. This distinction is prominently made in the latter part of Isa 63:17 : Return for thy servants sake to the tribes of thine inheritance (amended translation). Jehovahs answer is exactly conformable to this prayer. Comp. Isa 65:8 sq.: So will I do for my servants sakes. When the prayer speaks of the whole nation being Gods people, the reference is to the original relation established between them and God. The prayer distinctly declares that it is for those that wait for Him that God acts, and that it is he who rejoiceth and worketh righteousness whom God meets, Isa 64:4-5. Moreover, this prayer, which the church is supposed to utter, testifies, notwithstanding its strong confession of prevalent and general ungodliness, to the existence of a faithful, praying remnant. Dr. Naegelsbach fails to appreciate the prayer that precedes chap. 65, and attributes to it defects and blemishes which it does not really contain.D. M.]. In chap. 65 there is a sharp line of separation drawn between the servants of Jehovah who have sought Him (Isa 65:8-10; Isa 65:13 sqq.), and the persons who have forsaken Him (Isa 65:11 sqq.) But it is not the intention of the Lord. that Israel should be reduced by the exclusion of the ungodly to a little flock, and that the old patriarchal promise of an innumerable progeny should find but a scanty realization in the glorious time of salvation. In the Messianic time Israel shall be not only blessed and glorious, but also numerous (comp. Eze 36:37). Just think of places such as Isa 49:13 sqq.; Isa 54:1 sqq.; Isa 60:4 sqq.! But the Lord will take the members of His redeemed church not merely out of Israel. He takes them out of all nations. For, connection with the church of the redeemed is no longer dependent on natural descent from Abraham and circumcision in the flesh, but on being born of God and circumcision of the heart. [We give here Dr. J. A. Alexanders analysis of this section: The great enigma of Israels simultaneous loss and gain is solved by a prediction of the calling of the Gentiles, Isa 65:1. This is connected with the obstinate unfaithfulness of the chosen people, Isa 65:2. They are represented, under the two main aspects of their character at different periods, as gross idolaters and as Pharisaical bigots, Isa 65:3-5. Their casting off was not occasioned by the sins of one generation, but of many, Isa 65:6-7. But even in this rejected race there was a chosen remnant, in whom the promises shall be fulfilled, Isa 65:8-10.D. M.].

2. I am soughtcalled by my name. Isa 65:1. The Apostle Paul understands Isa 65:1 of the Gentiles while he adheres to the Septuagint, with a transposition of the clauses (Rom 10:20). The Jewish commentators (with exception of Chiquitilla or Gecatilia, comp. RosenmuellerSchol. in loc.) and most modern interpreters refer the words to the unbelieving Jews. Only Hendewerk, who supposes the Persians specifically to be here meant, Stier and von Hofmann are exceptions. I agree with these latter. For 1) if Isa 65:1 is to refer to the Jews, then , must signify: quaerendum, inveniendum me obtuli, and not I let Myself be asked for, be found, which signification the Niphal undoubtedly has in Eze 14:3; Eze 20:3; Eze 20:31; Eze 36:37 (Niph. tolerativum). For, in fact, the Jews have not sought the Lord, and therefore have not asked for and found Him. If then we would take the verbs and in the sense in which occurs in the places quoted from Ezekiel, that would be affirmed regarding the Jews in the place before us which was not true of them. We must then take and in the sense of quaerendum, inveniendum me obtuli, or in the sense I was capable of being asked for, capable of being found; but this sense the perfect Niphal cannot bear. In reference to , an examination of the places in Ezekiel makes this clear. But in reference to appeal is made to Isa 55:6. There it is said: Seek the Lord which may be rendered while he may be found.For everything which is found, may be found. But does it follow that can mean to be capable of being found to the exclusion of the signification to be actually found? But that must be the case if Isa 65:1 is to be referred to the Jews. 2) is appropriately applied only to Gentiles, as even Delitzsch confesses. [Delitzsch also calls attention to the use of (comp. Isa 55:5) in Isa 65:1 and of in Isa 65:2, as indicating that Isa 65:1 relates to the Gentiles and Isa 65:2 to the Jews.D. M.]. With the words the Lord wishes to declare that He offers Himself lovingly and pressingly to the nation hitherto strangers to Him (comp. Isa 58:9).

3. I have spread outtheir bosom.

Isa 65:2-7. In opposition to what the Lord will be in fact to the Gentiles we are told in these verses what the Lord wished to be to Israel, but was not on account of the stubbornness of this people. With infinite, compassionate love the Lord spread out His hands to Israel (comp. Isa 65:5; Isa 28:24; Isa 51:13; Isa 52:5; Isa 62:6), i. e,, continually. He would gladly have enclosed them in His arms as dear children ( see the List.). But they were a refractory people. He calls them not as, Isa 65:1, the Gentiles; but they were . How they proved refractory is declared in what follows. They pursued evil, perverse ways, and this was the necessary consequence of their following, not the thoughts of Jehovah, but only their own thoughts (comp. Isa 55:7; Isa 59:7; Jer 18:12). But not only by omitting to do what the Lord desired, did they offend Him, but also by defiant and open (, comp. Job 1:11; Job 6:28; Job 21:31, probably, too, alluding to Exo 20:3) doing of that which is contrary to the chief commandment of the theocracy, by gross idolatry which they practised, while they sacrificed in gardens or groves (comp. on Isa 1:29; Isa 66:17), and burnt incense on altars which, contrary to the law, were built of bricks. According to the Mosaic law only an altar of earth or of unhewn stones [or of wooden boards overlaid with brass] was allowed (Exo 20:24 sqq.; Isa 27:1 sqq.; Isa 30:1 sqq.). The bricks recall Babylon, the land of lateres cocti from ancient time (Gen 11:3). Another form of their idolatry consisted in their frequenting groves and other kept (i. e., secret, not easily accessible) places, where they even passed the night in order to obtain mantic revelations through the demons, or through the spirits of the dead, a thing which was strictly forbidden in the law (Deu 18:11; comp. Isa 8:19). Even Jerome and Theodoret have so understood this place. Jerome says: . . Sedens . . vel habitans in sepulchris et in delubris idolorum dormiens, ubi stratis pellibus hostiarum incubare soliti erant, ut somniis futura cognoscerent. Other passages from ancient authors regarding this usage are given by Rosenmueller,in loc. It seems to me less appropriate to think of purificatory offerings presented for the dead (inferiae, februationes, Vitringa), as these offerings and not require a lengthened sitting or passing the night in sepulchral caves. are loca abscondita, as Isa 48:6res absconditae, as easily obtains the signification of hiding from the signification custodire, observare (comp. Pro 7:10). The swine which divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud, is according to the law unclean, and durst not be eaten (Lev 11:7; Deu 14:18). Quamdiu stetit Judaeorum respublica, in Judaea nulli erant sues, says Bochart (Hieroz. I. p. 804, comp. Luk 15:11; Luk 8:26; Luk 8:32). It is doubtful whether in our place the common or the ritual use of swines flesh (at the sacrificial meal) is spoken of. Both are possible. Where swine are eaten, there they can also be used in sacrifice, and where they are sacrificed, there they are also eaten. In Isa 66:17, too, both profane and sacred uses can be promiscuously spoken of. That among many heathen nations of antiquity swine were offered in sacrifice has been sufficiently proved by Spencer (De legg. Hebr. p. 137), Bochart (Hieroz. II. p. 381 sqq.), Saubert (De sacrificiis veterum cap. 23, p. 572 sqq.); Movers (Phoen. I. p. 218 sqq.). That the Babylonians sacrificed and ate swine seems to be implied in what is here said [?], but is not confirmed by other testimonies (comp. Delitzschin loc.). from to rend, to tear in pieces (comp. Gen 27:40; Psa 7:3 et saepe) is . . The signification must be that which is torn to pieces, broken. [Gesenius assigns to the word the meaning of broth, soup, which is so called from the fragments or crumbs of bread on which the broth is poured.D. M.]. is res foeda, abominabilis, abomination (comp. Lev 7:18; Lev 19:7; Eze 4:14). Broken bits (a ragout, a medley) of abominations are their dishes. The expression is metonymical [synecdochical, comp. Jer 24:2]. The Kri reads , which, according to Jdg 6:19-20, must mean broth. But the alteration is not needed. In Isa 65:5 the Prophet alludes to idolatrous rites of purification or sanctification which were not sanctioned by the law. They were probably connected with the celebration of mysteries. One recalls appropriately here the, word of Horaceodi profanum vulgus et arceo. [Henderson thinks the class here described to be entirely different from the idolaters spoken of in Isa 65:3-4. Having specified the sins for which the Jews were notorious, during what may be called the idolatrous period of their history, Jehovah now portrays their character during the self-righteous period, or that which succeeded the return from the captivityincluding Pharisaism, Talmudism, and modern Judaism. Comp. Isa 58:1-3; Luk 18:11; Rom 10:3D. M.]. recalls expressions such as we find Isa 49:20; Gen 19:9; Gen 19:3; Gen 19:2; Pro 9:4; Pro 9:16. [The literal translation is approach to thyself, which implies removal from the speaker. The E. V., stand by thyself suggests the idea of standing alone, whereas all that is expressed by the Hebrew phrase is the act of standing away from the speaker, for which Lowth has found the idiomatic equivalent keep to thyself. Alexander. D. M.]. stands only here with , probably because there lies in the word the idea of an approach that would be offensive, disturbing. is one of the rare cases in which the verbal suffix has the signification of the dative (comp. Isa 44:21). [I am holy to thee,i. e., unapproachable.Del.]. If the words which we read from Isa 65:3 b, to Isa 65:5 a, really portray such idolatry as the exiles committed in Babylon, we must regard them as an interpolation. For the description is so particular that it could proceed from no one but an eyewitness. [Here again our author would alter the text to make it conform to his theory of the nature of prophecy. It was such idolatry as is here described that brought on the Jews the punishment of the Exile. Comp. Isa 1:29; Isa 57:3-8. The Babylonish captivity had the effect of making them turn with abhorrence from such gross idolatry.D. M]. By means of a strong figurative expression the Lord makes known how much those idolatrous practices call for His retributive justice. He describes those sinners as the prey of an unquenchable fire (comp. Isa 66:24), whose smoke ascends perpetually before Him (see similar images Isa 9:18; Isa 10:17; Isa 30:27). In order to prove that He is in terrible earnest with the threatening in Isa 65:5 b, the Lord attests in Isa 65:6 that it is written before Him. He does not mean that the sin of those idolaters is recorded before Him, for what is recorded is stated in what goes before and follows. But immediately before and after, mention is made not of sin, but of punishment. The Lord intends to say: it is not merely decreed, but recorded, set down in a document (Job 13:26; Jer 22:30), that I will not be silent till I have recompensed. assures that the recompense will not remain intention but will become fact. comp. Jer 32:18; Psa 79:12 (Luk 6:38). These are the only other places in which the expression occurs in the Old Testament. In them is found instead of , as in the Kri on Isa 65:7. These two particles are frequently substituted the one for the other (comp. on Isa 10:3). It is worthy of remark that Jeremiah (Isa 32:18) had this place manifestly in his mind. The quick change of person sounds very hard. Isa 65:6 closes with their bosom; and Isa 65:7 in reference to the same persons proceeds to say your iniquities, in the second person. [The form of the address shows that , Isa 65:7 a, is not governed by but by an which is easily understood from it. Delitzsch.). connects itself with Isa 65:6, so that the words to appear as a parenthesis. cannot mean: what they have first deserved, their first, earliest guilt.For why should the Lord punish only this? But if the meaning was intended to be: their total guilt from the beginning, why do we not read , or some similar expression? can therefore only be an adverb, and signify primum. The Prophet has the people of the Exile in his eye. The people suffering the Exile endure in it only the beginning of the punishment for the national guilt. This punishment extends beyond it. And the people redeemed from exile still suffer under it. The first restoration from the captivity was a poor one. Israel was never after the Exile again independent. And on the first exile a second still worse followed. For the second destruction by the Romans was total, while the first by Nebuchadnezzar was only partial. After the first exile the Israelites could organize themselves again according to their law. After the second this could no more be done. This thought lies also at the basis of the passage Jer 16:18 (comp. my remarks on this place), which manifestly depends on the one before us.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Isa 65:1-2. Our Lord has said, He that seeketh findeth (Mat 7:8). How, then, does it come that the Jews do not find what they seek, but the heathen find what they did not seek? The Apostle Paul puts this question and answers it, Rom 9:30 sqq.; Isa 10:19 sqq.; Isa 11:7. [See also Isa 10:3]. All depends on the way in which we seek. Luther says: Quaerere fit dupliciter. Primo, secundum praescriptum verbi Dei, et sic invenitur Deus, Secundo, quaeritur nostris studiis et consiliis, et sic non invenitur. The Jews, with exception of the (Rom 11:7), sought only after their own glory and merit. They sought what satisfies the flesh. They did not suffer the spirit in the depths of their heart to speak,the spirit which can be satisfied only by food fitted for it. The law which was given to them that they might perceive by means of it their own impotence, became a snare to them. For they perverted it, made what was of minor importance the chief matter, and then persuaded themselves that they had fulfilled it and were righteous. But the Gentiles who had not the law, had not this snare. They were not tempted to abuse the pdagogical discipline of the law. They felt simply that they were forsaken by God. Their spirit was hungry. And when for the first time Gods word in the Gospel was presented to them, then they received it the more eagerly in proportion to the poverty, wretchedness and hunger in which they had been. The Jews did not find what they sought, because they had not a spiritual, but a carnal apprehension of the law, and, like the elder brother of the prodigal son, were full, and blind for that which was needful for them. But the Gentiles found what they did not seek, because they were like the prodigal son, who was the more receptive of grace, the more he needed it, and the less claim he had to it. [There is important truth stated in the foregoing remarks. But it does not fully explain why the Lord is found of those who sought Him not. The sinner who has obtained mercy when he asks why? must have recourse to a higher cause, a cause out of himself, even free, sovereign, efficacious grace. It is of God that showeth mercy, Rom 9:16. Though in after-communion God is found of those that seek Him (Pro 8:17), yet in the first conversion He is found of those that seek Him not; for therefore we love Him, because He first loved us. Henry. D. M.].

2. On Isa 65:2. Gods long-suffering is great. He stretches out His hands the whole day and does not grow weary. What man would do this? The disobedient people contemns Him, as if He knew nothing, and could do nothing.

3. On Isa 65:2. It is clear from this verse gratiam esse resistibilem. Christ earnestly stretched out His hands to the Jews. He would, but they would not. This doctrine the Remonstrants prove from this place, and rightly too, in Actis Synodi Dodrac. P. 3. p. 76. Leigh. [The grace of God which is signified by His stretching out His hands can be, and is, resisted. That figurative expression denotes warning, exhorting, entreating, and was never set forth by Reformed theologians as indicating such grace as was necessarily productive of conversion. The power by which God quickens those who were dead in sins (Eph 2:5), by which He gives a new heart (Eze 36:26), by which He draws to the Son (Joh 6:44-45; Joh 6:65), is the grace which is called irresistible. The epithet is admitted on all hands to be faulty; but the grace denoted by it is, from the nature of the case, not resisted. Turrettin in treating De Vocatione et Fide thus replies to this objection, Aliud est Deo monenti et vocanti externe resistere; Aliud est conversionem intendenti et efficaciter ac interne vocanti. Prius asseritur Isa. lxv. 2, 3. Quum dicit Propheta se expandisse tot die manus ad populum perversum etc., non posterius. Expansio brachiorum notat quidem blandam et benevolam Dei invitationem, qu illos extrinsecus sive Verbo, sive beneficiis alliciebat, non semel atque iterum, sed quotidie ministerio servorum suorum eos compellando. Sed non potest designate potentem et efficacem operationem, qu brachium Domini illis revelatur qui docentur Deo et trahuntur a Patre, etc. Locus XV.; Quaestio VI .25.D. M.].

4. On Isa 65:2. (Who walk after their own thoughts.)

Duc me, nec sine, me per me, Deus optime, duci.

Nam duce me pereo, te duce certus eo.

[If our guide be our own thoughts, our way is not likely to be good; for every imagination of the thought of our hearts is only evil. Henry. D. M.].

5. On Isa 65:3 sq. The sweetest wine is turned into the sourest vinegar; and when Gods people apostatize from God, they are worse than the heathen (Jer 3:11). Starke.

6. On Isa 65:5. [I am holier than thou. A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascination which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The law humbled them at every turn with mementoes of their own sin and of Gods unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the midst of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man, who had been offering incense on the mountain-top, despised the penitent who went to the temple to present a broken and contrite heart. If Pharisaism led to a like result, it was because it, too, had emptied the law of its spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols. Kay. D. M.].

7. On Isa 65:6-7. The longer God forbears, the harder He punishes at last. The greatness of the punishment compensates for the delay (Psa 50:21). Starke after Leigh.

8. On Isa 65:8 sqq. [This is expounded by St. Paul, Rom 11:1-5, where, when upon occasion of the rejection of the Jews, it is asked Hath God then cast away His people? He answers, no; for, at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. This prophecy has reference to that distinguished remnantOur Saviour has told us that for the sake of these elect the days of the destruction of the Jews should be shortened, and a stop put to the desolation, which otherwise would have proceeded to that degree that no flesh should be saved. Mat 24:22. Henry. D. M.].

9. On Isa 65:15. The judgment which came upon Israel by the hand of the Romans, did not altogether destroy the people, but it so destroyed the Old Covenant, i.e., the Mosaic religion, that the Jews can no more observe its precepts in essential points. For no Jew knows to what tribe he belongs. Therefore, they have no priests, and, consequently, no sacrifices. The Old Covenant is now only a ruin. We see here most clearly that the Old Covenant, as it was designed only for one nation, and for one country, was to last only for a certain time. If we consider, moreover, the way in which the judgment was executed, (comp. Josephus), we can truly say that the Jews bear in themselves the mark of a curse. They bear the stamp of the divine judgment. The beginning of the judgment on the world has been executed on them as the house of God. But how comes it that the Jews have become so mighty, so insolent in the present time, and are not satisfied with remaining on the defensive in their attitude toward the Christian church, but have passed over to the offensive? This has arisen solely from Christendom having to a large extent lost the consciousness of its new name. There are many Christians who scoff at the name of Christian, and seek their honor in combating all that is called Christian. This is the preparation for the judgment on Christendom itself. If Christendom would hold fast her jewel, she would remain strong, and no one would dare to mock or to assail her. For she would then partake of the full blessing which lies in the principle of Christianity, and every one would be obliged to show respect for the fruits of this principle. But an apostate Christendom, that is ashamed of her glorious Christian name, is something more miserable than the Jews, judged though they have been, who still esteem highly their name, and what remains to them of their old religion. Thus Christendom, in so far as it denies the worth and significance of its name, is gradually reaching a condition in which it will be so ripe for the second act of the judgment on the world, that this will be longed for as a benefit. For, this apostate Christendom will be the kingdom of Antichrist, as Antichrist will manifest himself in Satanic antagonism to God by sitting in the temple of God, and pretending to be God (2Th 2:3 sqq.). [We do not quite share all the sentiments expressed in this paragraph. We are far from being so despondent as to the prospects of Christendom, and think that there is a more obvious interpretation of the prophecy quoted from 2 Thess., than that indicated.D. M.].

10. On Isa 65:17. [If we had only the present passage to testify of new heavens and a new earth, we might say, as many good interpreters do, that the language is figurative, and indicates nothing more than a great moral and spiritual revolution. But we cannot thus explain 2Pe 3:10-13. The present earth and heavens shall pass away; (comp. Isa 51:6; Psa 102:25-26). But how can we suppose that our Prophet here refers to the new heavens and new earth, which are to succeed the destruction of the world by fire? In the verses that follow Isa 65:17, a condition of things is described which, although better than the present, is not so good as that perfectly sinless, blessed state of the redeemed, which we look for after the coming of the day of the Lord. Yet the Apostle Peter (2Pe 3:13) evidently regards the promise before us of new heavens and a new earth, as destined to receive its accomplishment after the conflagration which is to take place at the end of the world. If we had not respect to other Scriptures, and if we overlooked the use made by Peter of this passage, we should not take it literally. But we can take it literally, if we suppose that the Prophet brings together future events not according to their order in time. He sees the new heavens and new earth arise. Other scenes are disclosed to his prophetic eye of a grand and joy-inspiring nature. He announces them as future. But these scenes suppose the continued prevalence of death and labor (Isa 65:20 sqq.), which, we know from definite statements of Scripture, will not exist when the new heaven and new earth appear (comp. Rev 21:1-4). The proper view then of Isa 65:17 is to take its prediction literally, and to hold at the same time that in the following description (which is that of the millennium) future things are presented to us which are really prior, and not posterior to the promised complete renovation of heaven and earth. Nor should this surprise us, as Isaiah and the other Prophets place closely together in their pictures future things which belong to different times. They do not draw the line sharply between this world and the next. Compare Isaiahs prophecy of the abolition of death (Isa 25:8) in connection with other events that must happen long before that state of perfect blessedness.D. M.].

11. On Isa 65:20. [The extension of the Gospel every where,of its pure principles of temperance in eating and drinking, in restraining the passions, in producing calmness of mind, and in arresting war, would greatly lengthen out the life of man. The image here employed by the Prophet is more than mere poetry; it is one that is founded in reality, and is designed to convey most important truth. Barnes. D. M.].

12. On Isa 65:24. [It occurs to me that an erroneous application is frequently made of the promise, Before they call, etc. This declaration is made in connection with the glory and blessedness of the last days. It belongs specifically to the millennium. There are, indeed, occasions when God even now seems to act according to this law. (Comp. Dan 9:23). But Paul had to pray thrice before he received the answer of the Lord (2Co 12:8). Compare the parable of the importunate widow, Luk 18:1-7. The answer to prayer may be long delayed. This is not only taught in the Bible, but is verified in Christian experience. But the time will come when the Lord will not thus try and exercise the faith of His people.D. M.].

13. On Isa 65:25. If the lower animals live in hostility in consequence of the sin of man, a state of peace must be restored to them along with our redemption from sin. J. G. Mueller in Herz. R.-Encycl. xvi. p. 45. [By the serpent in this place there seems every reason to believe that Satan, the old seducer and author of discord and misery, is meant. During the millennium he is to be subject to the lowest degradation. Compare for the force of the phrase to lick the dust, Psa 72:9; Mic 7:17. This was the original doom of the tempter, Gen 3:14, and shall be fully carried into execution. Comp. Rev 20:1-3. Henderson. D. M.].

14. On Isa 66:1. [Having held up in every point of view the true design, mission and vocation of the church or chosen people, its relation to the natural descendants of Abraham, the causes which required that the latter should be stripped of their peculiar privileges, and the vocation of the Gentiles as a part of the divine plan from its origin, the Prophet now addresses the apostate and unbelieving Jews at the close of the old dispensation, who, instead of preparing for the general extension of the church and the exchange of ceremonial for spiritual worship, were engaged in the rebuilding and costly decoration of the temple at Jerusalem. The pride and interest in this great public work, felt not only by the Herods but by all the Jews, is clear from incidental statements of the Scriptures (Joh 2:20; Mat 24:1), as well as from the ample and direct assertions of Josephus. That the nation should have been thus occupied precisely at the time when the Messiah came, is one of those agreements between prophecy and history, which cannot be accounted for except upon the supposition of a providential and designed assimilation. Alexander after Vitringa. D. M.].

15. On Isa 66:1-2. What a grand view of the nature of God and of the way in which He is made known lies at the foundation of these words! God made all things. He is so great that it is an absurdity to desire to build a temple for Him. The whole universe cannot contain Him (1Ki 8:27)! But He, who contains all things and can be contained by nothing, has His greatest joy in a poor, humble human heart that fears Him. He holds it worthy of His regard, it pleases Him, He enters into it, He makes His abode in it. The wise and prudent men of science should learn hence what is chiefly necessary in order to know God. We cannot reach Him by applying force, by climbing up to Him, by attempting to take Him by storm. And if science should place ladder upon ladder upwards and downwards, she could not attain His height or His depth. But He enters of His own accord into a child-like, simple heart. He lets Himself be laid hold of by it, kept and known. It is not, therefore, by the intellect [alone] but by the heart that we can know God.

16. On Isa 66:3. He who under the Christian dispensation would retain the forms of worship of the ancient ritual of shadows would violate the fundamental laws of the new time, just as a man by killing would offend against the foundation of the moral law, or as he would by offering the blood of dogs or swine offend against the foundation of the ceremonial law. For when the body, the substance has appeared, the type must vanish. He who would retain the type along with the reality would declare the latter to be insufficient, would, therefore, found his salvation not upon God only, but also in part on his own legal performance. But God will brook no rival. He is either our All, or nothing. Christianity could tolerate animal sacrifices just as little as the Old Testament law could tolerate murder or the offering of abominable things.

17. On Isa 66:5. [The most malignant and cruel persecutions of the friends of God have been originated under the pretext of great zeal in His service, and with a professed desire to honor His name. So it was with the Jews when they crucified the Lord Jesus. So it is expressly said it would be when His disciples would be excommunicated and put to death, Joh 16:2. So it was in fact in the persecutions excited against the apostles and early Christians. See Act 6:13-14; Act 21:28-31. So it was in all the persecutions of the Waldenses, in all the horrors of the Inquisition, in all the crimes of the Duke of Alva. So it was in the bloody reign of Mary; and so it has ever been in all ages and in all countries where Christians have been persecuted. Barnes.D. M.].

18. On Isa 66:10. The idea which is presented in this verse is, that it is the duty of all who love Zion to sympathize in her joy. The true friends of God should rejoice in every real revival of religion, they should rejoice in all the success which attends the Gospel in heathen lands. And they will rejoice. It is one evidence of piety to rejoice in her joy; and they who have no joy when souls are born into the kingdom of God, when He pours down His Spirit and in a revival of religion produces changes as sudden and transforming as if the earth were suddenly to pass from the desolation of winter to the verdure and bloom of summer, or when the Gospel makes sudden and rapid advances in the heathen world, have no true evidence that they love God and His cause. They have no religion. Barnes.D. M.

19. On Isa 66:13. The Prophet is here completely governed by the idea that in the glorious time of the end, love, maternal love will reign. Thus He makes Zion appear as a mother who will bring forth with incredible ease and rapidity innumerable children (Isa 66:7-9). Then the Israelites are depicted as little children who suck the breasts of their mother. Further, the heathen who bring back the Israelites into their home, must do this in the same way in which mothers in the Orient are wont to carry their little children. Lastly, even to the Lord Himself maternal love is ascribed (comp. Isa 42:14; Isa 49:15), and such love as a mother manifests to her adult son. Thus the Israelites will be surrounded in that glorious time on all sides by maternal love. Maternal love will be the characteristic of that period.

20. On Isa 66:19 sqq. The Prophet describes remote things by words which are borrowed from the relations and conceptions of his own time, but which stand in strange contrast to the reality of the future which he beholds. Thus the Prophet speaks of escaped persons who go to Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan. Here he has rightly seen that a great act of judgment must have taken place. And this act of judgment must have passed on Israel, because they who escape, who go to the Gentiles to declare to them the glory of Jehovah, must plainly be Jews How accurately, in spite of the strange manner of expression, is the fact here stated that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed to the Gentiles exactly at the time when the old theocracy was destroyed! How justly does he indicate that there was a causal connection between these events! He did not, indeed, know that the shattering of the old form was necessary in order that the eternal truth enclosed in it might be set free, and fitted for filling the whole earth. For the Old Covenant cannot exist along with the New, the Law cannot stand with equal dignity beside the Gospel. The Law must be regarded as annulled, in order that the Gospel may come into force. How remarkably strange is it, however, that he calls the Gentile nations Tarshish, Pul, Lud, etc. And how singular it sounds to be told that the Israelites shall be brought by the Gentiles to Jerusalem as an offering for Jehovah! But how accurately has he, notwithstanding, stated the fact, which, indeed, still awaits its fulfilment, that it is the conversion of the heathen world which will induce Israel to acknowledge their Saviour, and that they both shall gather round the Lord as their common centre! How strange it sounds that then priests and Levites shall be taken from the Gentiles also, and that new moon and Sabbath shall be celebrated by all flesh in the old Jewish fashion! But how accurately is the truth thereby stated that in the New Covenant there will be no more the priesthood restricted to the family of Aaron, but a higher spiritual and universal priesthood, and that, instead of the limited local place of worship of the Old Covenant, the whole earth will be a temple of the Lord! Verily the prophecy of the two last chapters of Isaiah attests a genuine prophet of Jehovah. He cannot have been an anonymous unknown person. He can have been none other than Isaiah the son of Amoz!

HOMILETICAL HINTS

1. On Isa 65:1 sq. [I. It is here foretold that the Gentiles, who had been afar off, should be made nigh, Isa 65:1. II. It is here foretold that the Jews, who had long been a people near to God, should be cast off, and set at a distance, Isa 65:2. Henry, III. We are informed of the cause of the rejection of the Jews. It was owing to their rebellion, waywardness and flagrant provocations, Isa 65:2 sqq.D. M.]

2. On Isa 65:1-7. A Fast-Day Sermon. When the Evangelical Church no more holds fast what she has; when apostasy spreads more and more, and modern heathenism (Isa 65:3-5 a) gains the ascendency in her, then it can happen to her as it did to the people of Israel, and as it happened to the Church in the Orient. Her candlestick can be removed out of its place.[By the Evangelical Church we are not to understand here the Church universal, for her perpetuity is certain. The Evangelical Church is in Germany the Protestant Church, and more particularly the Lutheran branch of it.D. M.]

3. On Isa 65:8-10. Sermon on behalf of the mission among the Jews. Israels hope. 1) On what it is founded (Israel is still a berry in which drops of the divine blessing are contained); 2) To what this hope is directed (Israels Restoration).

4. On Isa 65:13-16. [The blessedness of those that serve God, and the woful condition of those that rebel against him, are here set the one over against the other, that they may serve as a foil to each other. The difference of their states here lies in two things: 1) In point of comfort and satisfaction, a. Gods servants shall eat and drink; they shall have the bread of life to feed, to feast upon continually, and shall want nothing that is good for them. But those who set their hearts upon the world, and place their happiness in it, shall be hungry and thirsty, always empty, always craving. In communion with God and dependence upon Him there is full satisfaction; but in sinful pursuits there is nothing but disappointment. b. Gods servants shall rejoice and sing for joy of heart; they have constant cause for joy, and there is nothing that may be an occasion of grief to them but they have an allay sufficient for it. But, on the other hand, they that forsake the Lord shut themselves out from all true joy, for they shall be ashamed of their vain confidence in themselves, and their own righteousness, and the hopes they had built thereon. When the expectations of bliss, wherewith they had flattered themselves, are frustrated, O what confusion will fill their faces! Then shall they cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit. 2) In point of honor and reputation, Isa 65:15-16. The memory of the just is, and shall be, blessed; but the memory of the wicked shall rot. Henry.D. M.]

5. On Isa 66:1-2. Carpzov has a sermon on this text. He places it in parallel with Luk 18:9-14, and considers, 1) The rejection of spiritual pride; 2) The commendation of filial fear.

6. On Isa 66:2 Arndt, in his True Christianity I. cap. 10, comments on this text. He says among other things: The man who will be something is the material out of which God makes nothing, yea, out of which He makes fools. But a man who will be nothing, and regards himself as nothing, is the material out of which God makes something, even glorious, wise people in His sight.

7. On Isa 66:3. [Saurin has a sermon on this text entitled Sur l Insuffisance du culte exterieur in the eighth volume of his sermons.D. M.]

8. On Isa 66:13. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. These words stand, let us consider it, 1) In the Old Testament; 2) In the heart of God always; 3) But are they realized in our experience? Koegel in Aus dem Vorhof ins Heiligthum, II. Bd., p. 242, 1876.

9. On Isa 66:24. The punishment of sin is twofoldinward and outward. The inward is compared with a worm that dies not; the outward with a fire that is not quenched. This worm and this fire are at work even in this life. He who is alarmed by them and hastens to Christ can now be delivered from them.[It is better not to fall into this fire and never to have any experience of this worm, even though, as some imagine, eternity should not be eternal, and the unquenchable fire might be quenched, and the worm that shall never die, should die, and Jesus and His apostles should not have expressed themselves quite in accordance with the compassionate taste of our time. Better, I say, is better. Save thyself and thy neighbor before the fire begins to burn, and the smoke to ascend. Gossner.D. M.]

Footnotes:

[1]Heb. upon bricks,

[2]secret places.

[3]their dishes are a mixture of abominations.

[4]Or, pieces.

[5]1 am holy to thee.

[6]Or, anger.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

We have here much, yea very much of Christ, and they who would read this Chapter profitably, here need of much of the Spirit of Christ to instruct them in it. Jesus, in the person of his servant the Prophet, in speaking of the call of the Gentiles, and of the sad obstinacy of the Jews. Towards the close of the Chapter we have a cluster of the richest gospel promises.

Isa 65:1

We have abundant cause to bless God the Holy Ghost, that he would not leave the Church to her own conjectures, concerning the person to whom this scripture referred, and by whom, under the spirit of prophecy, it was spoken; but by his servant, the Apostle Paul, hath opened to us the glories and graces of the Lord Jesus as folded up in it, and thereby he hath handed to us as it were a key to unlock the blessed contents of the whole Chapter; See Rom 10 throughout. Hence we are authorized to draw this conclusion, that it is Christ, and not Isaiah who was found by poor Gentiles, who in a state of nature could never have known Jesus, nor have asked for him. Oh! the riches of preventing grace! Reader! well may you and I rejoice in the consolation, who were not called by Jesus’s name; Eph 2:11-22 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Church a Blessing in the World

Isa 65:8

As a rule, the pious and good are of little value in the eyes of the world, and are despised often as foolish and ‘narrow’ men. The ‘religious public’ is spoken of contemptuously and scornfully. But God’s judgment is a different one. It is the judgment that Abraham recognized when he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of even (at length) ten righteous persons. It is the judgment of the text. The vinedresser is about to hew down the unfruitful tree, but espies a rich cluster in one part, and it is spared, and so orders are given that it shall be spared. Thus is the world itself indebted for its preservation to the ‘cluster’ of the righteous. The Church is the ‘blessing’ in the world. ‘Ye are the salt of, the earth.’ The text teaches us:

I. Why God’s Judgment on the World is Restrained. 1. Because He is a righteous God, Who will not destroy the guiltless with the guilty (Gen 18:25 ). Rather will He remove the righteous from the world or save them from the danger (as Noah, Lot, Isaiah from the Babylonian exile, etc.).

2. Because He is a merciful God, Who must hear the prayers and petitions of His children and let Himself be entreated (Eze 22:30 ). As a rule, we think too little of the power of prayer. If we only knew what a power it possesses and how it avails with God, we should knock at the door of heaven until heaven itself resounded (Psa 50:14-15 ; St. Mat 7:7 ; Mat 7:18-20 ; Abraham, Jacob, David, Elias).

3. Because He is a wise God, Who has certain great purposes to fulfil, and proceeds with calm leisure to carry them out in His own way. He desires that none should perish, and He sets before the evil the example of the pious for their salvation. How many a trifling mind has been made serious by a single casually spoken word of the good? How many a home has been blessed because a pious Joseph is in it? How many a house prospered like the house of Obed-edom because of the ark of God? How many cities and lands are spared because of a ‘cluster’ of the good and holy in it? The land of Israel is not utterly corrupt, destroyed, and degenerate while there are the seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal life in the very midst of putrefaction. The influence of pious men will be seen in eternity, if it is lightly esteemed here. There are great names in the world, artists, poets, sculptors, statesmen, princes, who have done great things, broken up new paths, provided bread for thousands; but what are these to ‘the blessing’ which Moses gave mankind in his law, David by his Psalms, St. Paul by his letters, Thomas Kempis by his ‘De Imitatione Christi,’ Bunyan by his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ Charles Wesley by his ‘Hymnology?’ Truly a blessing is in it, this poor degenerate humanity. The text equally teaches us:

II. Why God’s Judgment on Individual Sinners is Restrained. ‘ Wherefore do the wicked live?’ As long as there is a spark of good left, He will not quench it in anger, if it be even natural goodness, uprightness, like that of Nathanael, ‘in whom there was no guile’; benevolence, as in Cornelius, ‘thine alms are come up as a memorial before God’. He recognizes it, does not overlook it, fans it to a flame. And so the great Daysman, the Vinedresser, says, ‘Spare it; there is a blessing in it’. The man is not all degenerate, his heart not all rottenness.

1. What an infinite mercy! We should long ago have given up the fickle, unfaithful man, but not so the mercy of our great God.

2. What a comfort! If we can only discern a spark in the ashes of our sinful hearts, a fire may yet be enkindled. Deal not rashly with yourself. Do not despair. There is a blessing in it.

3. What a warning! Not to judge harshly of our fellow-men, nor to condemn them as long as our Lord will hear them, and says, ‘There is a blessing in it’. This may also teach us charity towards those who have for various reasons split up the Catholic Church of God into sects, parties, and denominations. So long as the fundamental truths are not cast aside, it is not all bad, though greatly to be deplored. There is a ‘blessing in it,’ some good in each.

References. LXV. 8. J. C. Miller, Disestablishment, p. 5. H. Hensley Henson, Christ and the Nation, p. 17. LXV. 16. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah XLIX.-LXVI. p. 237. LXV. 17-19. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No. 2211.

On Keeping Young and Getting Old (Sunday School Anniversary)

Isa 65:20

I. You cannot quite see how a child can die a hundred years old. No, but it is possible for a man with a great weight of years to live and die just as hopefully and happily as a child lives. It is possible to have a very old body and a very young heart; and it is just as possible to be only thirty or forty years old, and yet to be as weary, and sad, and heavy-hearted, and gloomy-hearted, as if you were tottering down to the grave with a hundred winters on your shoulders.

II. A real Christian calls himself a child of God. It is no empty figure of speech. He is a child of God, and feels it. He is ever learning like a child, and he is as trustful as a child, and as restful; and he looks forward to a bigger life, and dreams beautiful dreams and his heart sometimes dances for joy, though his feet have not much spring and movement left in them. I tell you it is not the calendar and the birthday book that determine your age. It is the soul within, and the eyes you look out with, and the mind that thinks, and the heart that feels. It is health that makes young blood, not mere health of body, but health of spirit, health of temper, health of affection. A bad life, as this Prophet says, comes to bear the weight and weariness of a hundred years upon it.

III. There are three things in a child which makes child-life happy and beautiful faith, hope, and love. Faith in God, mother, friends, and all men. Hope of tomorrow, hope for the years which are coming, hope of the better things which lie beyond; and love: the joy of loving, and the joy of being loved. There you have all the best things in a child’s life. And these three things are in the life of every good man and woman. Certainly they are in the life of every Christian. They never leave him however long he lives. They are with him through all life’s rough scenes. They are with him on his dying bed. Now abideth these three faith, hope, and charity.

J. G. Greenhough, Christian Festivals and Anniversaries, p. 150.

References. LXV. 22. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, vol. i. p. 275. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii. p. 185. LXV. 24. ” Plain Sermons “by contributors to the Tracts for the Times, vol. x. p. 208. LXVI. 1, 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1083. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p. 57. A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 74. LXVI. 2. Spurgeon Sermons, vol. xxxv. No. 2071. LXVI. 8. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxix. 1906, p. 328. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No. 1009. LXVI. 10. Ibid. vol. xxxv. No. 2085. LXVI. 11. J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (3rd Series), p. 45. LXVI. 13. P. M. Strayer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx.. 1901, p. 39. S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 1. J. T. Stannard, The Divine Humanity, p. 1. LXVI. 13. T. Gasquoine, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvii. 1890, p. 157. LXVI. 21. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No. 992. J. Keble, Sermons for Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 332.

The Prayers of the Saints

Isa 65:24

All through the great ages of the Christian Church the people of God have been a people of prayer. They have had their faults, they have had their grievous inconsistencies, but, throughout, they have clung to the Throne of Grace, and, with all the differences which divide good and Christian people of the Church of God Today, the true men of Christ are men of prayer. The first evidence that a man shows in his life that there is a work of grace in his heart is his desire to pray. When St. Paul’s heart was opened, St. Paul’s lips were opened too, and somebody said at once, ‘Behold, he prayeth’.

I. The measure of our real religion is the measure of our prayer-life, and no less the measure of our love to Christ is the frequency, the earnestness, the heartiness with which we come to God in prayer, because, depend upon it, what we really are before God is what we are when nobody is with us but Himself. Is it not a very lamentable thing to know how often there is a spirit of great earnestness in the public gathering, and yet that we go home to sometimes a very slight and slender approach to God in secret prayer? We catch the spirit of the day, and the spirit of the place, and the spirit of the people, and we seem to be in earnest, and we are; but how often we go home to a comparatively neglected Mercy-seat, and to an unknown God! Gauge your religious life by the earnestness and the heartiness and the warmth of your secret addresses to God.

II. The praying Christian is, above all, the Christian that grows and the Christian that thrives. It is so in the material life. The material life is built up not half so much, we should say, by the food which we eat, as by the atmosphere that we breathe The conditions of health are not only good food and pure water, but they are sweet air as well. And the soul that lives, and moves, and speaks, and thinks, and acts with a very distinct and definite sense of the Divine nearness is a thriving one and a growing one. There is feebleness and sickliness in the souls and the spiritual lives of those who are neglecting the secret Throne, but the breezes of heaven are blowing on those who are, again and again, kneeling at its Court.

III. Then the third thing is this. A praying Christian is the Christian who gets the most from God. The praying Christian is the Christian who gets everything from God. How is it that this is so? Because he goes where everything is; that is the reason, and no other. He goes to the Throne of Grace, where is the residue of grace. He goes to the very seat over which Jesus Christ not lingers but permanently sits, and Jesus Christ shows to those who come to Him in secret prayer what, otherwise, the world cannot see. The greatest trophies of the Christian soul that have ever been taken have been taken on the field of prayer. I believe with all my heart, that whether a prayer is answered, or whether it is unanswered, it is impossible for a Christian to syllable one single prayer without that prayer bringing in some way a blessing to his own soul. Some of our prayers seem to go a very long voyage, but they are not lost at sea, and it may happen that the prayer that is latest in port may, after all, be richest in blessing.

Let me offer three or four suggestions in reference to secret prayer.

1. First of all in prayer be careful that you have a cleansed conscience.

2. And, secondly, let there be a felt need. You cannot express a thing till you feel a need. We kneel down to pray, sometimes because it is the time to pray, or the place to pray, or the hour of prayer, not because we have a real urgent need that makes us importunate before God, and we feel we must speak to Him. Get a sense of need, and if you have not one, tell the Master so, and He will give it you, and you will find that the sense of need is a means of grace.

3. And then, thirdly, disentangle yourselves, if you can it is difficult to do so sometimes disentangle yourselves from the things that hinder you. The Apostle speaks of ‘hindered prayers’. He says: ‘That your prayers be not hindered’. They are hindered, perhaps, by their wretched coldness, perhaps by their want of faith, perhaps by their want of believing reverence to Jesus. Sometimes we hinder our own prayers by not being conformed to the Will of God because, if we are not willing to do the Will of God, how is it to be expected that He will trouble to do our will?

4. And then remember, fourthly, that prayer is not only an act, but a state and a spirit. God, I daresay, loves the act of prayer, but He likes the spirit of prayer better, because an isolated act of prayer on your own part or on mine may be absolutely unworthy.

5. And, lastly, remember that in the midst of all your weakness and infirmities, you have the power of God’s Spirit to help you, if you will only ask for it. It is difficult to pray without the Spirit; it is drudgery. If we come pleading the merit, the mediation, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and trusting to the Spirit to help our infirmity, then depend upon it, again and again, in your believing experience, you shall know the truth of these glorious words and promise of the text: ‘It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear’.

6. Learn to be definite. Generalities are the death of prayer, and they will kill the spirit of it. Learn to be thankful, because the way to get new blessings is to be thankful for old ones. Learn to trust, because God is worthy of our confidence. Learn to persevere, because God has plenty of time, and what He does not give Today He may give tomorrow. And learn to wait, because oftentimes the richest fruit is that which comes latest in the autumn. To such souls He graciously says, as He did to the humble suppliant who came to Him of old, ‘Be it unto thee even as thou wilt’.

Isa 65:24-25

This text was quoted by Henry Venn in the last report he drew up for the Church Missionary Society. He pointed out that ‘one of the richest promises of answer to prayer is given in immediate connexion with the full establishment of Christ’s kingdom’.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

XXVII

THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH

The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.

Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.

In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.

In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.

In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.

The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.

In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.

In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.

In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.

In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).

The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7

In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:

1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.

2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.

3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:

According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .

In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.

In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.

In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”

In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”

The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.

The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.

In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”

In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”

Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .

The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”

So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?

In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”

The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”

The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23

QUESTIONS

1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?

2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?

3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?

4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?

5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?

6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?

7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?

8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?

9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?

10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?

11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?

12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?

13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?

14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?

15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?

16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?

17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?

18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?

19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?

20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?

21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?

22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?

23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?

24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?

25. Where is the great invitation and promise?

26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?

27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?

28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?

29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?

30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?

31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

XXVI

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 18

Isaiah 63:7-66:34

The general theme of this last section of the book of Isaiah is the divine principle of discrimination. More particularly, the items of this theme are penitent Israel’s prayer, Jehovah’s response, and the fixing of final destinies.

This section opens with the prophet’s recounting of the mercies of Jehovah. In the distant past the Lord had pity on Israel and bore his people in his arms. The elements of his compassion are here mentioned as loving-kindness, great goodness, mercies, sympathy, love, and pity, the expression of which is realized in his salvation, deliverance, redemption, and support. All these terms are strong and significant of the relation Jehovah sustained to his people in the past. This is a most excellent way to stimulate in a people the spirit of prayer. The people had rebelled at Sinai in the incident of the golden calf, at Taberah they murmured, at Shittim in the case of the daughters of Moab, in the time of the Judges, in Samuel’s time, the ten tribes under Jeroboam, and Judah under Manasseh, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Thus Jacob was a rebellious people.

The results of this rebellion and the effect on the people were tremendous. This rebellion on the part of God’s people (1) grieved his Holy Spirit, (2) caused him to turn to be their enemy, and (3) made him to fight against them. When the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the people and Jehovah began to fight against them, they were set to questioning thus: Where is the God that brought us up out of Egypt? Where is he that put his Holy Spirit in our midst? and so on (Isa 63:11-14 ). This reminds us of the dear old hymn that runs thus: Where is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and his word? The prophet here is going back to their glorious experience with the Lord and in so doing he is kindling in them the spirit of prayer and supplication which finds expression in the following paragraphs.

The elements of prayer in Isa 63:15-19 are striking. In this excellent and pious prayer in which they entreat God, for his grace and mercy, to behold them with an eye of compassion, they argue both from the goodness of his nature, and from the greatness of the works which he had formerly done for them. God sees everywhere and everything, but he is said to look down from heaven, because there is his throne, whereon he reigns in majesty. This is a plea for Jehovah’s condescension, followed by a complaint that God had relaxed in his zeal for them and had restrained his compassion toward them. Then they plead his fatherhood and his redemption from everlasting, following it up with a complaint of his judgment of judicial hardness of heart, and a lamentation for the desolation of their own land and their forsaken condition in a strange land.

This prayer is continued (Isa 64:1-7 ) in an expression of an earnest wish that God would show himself as visibly in favor of his ancient people as he did when he came down upon Mount Sinai, amidst thunder, and lightning, and tempests, which shook heaven and earth, and testified his presence. They plead what God had formerly done, and was always ready to do for his people. Then they confessed themselves to be sinful and utterly unworthy of God’s favor, and that they had deserved the judgments under which they were now suffering. Note that there are three emphatic “alls” in his confession “All unclean,” “ all our righteousness” and “we all do fade as a leaf.” They were all morally unclean; a moral leprosy was upon them. They were like a leprous man who had to rend his clothes and go about crying, “Unclean! unclean!” They were like one under a ceremonial pollution and not admitted to the courts of the tabernacle. All their righteousnesses were as filthy rags, rags which would only defile. This is true when considering the very best works and actions that can be performed by the very best of mankind, for all our works have so great an alloy of imperfection that they cannot justify us before a just and holy God. They were all like a fading and falling leaf, but Leaves have had their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath, And stars to set; but all Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death.

The final plea of this prayer (Isa 64:8-12 ) is threefold: (1) They again plead the fatherhood of God who had made them as a potter makes the vessel out of the clay; (2) his holy cities, Zion and Jerusalem, were a wilderness and a desolation; (3) their holy and beautiful house was burned with fire and all their pleasant places were a waste. They urged that these things should move Jehovah in pity and compassion to interfere in their behalf.

The special theme of Isaiah 65-66 is Jehovah’s response to the prayers and confessions of penitent Israel. In the most restricted sense, this is an answer of Jehovah to the preceding confession and prayer. It is the close of the great prophecy of the Servant who is to glorify Jehovah on earth and to finish the work given him to do. It is also a winding up of Isaiah’s ministry.

The first response to these prayers is a sharp discrimination between the faithful and unfaithful, a contrast in the hopes of the faithful and the unfaithful, a contrast in the hopes of acceptably approaching Jehovah cherished by the two parties: those who find him had not been called by his name; whereas Israel in the mass are cast off through their own sinfulness (Isa 65:1-7 ).

In Isa 65:1-2 we have the ones who find Jehovah and the ones who fail to find him. Here he is represented as hastening to assist and welcome a people that was not called by his name. This refers to the Gentiles, the proof of which is found in Rom 10:20-21 . These words of Isaiah certainly include the Gentiles, as he had included them in Isa 56:7 , in which he said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” On the other hand he spread out his hands to a rebellious people, which, as Paul construes it, refers to Israel who rejected Christ.

The details of their rebelliousness (Isa 65:3-5 ) are stated, in general, as provoking Jehovah to his face, and are specified as follows:

1. Sacrificing in gardens, i.e., the groves and gardens of Palestine in which they worshiped Astarte. The profligacy of these rites cannot be described.

2. Burning incense upon bricks, i.e., upon the tiled or bricked roofs of houses, which was directly contrary to the Mosaic Law.

3. Sitting among the graves, i.e., the rock tombs of Palestine, for the purpose of raising the dead, or of obtaining prophecies from them, or of getting prophetic intimations made to them in dreams.

4. Lodging in the secret places, i.e., in the Crypts, for the mysteries celebrated in the natural caves and artificial crypts.

5. Eating swine’s flesh, i.e., as a part of the sacrificial meals.

6. Eating broth of abominable things, i.e., from the flesh of unclean or unlawful animals.

7. They said, “Stand by yourself; I am holier than thou.” This was self-conceit and hypocrisy.

The votaries of these abominations are described as smoke in the Lord’s nose, and a fire that burns continually. They were objects of his wrath and should receive the measure of their work into their own bosom.

The contrast in Isa 65:8-12 , or the second item of Jehovah’s response, is a contrast in their character and in their notions of God. In Israel there is a precious seed, or kernel, which shall be preserved, whereas the doings of the idolaters shall return upon their own heads.

But what is the meaning of “inheritor of my mountains,” (Isa 65:9 ) ? The whole of Palestine is little more than a cluster of mountains, which may be divided into three groups: (1) the mountains of Galilee, extending from Hermon to Tabor; (2) the mountains of Samaria and Judea, extending from Carmel and Gilboa to the plateau of Mamre above Hebron, separated from the first group by the plain of Esdraelon; (3) the mountains of the trans-Jordanic region, including those of Bashan, Gilead, Moab, and Edom, separated from the two other groups by the Jordan Valley. The inheritor of this whole region of Palestine was to be the true Israel of God.

Then what the meaning of “Fortune” and “Destiny” in Isa 65:11 , and what the application here? These are heathen deities for whom Israel prepared viands and poured out a drink offering, respectively. The prophet here makes a play upon the word, “destiny,” saying, “I will destine you to the sword,” and then assigns the reason, viz: that he called but they did not answer.

The third item of Jehovah’s response (Isa 65:13-16 ) is a contrast in results. The promised blessings are more than realized to the one, whereas the other has a corresponding disappointment. The first paragraph is introduced by the word “therefore,” which connects back with the thought of their ‘rejecting the call of Jehovah. The thought, as carried on in this paragraph, is the supply of good things for his servants while those who reject the call shall hunger and thirst. The servants shall rejoice, while they are put to shame. The servants shall sing for joy of heart, while they shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall wail for vexation of spirit. They shall leave their name for a curse unto God’s people. They will be slain by the Lord, while the servants receive a new name. “So that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth.” All this is now being realized. The prophet starts with the call from the captivity which many of them did not have the heart to hear and suffered many privations among the nations as the consequence, but the deeper meaning is their spiritual privation which the Jews have suffered for these many centuries since they rejected the salvation offered to them. Their name is a curse to every Jew today, as the Jews are hated and persecuted in all lands.

The phrase, “the God of truth,” in Isa 65:16 should be translated, “the God of the Amen,” which is a unique epithet. The explanation of it is found in the New Testament passages (2Co 1:20 ; Rev 3:14 ). This means the God of the covenant; the God, to whom that quality of covenant keeping truth essentially belongs, is he in whom all shall “bless themselves” or “shall be blessed.” The seed of Abraham and the seed of David are to be identified with this God of truth, a mystery completely realized in him who is “the Amen, the faithful, and true witness” of Rev 3:14 . In him “all the promises of God are . . . Amen.” In his person God and man were joined in an immutable covenant of peace. To the curse pronounced upon everyone that violates God’s law, he said, “Amen,” upon the cross. To the blessings guaranteed to all nations by God’s promises to Abraham and David, he said, “Amen,” when he rose from the dead to “live for evermore” (Rev 1:18 ). When the time shall come in which men shall call themselves by the name of the Lord and know only one God as the source of blessing in Christ Jesus, then the former state of human affairs, with all its “troubles” will have passed away, and the new era will be inaugurated, which is abundantly described in the next paragraph.

The prophetic picture in Isa 65:17-25 is an ideal picture of the overflowing blessings in the messianic age extending into the millennium. In some respects this picture corresponds to John’s picture of the holy city in Revelation, but they cannot be identical, since death and sin are not banished from Isaiah’s new Jerusalem. In this ideal state the heavens and the earth are new; there will be rejoicing, but no weeping and crying. Death shall be there but the longevity of the patriarchal times will be restored. There shall be such prosperity as they never saw in the land of Canaan. Then prayer and its answer are simultaneous, and heaven and earth are closer together than ever before since sin entered the world. The enmity in the animal creation caused by sin will be removed. The wolf and the lamb shall feed as one, and the full curse of sin shall fall upon the serpent whose food shall be dust. Nothing shall hurt nor destroy in the Holy Mountain of the Lord. This picture makes one think of paradise regained, but it does not reach the complete ideal. John carried much of the symbolism here into his picture of paradise regained, but he saw the Holy City in its state of perfection, with no death, no sin, no tears, no sea, and with the glory of all the nations brought into it.

The fourth item of Jehovah’s response to penitent Israel’s prayer (Isa 66:1-4 ) is a contrast in the ideas and methods of approach to Jehovah. In the new order of things (Isa 66:1-2 ) Jehovah will operate the affairs of his kingdom from his throne in heaven and will not need the old temple for his resting place. But his new temple will be a spiritual house and the man to whom he will look will not be one after the Jewish ritual but the poor and contrite in spirit. This looks very much like the beatitudes of our Lord, which set forth the true characteristics of the citizens of his kingdom.

But what is the import of Isa 66:3-4 ? This relates to the sacrifices in the new order of things. The man that offers an ox will be in God’s sight as if he sacrificed a man, and he that offers a lamb as if he sacrificed a dog. “He that offereth an oblation, as he that offereth swine’s blood; he that burneth frankincense, as he that blesseth an idol.” Then follows a graphic description of the state of the Jews in their delusion. The Jews are now holding on to the old ritual and the Catholics would put the whole of Christendom back under the types and shadows by their system of ritualism. What the prophet here labors to show, the apostle Paul elaborates in his letters to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to the Hebrews. The Jews are under this delusion today and in judicial blindness because they did not heed the call of God through the Messiah.

The fifth response of Jehovah to these prayers (Isa 66:5-6 ) is a contrast between the love and favor shown by Jehovah to his people, and the hatred toward them, cherished by the ungodly Israelites.

The short passage announces that the true Israel will be hated and persecuted by Israel after the flesh. These Jews in their zeal for Jehovah’s cause will persecute the righteous, but they shall be put to shame, for Jehovah is keeping watch over his own and recompenses their enemies. All this was fulfilled in the early history of Christianity and God’s judgment on the Jews.

In Isa 66:7-9 we have distinctly, the conversion of the Jews as a nation which ushers in the millennium. This is the nation born in a day. It is this restoration that Ezekiel speaks of in Eze 37 , and Zechariah in Zec 14:1-8 , and Paul in Rom 11:11-15 , and the period here introduced corresponds to the millennium of Rev 20:1-6 .

The sixth response of Jehovah to the penitent prayer of Israel is a command to all who love Jerusalem to rejoice that she is extended and enriched (Isa 66:10-14 ). There are two tender expressions in this paragraph relative to Jerusalem, viz: (1) “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream.” (2) “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.”

These two blessings here are the thoughts of peace and comfort: peace like a river, and comfort like a mother’s love. The added thought of the glory of the nations flowing into it is worthy of note. This is to be the center of all that is beautiful and glorious and John carrying this idea over into his description of the New Jerusalem, says, “And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it . . . and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.”

The seventh item of Jehovah’s response to their prayers is the announcement of the final work of Jehovah, universal and everlasting, glorifying his people, and judging his and their enemies.

The judgment of Isa 66:15-17 is the final judgment at his coming after the millennium, in which all the nations are gathered and his fiery judgment is executed upon the abominable of the earth, and the thought is carried on in Isa 66:18-21 . There is the happy issue of the judgment on the righteous, as in Mat 25:31-40 .

The final picture of the book (Isa 66:22-24 ) shows us the final habitat of the righteous, who will occupy the “New Earth” forever, and the eternal destruction of the wicked, whose “worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”

QUESTIONS

1. What are the general theme of this last section of the book of Isaiah?

2. What more particularly the items of this theme?

3. How does this section open and what the contents of Isa 63:7-9 ?

4. What had the people done and when?

5. What are the results of this rebellion and what the effect on the people?

6. What are the elements of prayer in Isa 63:15-19 ?

7. How is this prayer continued in Isa 64:1-7 ?

8. What the final plea of this prayer (Isa 64:8-12 )?

9. What is the special theme of Isaiah 64-66?

10. What is the first item of this response?

11. Who are the ones who find Jehovah and the ones who fail to find him (Isa 64:1-2 )?

12. What are the details of their rebelliousness (Isa 64:3-5 )?

13. How are these abominations characterized by Jehovah?

14. What is the contrast in Isa 65:8-12 , or the second item of Jehovah’s response?

15. What is the meaning of “inheritor of my mountains” (Isa 65:9 )?

16. What is the meaning of “fortune” and “destiny” in Isa 65:11 , and what is the application here?

17. What is the third item of Jehovah’s response, how does the first paragraph (Isa 65:13-16 ) carry on this thought and when are the prophecies therein fulfilled?

18. What is the meaning and application of “the God of truth” in Isa 65:16 ?

19. What is the prophetic picture in Isa 65:17-25 and what the fulfilment?

20. What is the fourth item of this response to penitent Israel’s prayer (Isa 66:1-4 )?

21. What is the import of Isa 66:1-2 ?

22. What is the import of Isa 66:3-4 ?

23. What is the fifth response of Jehovah to these prayers (Isa 66:5 )?

24. What is the import of Isa 66:5-6 ?

25. What is the import of Isa 66:7-9 ?

26. What is the sixth response of Jehovah to the penitent prayer of Israel?

27. What are two tender expressions in this paragraph relative to Jerusalem?

28. What is the seventh item of Jehovah’s response to their prayers?

29. What is the judgment of Isa 66:15-17 ?

30. How is the thought carried on in Isa 66:8-21 ?

31. What is the final picture of the book (Isa 66:22-24 )?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Isa 65:1 I am sought of [them that] asked not [for me]; I am found of [them that] sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation [that] was not called by my name.

Ver. 1. I am sought of them that asked not for me. ] I am sought – that is, I am found, a as Ecc 3:6 or, I am sought to by those that asked not of me – viz., by the Gentiles, who knew me not, inquired not of me. See Rom 10:20-21 , where the apostle, than whom we cannot have a better interpreter, expoundeth this verse of the calling of the Gentiles, and the next verse, of the rejection of the Jews. And herein “Esaias was very bold,” saith St Paul; so bold, say Origen and others, that for this cause, among others, he was sawn asunder by his unworthy countrymen. See on Isa 1:10 .

I am found of them that sought me not. ] The first act of our conversion then, the infusion of the sap, is of God; our will prevents it not, but follows it. See 2Co 3:5 Rom 8:7 Joh 6:44 1Co 12:3 Deu 29:3-4 Psa 36:10 . Note this against the patrons of nature, freewill men, Papists especially, who not only ascribe the beginning of salvation to themselves, in co-working with God in their first conversion, but also the end and the accomplishment of it, by works of condignity, meritorious of eternal life.

I said, Behold me, behold me. ] We are not easily aroused out of that dead lethargy into which sin and Satan hath cast us; hence this “Lo I, lo I.” And here we have both God’s answer to the Church’s prayer, Isa 64:12 and the scope of the whole book, as Oecolampadius observeth, set down in the perclose – viz., the coming in of the Gentiles, and the casting off of the Jews for their many and mighty sins. Amo 5:12

a Piscat.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isaiah Chapter 65

This chapter begins the answer of Jehovah to the appeal of His people, in which He explains not only what is now an accomplished fact, but also what still goes on. “I am sought out of [them that] asked not [for me]; I am found of [them that] sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation [that] was not called by my name. I have stretched out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, who walk in a way [that was] not good, after their own thoughts” (vv. 1, 2). The last two verses of Rom 10 . leave no ground for hesitation as to their bearing. They furnish an inspired comment on our opening verses, and prove beyond controversy that the first intimates the call of the Gentiles which is now proceeding, as the second is the aggrieved witness on God’s part of that which gave occasion to their call – the rebelliousness of His ancient people Israel. It is an enemy’s work to slight the New Testament use of the passage, as is done by rationalists in order to limit the prophecy to the Jews of the times before and after the Babylonish captivity. Besides, what can be more inconsistent with the evident contrast at the same epoch between verses 1 and 2? The inspired application we might never, unaided, have discovered; but, once made, it approves itself to the spiritual understanding as exactly tallying with notorious facts.

Grace is sovereign and goes out now to those who never so much as looked for it – to the ungodly Gentiles who had till now stood in no recognised relationship with God. But in turning from Israel God was entirely justified by their iniquities: after all their advantages, His name had been blasphemed among the Gentiles through the chosen people. Most gracious was He then in calling from among the Gentiles; most righteous in discarding the Jew. This Jehovah proceeds to prove by a detail of Israel’s insulting wickedness in verses 3-5: “The people that provoke me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense upon the bricks; who sit down among the graves, and lodge in the secret places, who eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable [things is in] their vessels; who say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These [are] a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.”

It has been objected by some that these idolatries and superstitions, covered over with hypocritical affectation of holiness, did not occur after the return from Babylon. But we must not forget that the Holy Ghost in prophecy deals with the evils then existing or in progress, the judgement of which was not met by providential chastisement, such as the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar. Just as the idolatry of the wilderness was only checked from time to time, but not judged duly till the nation was carried into captivity beyond Damascus (Amo 5:27 ); so these evil ways which Isaiah describes did not meet with adequate condemnation till God turned the stream of His calling into other channels. The principle indeed is fully confirmed by the use our Lord (Mat 13:14 , Mat 13:15 ) and the Spirit (Act 28:25-27 ) make of Isa 6:9 , Isa 6:10 . The judicial sentence so long suspended from the days of the prophet only fell adequately in gospel times. It is just so here. Also we must bear in mind what we have seen already, that idolatry is to revive in the latter days, when the Jews settle themselves in their land before the Lord appears, judging the evil and establishing the good in order to His millennial reign.

One cannot but think too that the closing words of this divine censure intimate the long patience of God; so that, flatter themselves as they might that He like themselves did not heed the character of their misdeeds, judgement would at length demonstrate that, however loath to break silence, He will recompense the iniquities of both fathers and children. “Behold, [it is] written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith Jehovah, who have burned incense upon the mountains, and outraged me upon the hills: I will measure their former work into their bosom” (vv. 6, 7).

Thus might seem to threaten total and hopeless ruin to the ancient people. But no: God had promised; and the unfaithfulness of the people, however surely judged, cannot make void the promises of grace. Hence in verses 8-10 God proceeds to make known, not the bringing in of the Gentiles during Israel’s temporary excision from the olive-tree of promise and testimony on earth, but the reservation of a portion, the germ of a nation, blessed and a blessing, from Jacob and Judah, according to His early pledges to their fathers. “Thus saith Jehovah, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and it is said, Destroy it not; for a blessing [is] in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy [them] all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah a possessor of my mountains; and my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. And the Sharon shall be for a fold of flocks and the valley of Achor a couching-place of herds, for my people that have sought me.” His chosen, the remnant, are here definitely distinguished from the rest of the people, or “the many” as Daniel describes them in speaking of the same time.

Then in vers. 11-16 Jehovah contrasts the apostates and the elect of the people, the idol-worshippers and His own servants, with their respective destinies. “But ye that forsake Jehovah, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for Gad,* and fill up mixed wine unto Meni,* I will even number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down in the slaughter: because I called and ye did not answer; I spoke, and ye did not hear; but ye did the evil in mine eyes, and [that] wherein I delight not ye chose. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord Jehovah will slay thee, and call his servants by another name: so that he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles shall be forgotten, and because they shall be hid from mine eyes” (vv. 11-16). The old evil will be judged at the close; just as inquisition for all righteous blood shed will then be made. It is a time of judgement which ushers in days of unparalleled enjoyment for this earth: that is, it is the end of this age and the dawn of a new one when former troubles are forgotten. Yet in ver. 16 “the land” may be meant rather than the wider sense of “earth.”

*These idolatrous objects have been contested not a little, some arguing for Baal and Ashtoreth, or Sun and Moon, others for the planets Jupiter and Venus as others again for Chance and Fate. Gad means troop, and Meni number.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever [in that] which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice over Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying” (vv. 17-19). The true key to this is that the predicted change from present things begins at the commencement of the day of the Lord, and is only complete before that day gives place to eternity. This alone, as is plainly revealed, will be found to reconcile all the scriptures which treat of the subject. So in Christ the Christian can even now say that “old things are passed away: behold all things are become new”; while in fact this will only be literally verified when he is changed into His image at His coming. Just so the beginning of the day of the Lord will be an incipient accomplishment of “new heavens and a new earthy when Jehovah creates Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy; but the absolute fulfilment awaits the close of the millennial day, when to the fullest all things shall be made new, the earth and heavens that are now being not shaken only but dissolved, the sea for ever gone, and a new heaven and a new earth appearing, wherein righteousness shall dwell, and God shall be all in all. The New Testament naturally dwells on the full issue ultimately involved in the prophecy, as we may see in 2Pe 3:12 , 2Pe 3:13 , and in Rev 21:1-8 . But the Jewish prophet, as naturally, was led of the Spirit to dwell on the earliest pledge of this blessing in its dawn on the land and capital and people of Israel.

That Isaiah does embrace this earlier phase as bearing on the Jews and Jerusalem will be manifest to every attentive reader. For the entire description here suits the millennium rather than eternity. The special place of Jerusalem and her people has been already pointed out. Now this of itself suffices to prove it; for though the new Jerusalem possesses an abiding character of special glory, the New Testament is explicit that on the new earth all such distinctions as an earthly city or people melt away for eternity.

Next, ver. 20 is decisive against the notion. “There shall be no more thenceforth an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not completed his days; for the youth shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner [being] a hundred years old shall be accursed.” Thus death is not wholly extinct in the state of things prominently before our prophet. It is exceptional, but still exists as an instrument of judicial infliction. Man will then fill his days, which he has never yet done – not even before the flood – no, not even Methuselah himself. Not one as yet has stretched across ten centuries. This will be the rule for the righteous who are found alive on earth when the Lord reigns for the thousand years. So thoroughly will death be not the rule but the exception, that one dying a hundred years old will be but a youth; and even so he that dies at a hundred years will be a sinner under some express curse. In eternity death does not exist.

Again, it is written here, “And they shall build houses, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree [shall be] the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they [are] the seed of the blessed of Jehovah, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed as one, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox: and dust [shall be] the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah” (vv. 21-25).

Now, sweet and worthy of God as all this is, it is not heavenly nor eternal in the full sense, though an earnest of final blessedness. It is God’s vindication of His character on earth and of His faithful promises to Israel there, when power shall be on the side of righteousness, and the works of the devil shall be manifestly destroyed here below. Not even disappointment shall be known for before men call, Jehovah will answer and will hear while they speak. And the long-groaning earthy freed from its travail, shall yield her increase. The very beasts shall share the general joy, with one solemn and marked exception. Did the enemy of God and man choose one animal to be the vehicle of his temptation with the mother of all men? Even in the otherwise universal joy God cannot forget this, and would have men also to remember it when that active spirit of evil is debarred from his ravages. So if “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together,” and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, none the less shall dust be the serpent’s meat. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah.” There emphatically, and not there only, is the power of evil broken to the glory of God.

In a Christian effort to defend the Messianic interpretation of these prophecies (with the aim of which one cordially agrees), it is sad to read such incredulity as could say, “The lion could not eat straw like the bullock, and continue to be a lion . . . And even were this change possible, nothing would be gained by it. A lion so transformed would be a defect in creation” (R. P. Smith’s At6th. and Mess. Interp., 260, Oxford, 1862). What is the value of such reasoning against the positive word of God?

The New Testament is even more distinct than the Old with regard to the new creation; because apostolic doctrine lays down what the prophets present in the elevated style of poetic prose. Not the Holy Spirit but the Lord Jesus is the revealed Restorer of fallen creation. For He is the Heir of all. As the heavens have now received Him, He will surely come again, not for the destruction but for the restitution of all things. It was on earth that the grace of God appeared in Him; here was accomplished redemption, here will the glory of God be manifested, though on high it will shine more brightly in the glorified. On the cross Satan was defeated before God, though seemingly he defeated the Saviour; and what the believer knows by faith will be manifested to every eye when the Lord appears again in glory. Meanwhile the dead and risen Christ is received up in glory, and all the angels of God worship Him. But the day comes when the earth shall be full of His glory, though this cannot be without a judgement of the living ungodly, in the most marked contrast with the gospel of His grace which now goes forth to all the world. Those who fail to believe this immense change, being most defective in their apprehensions of the revealed future, set up to prophesy smooth things of man and his progress. Who can wonder that they prophesy falsely? Scripture is direct and express that creation is to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of glory (Rom 8:20 , Rom 8:21 ); and the Lord Jesus, Who will make it all good in its season, is worthy to receive all “glory and honour and power.”

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 65:1-7

1I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me;

I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me.

I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’

To a nation which did not call on My name.

2I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people,

Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts,

3A people who continually provoke Me to My face,

Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks;

4Who sit among graves and spend the night in secret places;

Who eat swine’s flesh,

And the broth of unclean meat is in their pots.

5Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me,

For I am holier than you!’

These are smoke in My nostrils,

A fire that burns all the day.

6Behold, it is written before Me,

I will not keep silent, but I will repay;

I will even repay into their bosom,

7Both their own iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together, says the LORD.

Because they have burned incense on the mountains

And scorned Me on the hills,

Therefore I will measure their former work into their bosom.

Isa 65:2 I permitted Myself to be sought. . .to be found God always takes the initiative in spiritual matters (i.e., Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65). Even in this context He is allowing Himself to be found, really presenting Himself to the Jews and to the Gentiles. These opening verses remind me of Romans 11.

Here am I, here am I The doubling is for emphasis! These are words of a Hebrew idiom of availability (i.e., Isa 6:8). God was always available but His people would not respond (ask, seek).

To a nation which did not call on My name In context this refers either to (1) the Jewish nation who called upon idols, particularly the fertility gods or (2) the Gentiles (cf. Rom 10:20-21). The concept of calling upon someone’s name is the idea of responding to them. Paul uses this same concept of calling upon the name of the Lord in Rom 10:9-13 (cf. Act 7:59; Act 9:14; Act 9:21; Act 22:16; 1Co 1:2; 2Ti 2:22). This was considered an act of trust and worship.

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE NAME OF THE LORD

Isa 65:2 I spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people This is an anthropomorphic (see Special Topic at Isa 41:2) metaphor which shows the intensity and openness of God’s love (cf. Rom 10:21). Usually it is a gesture of prayer but here of welcome.

Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts The following verses list several aspects of idolatry which characterize the Jewish people. It is very difficult in this period of history to completely understand each one of these aspects in detail (cf. Isa 65:3-7). Some say that they are all caught up in the garden worship mentioned in Isa 65:3, while others differentiate between the groups. What is obvious is that God’s people had turned to other gods. Some possible enumerations of these idolatrous traits are

1. offering sacrifice in gardens

2. burning incense on bricks

3. sitting among graves

4. spending nights in secret places

5. eating swine’s flesh

6. having the broth of unclean meat in their pots

7. burning incense on mountains

8. scorning Me on the hills

9. setting a table for Fortune, Isa 65:11

10. filling cups of mixed wine for Destiny

Isa 65:3 A people who continually provoke Me to My face This is a Hebrew metaphor of repeated, open defiance to God. Idolatry had become so common and accepted that it was not even hidden.

Offering sacrifice in gardens We are not sure if this is the ancient veneration of trees that can be seen in Isa 1:29 or if this is a particularized worship within a garden setting (cf. Isa 66:17).

burning incense on bricks It has been suggested that the term bricks can simply refer to

1. an altar made with cut stones (cf. Lev 20:24-25)

2. the pillars of Ba’al worship (cf. Lev 26:1)

3. the roof tiles which relate to the worship of Babylonian astral deities

4. incense altars (see IVP Bible Background Commentary: OT, p. 640)

These numerous possibilities show us that we simply do not know what this really means.

Isa 65:4 Who sit among graves This seems to be some kind of worship or communication with the dead, possibly necromancy or ancestral worship (cf. Deu 18:10-12).

spend the night in secret places The Hebrew term translated secret places (BDB 665) literally means watch, guard, or keep but here it seems to denote a secret.

1. secret things, Isa 48:6

2. secret places, Isa 65:4

3. secret minded, Pro 7:10

We really do not have any idea what this has reference to but it seems to involve the cultic arts in some way.

Who eat swine’s flesh,

And the broth of unclean meat is in their pots Usually these two acts are connected by commentators although this is uncertain. They are a violation of the food laws of Leviticus (cf. Isa 11:7). Pigs were common sacrifices of the surrounding nations (i.e., Ugaritic Texts).

The MT has (kethiv) fragment (, BDB 830) but BDB suggests (qere) , BDB 600 II, a rich broth, along with DSS, LXX, and Aramaic Targum.

Isa 65:5 Who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me,

For I am holier than you!’ The first two VERBS are commands.

1. keep to yourself – Qal IMPERATIVE, BDB 897, KB 1132

2. do not come near me – Qal IMPERFECT, BDB 620, KB 670 used in a JUSSIVE sense

Notice that these commands are from the idolaters (cf. Isa 65:2-4; Isa 65:7; Isa 65:11-12), possibly their priests. They were concerned about

1. a transfer of holiness (cf. Eze 44:19, i.e., somehow a reduction of their power or prestige)

2. a transfer with possible negative effect to common pagan worshipers

NASB, NKJVI am holier than you

NRSVI am too holy for you

TEVwe are too holy for you to touch

NJBlest my sanctity come near you

JPSOAI would render you consecrated

REBmy holiness will infect you

PESHITTAI am sanctified

The UBS Text Project gives a different vocalization, I have sanctified you, but notes the MT’s, I am sacred for you has a B rating (some doubt), p.166.

These are smoke in My nostrils,

A fire that burns all the day This idiom shows God’s irritation and anger at this type of attitude and idolatrous activity.

Isa 65:6 Behold, it is written before Me,

I will not keep silent, but I will repay The idea of something written is an ancient metaphor which refers to the memory of God (cf. The Book of Deeds and the Book of Life, Dan 7:10; Rev 20:12-15). The truth is that judgment will come one day. This is a word that all humans need to hear. Notice what YHWH will do.

1. I will not keep silent

2. I will repay

3. I will repay into their bosom

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE TWO BOOKS OF GOD

I will repay into their bosom The metaphor for bosom means I will return to them their own sin (cf. Job 34:11; Psa 28:4; Psa 62:12; Pro 24:12; Ecc 12:14; Jer 17:10; Jer 32:19; Mat 16:27; Mat 25:31-46; Rom 2:6; Rom 14:12; 1Co 3:8; 2Co 5:10; Gal 6:7-10; 2Ti 4:14; 1Pe 1:17; Rev 2:23; Rev 20:12; Rev 22:12).

Isa 65:7 Both their own iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together This is a combination of corporate sin and individual, volitional sin. We are affected not only by the past corporately, and the present corporately, but also by individual choice in the present. We learn from the Ten Commandments in Exo 20:5; Deu 5:9, that we are affected by the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation. We also learn from Ezekiel 18 the opposite truth that we are responsible only for our sins.

Because they have burned incense on the mountains

And scorned Me on the hills This, according to the prophet Hosea, is an aspect of the worship of the fertility god Ba’al (cf Hos 4:13-14).

NASB, NKJVtheir former work

NRSVfull payment

TEVtheir past deeds

NJB, JPSOAin full

The NASB follows the MT text. The NRSV, NJB, and JPSOA suggest an emendation (BDB 911) meaning former, to (PREPOSITION PLUS BDB 911) meaning in full (Lev 6:5) or first (Jer 16:18).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

I am found, &c. Quoted in Rom 10:20, Rom 10:21.

Behold Me. Figure of speech Epizeuxis. See note on Isa 24:16.

a nation that was not called by My name. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 32:21), and to the Dispensation of the Acts.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 65

Now God answers the prayer offered by the remnant of the people and He said,

I am sought of them that asked not for me ( Isa 65:1 );

Here’s the remnant of the Jewish people calling to God. “If You’ve forsaken us, won’t You remember us?” and all this. And God answers them and He says, “I am sought of them that asked not for Me.”

I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, which walked in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoked me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificed in gardens, and burned incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, and eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than you. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burned all the day ( Isa 65:1-5 ).

So God is declaring here now how that He stretched out His hands actually to the Gentiles. And Paul quotes this in Romans the tenth chapter as he shows how that God set the nation Israel aside that He might draw out from among the Gentiles a people for His name. And he quotes here in tenth chapter from this passage here in Isaiah where God speaks about how that He has been found really by them who did not seek Me. He turned to another nation that wasn’t called by His name. “For all day long,” He said, “I’ve stretched out my hands to a rebellious people which walked in their own ways and not after Me.” Which had committed these abominable practices against the Lord. Who became as an irritant unto God. Smoke in His nostrils.

Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom. Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all ( Isa 65:1-8 ).

Speaks now, “I’m going to bring forth the faithful remnant.”

And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah the inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it ( Isa 65:9 ),

“Mine elect shall inherit it.” God is going to gather together His elect, Mat 24:1-51 , and bring them back that they might inherit it. And to try to interpret the elect there as the church is just poor biblical exposition. It is the denying of God’s restoration of the nation Israel and it is anti-Semitic in its teaching and it breeds anti-Semitism. That identity of Israel as the church. Because they then deny that God is going to yet deal with Israel, that Israel is through. And they excuse their hatred against the Jews by the fact that God has cut them off and we are now the Israel and so forth. But that is poor biblical exposition.

Sharon [the valley of Sharon] shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me. But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that in which I did not delight. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and ye shall howl for the vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name ( Isa 65:10-15 ):

What is the other name by which He calls His servants? And in Antioch they called them Christians. The servant of God called by the new name. As God is at the present time still working among the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled, which we are there. The days of God’s grace and mercy and hand stretched out to the Gentiles is just about over. If you’re going to become a part of the kingdom you’d better become a part of the kingdom in a hurry, because the opportunities will soon be over.

That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes ( Isa 65:16 ).

Now in verse Isa 65:17 , it’s sort of an isolated verse, for God goes out beyond, way out now, and He said,

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind ( Isa 65:17 ).

Now this is out beyond the millennium, beyond the millennial age. He comes back in the next verse and deals with things of the millennium. But He goes out way to the end now that is described in Second Peter when God causes this whole universe to dissolve, to melt with a fervent heat. All of the works in it being dissolved, destroyed. And God said, “Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth.” Now there are those who teach the eternity of the earth. In other words, the earth is going to go on forever and ever. Using some poetic verses out of Psalms and verses that are in poetic form out of the Psalms. “The earth abides forever” ( Ecc 1:4 ), and all. Yet the earth and all of its works are going to be destroyed. Second Peter goes into quite a bit of detail in describing the end of the physical universe. The molecular structure as we understand it and know it.

Now in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the Hebrew word for create is bara, which is a word that means to create something out of nothing. Now only God has that capacity. There is another Hebrew word translated create or made, and that is the word asah. And that word in the Hebrew has as a meaning to assemble existing materials. So some man created this pulpit. Now he didn’t say, “Pulpit be!” And poof! Out of nothing here was a pulpit. That would be bara. But man can’t do that. He took the wood and he cut it and he planed it and he glued it and he put it together and he assembled the pulpit. He created the pulpit out of existing materials. Now man does have that capacity. Only God, though, has capacity of creating out of nothing. When God said, “Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth” here in Isaiah, He again uses the Hebrew word bara. Out of nothing He’s going to bring a whole new heaven and a new earth into existence. Now seeing then that the present earth and universe is to be dissolved, seeing then that all of these things are going to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be? If the whole material realm is going to be destroyed, then what kind of a person should I be?

Well, if I am a total materialist, I’m going to be totally wiped out. So what kind of a person should I be? I should be spiritual. I should put my value in spiritual things. I should lay up my treasures in heaven where moth doth not corrupt. Where thieves cannot break through and steal. I should be spiritual, and a spiritual man and mindful of spiritual things because the physical material universe is going to be destroyed.

So “Behold, I create,” bara, out of nothing, “a new heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, or called into mind.” When we get into that final age, out at the end of the millennium in the new heaven and the earth, we won’t be saying, “Oh, you remember that day we were surfing down in Huntington?” You won’t be remembering that stuff anymore. It won’t be even coming into mind.

Some people are worried, “I could never really enjoy heaven if my parents aren’t there or my children aren’t there or something.” It won’t even be… You’ll have no memory of these things. It will never be brought into mind. That is, that horrible period of history when man rebelled against God. All of the sorrow that has been brought because of that rebellion will be wiped out. Never brought into mind again. Now during the millennial age…

But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying ( Isa 65:18-19 ).

This is during the Kingdom Age. It’s going to be glorious then.

There shall be no more an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die a hundred years old ( Isa 65:20 );

Now if a person dies when they’re just a hundred, you’ll say, “Oh, what a shame, young child died,” because there will be a renewing of the earth during the millennial Kingdom Age back to the pre-flood conditions. Where again God will put a shield around the earth and we’ll be protected from these cosmic radiations that cause the mutations and the aging process and so forth. And with this canopy that–and you’ll be hearing all about this this week–the canopy that used to be around the earth and why men lived to be so long. Why lived so many years and why dinosaurs grew so big and why cockroaches were a foot long. You’ll be finding all that out as we study this week of the world that was before the flood. It’s interesting to look back and find out what the earth was like before the judgment of God in the flood. You’ll be getting that this week.

“A child will die being a hundred years old.”

but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed ( Isa 65:20 ).

So during the millennial age… now, we will not die. We’re in our new bodies. We’ve moved out of our tents and we’ll be in our new bodies during the Kingdom Age. But there will be people that will live through the time of the Great Tribulation who will also live through the judgment of the nations when Jesus returns and they will live into the Kingdom Age. And they are the one that will be bearing children and so forth during the Kingdom Age. But we will be here to reign with Christ as enforcers of righteousness. As a kingdom of priests upon the earth, representing Christ to the people and the people to Christ. And we will be here to rule and to reign upon the earth with Him during this millennial age in our new bodies. Now what will our new bodies be like? I really don’t know. Vastly superior to the one I’m presently in.

Paul said, “Some of you will say, ‘How are the dead raised and with what body will they come? What kind of a body will it be?'” ( 1Co 15:35 ) And he said nature teaches you that there is resurrection from the dead. When you plant a seed into the ground it doesn’t come forth into new life until it first of all dies. And then the body that comes out of the ground isn’t the body that you planted. So I’m not going to be in this body. But God gives it a body that pleases Him. My new body is going to please God. That’s all that matters to me. I know if it pleases God, I’m going to be very pleased with it. What will be the capacities? These are things I oftentimes wonder about, the capacities of the new body. How will we be able to… the transporting of the new body around. And there’s a lot of interesting aspects about. It will probably be of a different molecular structure than this body, which will make being on the earth very interesting if you’re different molecular structure, because you’re walking right into the buildings and everything else. Even as Jesus in His resurrected body. But that’s all for conjecture and all to find out in the future.

And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of the people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands ( Isa 65:21-22 ).

Mine elect, the Jews.

They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear ( Isa 65:23-24 ).

Oh, the closeness of God and the rapport with the people.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together ( Isa 65:25 ),

Beautiful Kingdom Age.

and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD ( Isa 65:25 ).

So the earth again being in harmony with God, and creation in harmony with God, and man in harmony with God. How glorious it must have been for Adam in harmony with the whole universe around him. Everything humming together in a glorious harmony with God. Oh, what a disastrous affect sin has had in putting man out of harmony with God and out of harmony with nature around him. I think of that song, “This is my Father’s world. All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.” But man is out of harmony so often with nature and with God. And nature even itself has suffered from the curse and is out of harmony with God. Even the animal kingdom. The ferociousness of the lion, the wolf and these things, out of harmony with God. They are suffering the result of man’s sin. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Isa 65:1-7

Isa 65:1-7

This chapter, along with the final chapter, deals with a number of different subjects, regarding some of the most remarkable of the themes Isaiah has discussed throughout the prophecy.

Regarding the divisions of this chapter, we have (1) God’s reply to the complaints visible in Israel’s prayer for deliverance (Isa 65:1-7); (2) regardless of the total destruction awaiting the irreligious majority, a faithful remnant shall be redeemed (Isa 65:8-12); (3) a mingling of threats to the unfaithful and promises to the faithful (Isa 65:13-16); (4) a glorious depiction of the age of Messiah (Isa 65:17-25).

Isa 65:1-7

“I am enquired of by them that asked not for me; I am found by them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, that walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense upon bricks; that sit among the graves, and lodge in the secret places; that eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things in their vessels; that say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all day. Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, yea, I will recompense into their bosom, your own iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith Jehovah, that have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemer me upon the hills: therefore will I first measure their work into their bosom.”

Kidner understood the first two verses here as, “An answer to the complaint of Isa 63:19. This, of course does not deny the application of the passage to the call of the Gentiles (Rom 10:20). There is also an answer to the complaint of Isa 64:9 that God has “hidden his face,” making himself hard to find. As McGuiggan noted, “Why, God had even been found by people who did not even ask for him . No, the problem lay not with God but with the Jews.

Hailey also observed that there is also an answer to the plea of Israel that they are “all” God’s people. This is capable of two different meanings, both of which are erroneous: (1) that Israel constituted the totality of God’s people, and (2) that all of the fleshly nation were indeed the people of God. Neither proposition was true, except in the rather loose sense that God created all men. Hailey wrote: “Jehovah’s reply is that he is rejecting them (Israel),” and that the Gentiles will also be called as God’s people.

These seven verses are, “A castigation of the rebellious idolaters among them (which were the majority of the nation) and a warning that God’s punishment must one day fall. However the innocent are not to suffer with the guilty (Isa 65:8-12). In no other section of Isaiah does the divided state of Israel appear any more sharply than here. Throughout the prophecy, we have repeatedly stressed the Two Israels to whom Isaiah is addressed, these being, The Reprobate Majority, and the Faithful Remnant. Cheyne called them, “The polytheistic party, and the true believers.

In somewhat stronger terms, Archer referred to these verses: “This is a scathing indictment of the hypocritical Jewish nation of Isaiah’s day, professing to be a holy and righteous people (Isa 65:5), and yet practicing all of the execrable abominations of the heathen. This description would be altogether inappropriate for the post-exilic Israel, which had abandoned idolatry forever.

“I have spread out my hands all day …” (Isa 65:2). “This means that God had invited them sincerely. Cheyne stated that it was, “A gesture of prayer. What a condescension on God’s part!

“Burning incense upon bricks …” (Isa 65:3). All of the things mentioned here were associated with idolatry, and the pagan shrines in the gardens and groves of the heathen. The command of God was that sacrifices should be offered upon altars of unhewn stone (Exo 20:24-25) and at the place where God had recorded his name. Sacrificing upon bricks was therefore wrong on two counts; it was in the wrong place, and the altar was not properly constructed.

“Continually … and to my face …” (Isa 65:3). “There was no attempt at concealment; and like the antediluvian, there was no intermission in their sinful deeds. They were wicked all the time, continually.

“That sit among the graves …” (Isa 65:4). This was an action associated with witchcraft, necromancy, seeking “familiar spirits” among the dead, and all kinds of shameful activity connected with idolatry. Also, “The verse alludes to the custom of sleeping in sepulchres or vaults of idol temples to learn the future through dreams.

“That eat swine’s flesh …” (Isa 65:4). This was specifically forbidden to Jews in Lev 11:7; and the mention of this here is proof that the period of Jewish history in view here is positively pre-exilic; because after the exile, the Jews had renounced idolatry and all such things for ever. This is elaborated in the apocryphal book of 2Maccabees (chapters 6,7), where is recorded the names of many Jewish martyrs who refused to bow to the edict of Antiochus Epiphanes who attempted to force Jews to demonstrate their renunciation of their religion by eating swine’s flesh.

“That say, Stand by thyself … for I am holier than thou …” (Isa 65:5) is a reference to some idolatrous practice the renegade Jews had entered into, “A heathen mystery … Idolatry was bad enough, but that heathen idolaters should assume superiority over God’s `holy ones’ was worse.

“I will recompense, yea, I will recompense …” (Isa 65:6) The verbs here are repeated, after the Hebrew manner of strong emphasis. Jehovah had just concluded in the previous verses a list of the excessively wicked and abominable deeds of the Israelites, which constitutes a list of particulars, explaining why God would most surely punish them.

“That have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills …” (Isa 65:7). “The hills and mountains here are a Palestinian feature, It was a specialty of the Canaanite Baalism that many of their shrines were located on high hills and mountains, especially if a grove of trees was available in such locations. That is the reason that such shrines were generally called “high places.” The orgiastic, licentious rites associated with those fertility cults were as shameful and debasing as anything ever associated with pagan worship. There can be no doubt whatever, that the attractiveness of such worship for the Jews was fundamentally that of sexual gratification.

Isa 65:1-7 SIN REPAID: It may have appeared up to this point in Isaiahs prophecy that he was pronouncing doom upon the whole nation. However, the prayer in chapter 64 shows that there was a small remnant of people who had turned to the Lord for help. This small group had the testimony of Isaiah bound up and sealed among them and were the prophets disciples. They had turned to the teaching and to the testimony (cf. Isa 8:16-20). Chapter 65 is the verification that Isaiah had been declaring all along the whole nation was not to be doomed but that there would be a sifting and God would indeed answer the prayer for deliverance by the remnant. Those who blaspheme the Lord will be recompensed with judgment; those who trust Him will become a seed and provide heirs to Judahs promises.

The apostle Paul helps us understand that these final verses of Isaiahs book have to do with the Messiahs kingdom (the church) for he quotes Isa 65:1-2 in Rom 10:20-21 as fulfilled at the preaching of the gospel and its reception by Gentiles. Isaiah is predicting that a refining, sorting, culling process is going to take place as a consequence of the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent centuries of the Jewish indignation (cf. our comments Daniel, College Press, pages 343-353 and 429-435). From the Babylonian captivity, through the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth, through the Seleucid domination and the Maccabean revolt, and through the early Roman domination the Jewish nation would undergo a spiritual sifting until thoroughly prepared (with a remnant of godly servants like Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, etc.) for the new creation (Isa 66:18-24) (the Messiahs Zion). This sifting must take place because of the abominable rebellion of a majority of Israel in Isaiahs day. Many of these rebels will never find Jehovah even though He has plead with them (through prophets and leaders) for century after century. They would not give up their idols. So it is predicted that God will have a people turn to Him in the future who had never inquired about Him before. This will be the goiy (singular of goiym), Isa 65:1 substantiates Eph 3:1-6 that Jehovah did not in ancient times make known to the Gentiles the messianic program as He did to the Jews. But Isa 65:1 predicts a time when the Gentiles would find Him; the Gentiles will behold Him and they will be called by His name. The time will come, says Isaiah, when God will reveal Himself and invite the Gentiles, behold Me, behold Me! That invitation will be through the preaching of the gospel of Christ says Paul in Rom 10:14-21.

But until the time comes for Jehovah to open the messianic kingdom to the Gentiles, He spreads out His hands all the day to a rebellious people. Jehovah was more than patient, more than merciful, more than just with Israel. Century after century He plead with them through His prophets (cf. 2Ch 24:18-19; 2Ch 36:15-16; Jer 7:13; Luk 11:50, etc.). But they would not listen (cf. Hos 11:1-2; Hos 12:10-14; Mic 2:6-11; Isa 30:8-11; Jer 5:3; Jer 6:16-19; Jer 7:27-28; Jer 8:5-6, etc.). The Hebrew word soorer is translated rebellious but is more specifically, stubborn. They have their own ways and their own ideas and they stubbornly refuse Gods thought and ways. With centuries of evidence behind them that Gods ways result in good and mans result in evil, they still reject Gods ways! The Hebrew phrase in verse three, haam hammakeisiym, is literally, the people, the ones angering me to My face continually. The Hebrew word is actually stronger than provoke-it emphasizes anger! The sin of Israel here depicted is insensitive and blatant. Knowing it angers Jehovah, they persist; not only do they persist, they invent new ways to provoke Him.

1. Sacrificing in gardens: making the ritual offerings in the groves of trees and flower gardens dedicated to pagan idols (see comments Isa 57:1-8).

2. Burning incense upon bricks: incense is usually associated with prayer. They were praying to idols by burning incense upon brick altars.

3. Sit among graves, and lodge in the secret places: apparently this refers to the practice of trying to contact the dead. The Hebrew word loon is translated lodge in in secret places but means simply, lodge all night. They were practicing the common pagan ritual of necromancy which was strictly forbidden by their scriptures (cf. Deu 18:11; 1Sa 28:3; Isa 57:9). Jerome refers to a practice called incubation in the temples of the idols where they were accustomed to lie upon the skins of the victims stretched upon the ground, to gather future events from their dreams.

4. Eat swines flesh, and broth of abominable things: Swines flesh was offered by the heathen in sacrifice to their idols and then eaten as a ritual of dedication and holiness (cf. 2Ma 6:18-22; 2Ma 7:1-2). It was forbidden for the Hebrews (cf. Lev 11:7 ff; Deu 14:8). The Hebrew word pigguliym is translated abominable things and according to Eze 4:14; Lev 7:18; Lev 19:7 it is things that are legally unclean. Young calls it rotten things; Keil and Delitzsch says the word means a stench, a putrefaction, broth made either of such kinds of flesh or such parts of the body as were forbidden by the law. It was a disgusting and revolting practice evidently a part of pagan cultic worship.

Those who became initiates into the pagan mystery cults did so through secret rituals and orders. They went out in the dark of night to the groves and hilltops; they talked in a cryptic language about mysterious rites and ceremonies; they glanced and smiled knowingly when asked about their worship. All of this made the cult worshipers consider themselves the in group, the wise people, and, religiously above everyone else. Any person not a member of the cult was considered ignorant, unsophisticated and not one with whom to be associated. Therefore, they said (literally), Be off to yourself, that is, Stay away from me, you do not know all the secret things I know and we just are not in the same class of people. Such arrogance by men who have rejected goodness and purity for wickedness and rottenness vexes Jehovah (The absolutely righteous One) like the smoke smoldering from a garbage heap in the nostrils of a man.

The Hebrew word shillametiy comes from the root shalam which primarily means complete, entire, finish, make good, repay, or requite. It is translated in verse six recompense. The Hebrew kheygam is from khooq which means lap, or bosom. Jehovah has written down in His heavenly books the bill of goods on these profane, blasphemous people and He is going to pay them back and dump the whole mess into their laps. Sin pays wages (Rom 6:23). Jehovah has ordered His moral creation so that man and nature may receive in their own persons the due penalty for their error (Rom 1:28). When men plow iniquity, they reap injustice; when they sow falsehood, they eat the fruit of lies (cf. Hos 10:13). God is not mocked, what a man sows, that shall he reap (Gal 6:7-10). Generations of men reap the fruit of lies because they follow willingly in the lies of their ancestors (cf. 2Ch 33:9; 2Ki 24:3; Jer 15:4 for the classic illustration of this in Manasseh). The idolatry and blasphemy characterized by Isaiah here was practiced by the Hebrews from the days of Solomon (cf. Hos 4:13; Isa 57:7; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6 ff; Jer 17:2, etc.). Those who dance must pay the fiddler. Israel and Judah paid the consequences of their idolatrous indulgence with sword, pestilence and famine for centuries and centuries until they finally filled up the cup of their iniquity by rejecting Jehovahs Servant, the Messiah, and forfeited their birthright, lost their national identity and surrendered their only salvation.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

In this chapter we have a graphic description of the working of the principle of discrimination, the sifting of the people by God. There is first a contrast between the false and the true. The rebellious people are described as those who, in spite of all Jehovah’s patience, still persist in idolatrous and evil practices. Against these Jehovah is compelled to proceed in strict and severe judgment. Then follows a description of the remnant, the holy seed, those who are described as the servants of Jehovah. These are not to be destroyed by the wicked, but are to be led out of the places of difficulty into inheritance and prosperity.

The sifting process is next described, and the life of the servants of God and the life of the rebellious are placed in striking contrast: eating as against hunger, drinking as against thirst, rejoicing as against shame, singing as against crying and howling. The result of the sifting of judgment is the establishment of the new order, that establishment of the Kingdom of God which is to be one of joy and justice, of prosperity and peace.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

a Seed Rescued from Destruction

Isa 65:1-12

The prophet now enumerates the reasons that forced the Lord to turn aside from the Chosen People, and call in the Gentiles to occupy the place and perform the mission which they had despised and forfeited. Paul makes memorable reference to this passage. See Rom 10:20-21. Their gardens were scenes of debauchery; their altars were covered by polluting engravings; they practiced necromancy in the graveyards, and ate swines flesh, Isa 65:3-4. Fortune and destiny were their chosen deities, Isa 65:11, r.v. While professing greater holiness than others, the land was filled with abominations.

But the Lord ever discriminates between the righteous and the wicked. Did He not spare Noah and Lot and Caleb? There has always been a faithful remnant, and these become the seed germs of a new nation. Ponder Isa 65:8-10. Then ask that your life may be like the new young grapes of the vineyard, on which the blessing of God rests!

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

EXPOSITORY NOTES ON

THE PROPHET ISAIAH

By

Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.

Copyright @ 1952

edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago

ISAIAH CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH

“I am sought of them that asked not after me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts: A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day” (verses 1-5).

GOD is explaining – if I may use the word, since GOD does not have to explain; but He does here – thus meeting the remnant in grace and making clear to them why these judgments have been upon the people, because of all these sins – some open, some hidden. They had set aside His own holy law, and brought in the practices of the heathen round about them; dwelling “among the graves” for an Israelite was an unclean thing. It pictures the uncleanness into which the people had fallen. Because of all this, GOD’s face was averted; He could not deal with them as otherwise He would have desired. The Lord calls upon His people today to separation from the evils around them, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2Co 6:17). And speaking of the unequal yoke: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship . . . hath light with darkness? . . . Christ with Belial? or . . . he that believeth with an infidel?” (2Co 6:14, 15).

It is a call to complete separation from fellowship with those who are walking in avowed disobedience to His Word. This done He immediately says, “And I will be a Father unto you . . . saith the Lord Almighty.” Surely GOD is the Father of all His people, but He is not always free to be a father unto us in the way He desires.

A loving father delights to give his children one manifestation after another of his loving interest in them, and GOD, our Father, wants to do that. That is implied in being a Father unto us. He is a

Father of every one of us, but if we walk in disobedience the holiness of His own nature hinders Him from doing the things for which His heart yearns.

Israel of old had become contaminated by their association with the nations and like the heathen around them, and “evil communications corrupt good manners.” The reason that GOD calls upon His people to come out from the world and be separate is because they cannot go on with the world and maintain their Christian testimony.

Many think that the way to win the world is to be “hail-fellow-well-met” with them. It is like the boys who caught two baby linnets and made little cages for them, and as the linnets grew they meant to teach them to sing. They had a canary which sang very beautifully, so they put the linnets’ cages on each side of that of the canary, thinking that never having heard others and listening only to the canary’s sweet notes they would learn to sing like it. For some time there were no results. And then one day they said, “Oh, listen, our canary is cheeping like a linnet!” Instead of the linnets learning the canary’s long-cherished lovely song it was cheeping like them.

That is the result when GOD’s people have fellowship with the ungodly. Instead of the ungodly learning the ways of CHRIST, the children of GOD soon follow the ways of-the ungodly.

Separation certainly involves the marriage relation; Scripture has made it very clear that a child of GOD and an unsaved person should not contemplate marriage. An old Puritan quaintly said, “If you are a child of GOD and you marry a child of the devil, you can expect to have trouble with your father-in-law.”

Then, too, how many a Christian, hoping to make more money, has gone into partnership with an unsaved man in some business venture, soon to find that he has put himself under an unequal yoke? That unsaved man feels perfectly free to do many things in business that a conscientious Christian cannot. He either has to stand against his partner or go with him, and if he does the latter he will lose his Christian testimony.

The same thing occurs in connection with association with all kinds of societies. Two scriptures should keep us out of them all. The first is this: JESUS said “In secret have I said nothing.” Therefore He could not have been a member of any secret society or lodge.

The other scripture, that already referred to, is: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” In these Orders there are saved and unsaved people, and if we want to have a bright testimony for CHRIST, we must walk apart from that unequal yoke. Paul’s reference is to that Old Testament scripture: “Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass [yoked] together.” The ox was a clean beast and could be offered to GOD in sacrifice. The ass was looked upon as ceremonially unclean, and the two were not to be yoked together.

When Israel in disobedience mingled with the nations and began to practice their evil doings, GOD had to pour out His judgment upon them. But when they turned back to Him, confessing their sins, GOD in His infinite grace was ready to give deliverance.

Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not;

for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me” (verses 8-10).

As all that one might see in a vineyard is one large bunch of grapes which seems good for nothing, yet GOD says: “Destroy it not . . . a blessing is in it.” He will not destroy His people completely, but take out of them a nucleus of the coming nation, the restored nation, in the last days.

He will make the valley of Achor a means of blessing to them. That was the place where Achan and his family were stoned to death, because of their sin when the people first entered the land. Achor, meaning “trouble,” speaks of the troubles that we bring upon ourselves by our own willfulness, yet GOD can so work in grace that He can make those very sorrows an eventual means of blessing for us.

So all of Israel’s waywardness of the past will be used of GOD to correct and bless them, even as Jeremiah said, “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee.” GOD overrules even the failures of His people when they turn in heart to Him and thus learn lessons which can be of help and blessing to them in the days to come.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying” (verses 17-19).

Then comes the fulfillment of the promises to the obedient in the land, promised for such obedience under the law.

“There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord” (verses 20-25).

Yes, GOD will undertake, and He brings before us here this glimpse of the new heavens and the new earth. There is no description of this, no instruction given as to what will take place at that time. He simply says, “I will create new heavens and a new earth,” and then He adds, As

surely as I do this, I will “create Jerusalem” a place of rejoicing. Just as surely as He brings in new heavens and a new earth, so He will fulfill every promise made to Israel, and make Jerusalem a center of joy and blessing to the whole world.

Again the rebellious were warned because when GOD called they did not answer, when He spoke they did not hear; but with those in millennial days GOD has promised that before they call He will answer, while they are yet speaking He will hear. This is a promise that abides. GOD’s people can claim it today because it has to do with that which is spiritual. Blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in CHRIST, we can appropriate and act upon everything spiritual in the Old Testament, but we are not at liberty to take over the promises that have to do simply with temporal things.

Chapter sixty-five gives the Lord’s answer. His indignation has been aroused against many because of their idolatry, the abominations they have committed, and their unreality. But He also assures the faithful remnant, those who truly turn to Him, that He is about to intervene on their behalf.

Chapter sixty-six again brings before the rebellious part of the nation the sins that have moved GOD’s heart and caused Him to turn them over to the power of the enemy, and again assures those who trust in Him, that not one of His promises will fail, He will bring them into fullness of blessing.

We have compared the Old Testament prophet to a man looking upon a mountain range, upon one great peak, and then the clouds rise and a higher peak is seen beyond. In chapters 65 and 66 the prophet lifts his telescope a little higher, and looks beyond that second great peak and gets a momentary glimpse of what GOD has in store for His people for all eternity. He sees the new heavens and the new earth. These two passages are referred to by the Apostle Peter when he speaks of the passing of the day of the Lord and the bringing in of the day of GOD, when everything that man has been building up through the years will collapse and the heavens and the earth will melt with fervent heat.

“Nevertheless,” the apostle says, “we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2Pe 3:13). That promise is given here through Isaiah in chapters 65 and 66 and nowhere else.

In the book of Revelation, John in vision looks beyond the millennial glory and says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . and there was no more sea . . . former things are passed away.” The new creation would have come in absolute perfection and he gives us some description of the blessedness of the redeemed in the eternal state.

We are not told in so many words that the eternal abode of the redeemed of Israel who have been with the Lord in millennial glory will be upon the new earth, but as we consider what is said in these two chapters we naturally come to that conclusion.

The Church, the Body of CHRIST, with all Old Testament saints and those who will have died down through the centuries, right up to the beginning of the millennium will have their place in

the new heavens, and there will be a wonderful intimate link between the two groups; heaven and earth as it were will be as one. Scripture seems to suggest that distinction – the Church as the bride and the friends of the bridegroom will be the heavenly saints with CHRIST above, while renewed Israel are with CHRIST here upon the new earth.

When that day comes, we may all find that we have had very imperfect conceptions of things.

We have the guidance of the Spirit of GOD in the direct statements He has given us, but we are prone to misunderstand. If before the Lord came the first time one had tried to get clearly in mind the succession of events in connection with His advent, perhaps one would have been much perplexed and confused and probably have come to very wrong conclusions.

But when the Lord actually came, and one event after another took place as predicted, it would be seen that the prophets had foretold all these things, but might have misunderstood the order of their occurrence. The prophets themselves, we are told, after writing, “searched what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ that was in them did prophesy, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow.”

In studying Isaiah the prophet, did you ever think that Isaiah studied Isaiah the prophet?

After he had written what GOD gave him by divine inspiration, he sat down over his own scrolls and studied carefully what GOD had inspired him to write, that he might try to see clearly the succession of events, the order in which things would take place, and then it was revealed to him, as to the other prophets, that it was not yet the time for a full understanding, that much of this was to be reserved for a future day, and they learned that not unto themselves but unto us they made these things known. And now they are opened up by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (1Pe 1:10-12). So of those things which are still unfulfilled, still in the future, we should not speak too dogmatically.

~ end of chapter 65 ~

http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/

***

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Isa 65:5

False grounds of superiority in holiness. The disposition to arrogate the dignity of holiness,-in other words, of religious worth and excellence,-has never become extinct among men, nor the quite consistent disposition to turn it to the use of pride. We may specify a few of the many grounds of pretension on which this assumption of holiness sustains itself, and takes authority for its pride of comparison with other men.

I. In some instances an assumption of superior holiness has been made upon the ground of belonging to a certain division or class of mankind, a class having its distinction in the circumstances of descent and nativity, or in some artificial constitution of society.

II. Again, in many periods and places men have reputed themselves holy on the ground of a punctilious observance of religious forms and ceremonies, whether of Divine appointment or human invention.

III. Another ground of such assumption and pride as the text expresses, is general rectitude of practical conduct, separate from the true religious principle of moral excellence.

IV. The pride of self-estimation for goodness or holiness is apt to be betrayed by persons who have preserved a character substantially free from reproach, against those who have, in some known instance, fallen into great sin.

V. There is such a thing as a factitious zeal in the active service of religion, and that forms a ground of high pretension.

VI. There are a number of persons among professing Christians whose minds are almost ever dwelling on certain high points of doctrine, sought chiefly in the book of God’s eternal decrees. And it is on these doctrines that they found, in some manner, an absolute assurance of their being in Christ, in the Divine favour, children of God, and therefore as sure of heaven as if they were there. They can look with pride, not with pious gratitude, on those who are suffering doubts and solicitude respecting their state toward God and a future world.

VII. We may name, lastly, as one of the things made a ground of pretension and pride,-the experience of elated, ardent, enthusiastic feelings in some semblance of connection with religion, but not really of its genuine inspiration.

J. Foster, Lectures, 1st series, p. 180.

Reference: Isa 65:5.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1497.

Isa 65:8

Here we have four lessons taught us by a bunch of grapes.

I. That great good may be stored in little things. A bunch of grapes is a little thing, and yet there is a blessing in it. With a heart given to Jesus, a child is a sun which cannot but shine, a fountain which cannot but send out streams, a flower which cannot but fill the air with sweetness.

II. God alone puts the blessing into little things. In this He displays: (1) His wisdom; (2) His omnipotence; (3) His condescension and compassion.

III. Little things are to be spared for this blessing in them. There are plenty of little things which you are apt to despise because they are little, and yet, destroy them not, says God, for a blessing is in them. (1) Your vows and resolutions; (2) your principles; (3) your habits; (4) your character; (5) your friendships; (6) your interest in the heathen.

IV. If the blessing is lacking in them they will be undone for ever. “Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it.” As if it were said, If there were no blessing in it, then it might be destroyed. It is the blessing which delivers. If there is no blessing in us, we are doomed. The unprofitable servant hid his talent in the napkin, but he could not hide himself from his master’s indignation.

J. Bolton, Family Treasury, Jan. 1863, p.111.

References: Isa 65:8.-Outline Sermons to Children, p. 104. Isa 65:11.-F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 321. Isa 65:19.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 236. Isa 65:20.-G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 341.

Isa 65:24

I. Consider how great degrees of love and anxiety for us are expressed in these few words. The Almighty Lord of heaven and earth represents Himself as watching with anxiety the hearts and consciences of us His creatures, His sinful creatures; as listening after any, the least, expression of penitence, so it be sincere; as having joy in any expressions of returning love in the cold and hardened heart. When we reflect on this, when we consider what forbearance and parental anxiety the great God of heaven shows for us, our hearts must indeed be hardened, our natural affections deadened by long intercourse with a cruel, deceitful world, if we feel not at least some desire to be worthy to be called the sons of so kind, so tender, so good a Father.

II. The question, then, which it concerns us to put impartially to our consciences is, Whether we do habitually endeavour to pray? Whether, in the midst of the daily cares and business of life, our minds habitually ascend to our God and Saviour, and with Him continually dwell; whether our desires, hopes, and wishes are in the right direction, namely, towards God and heaven and heavenly things; whether we habitually express these our feelings and affection in such ways as our heavenly Father has directed and sanctioned, namely, by the practice of deliberate, earnest, importunate prayer.

III. If we will not look to God as our Father, what other hope or dependence can we be trusting to? Our having a good character in the world for morality or religion will avail us nothing; our thinking favourably of ourselves will avail us nothing; our occasional regard to good forms, or occasional indulgence of seeming religious feelings, will avail us nothing. If we do not love and adore and devote ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, we are surely not in the safe way to salvation; and without leading a life of prayer, how can we flatter ourselves that we love our God?

Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times” vol. x., p. 208.

References: Isa 65:24.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol.i.,p. 34. Isa 66:1, Isa 66:2.-E. Roberts, Penny Pulpit, No. 3504; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1083. Isa 66:5.-S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 53; J. B. Heard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 225. Isa 66:8.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1009.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 65

Jehovahs Answer: The Rebellious and Their Judgment,

the Faithful and Their Blessings

1. The divine rebuke to the apostates (Isa 65:1-8) 2. The elect seed (Isa 65:9-10) 3. The judgment of the apostates (Isa 65:11-12) 4. The blessings of Jehovahs servants and the contrast (Isa 65:13-16) 5. The glories and blessings of the future (Isa 65:17-25) The first eight verses give a description of the iniquities practiced by apostate Israel. Judgment will overtake them in the day of vengeance. Then the blessings of Jehovahs true servant (the remnant) are declared. They shall eat, drink, rejoice and be blessed. All is contrasted with the wicked who have forsaken the Lord. A marvelous revelation concerning the future is given in Isa 65:17-25. When will all this be accomplished? It begins with the day of Jehovah; that day of the Lord is one thousand years. At the close of it the new heavens and a new earth will be created. Then, when eternal ages begin the complete fulfillment is reached. But the blessings of the Millennium are also before us. Jerusalem is created a place of rejoicing and His people, the people of the kingdom, Jews and Gentiles, obedient to the laws of the kingdom, will enjoy the material blessings here predicted. And groaning creation is seen once more delivered.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

I am sought: Isa 2:2, Isa 2:3, Isa 11:10, Isa 55:5, Psa 22:27, Rom 9:24-26, Rom 9:30, Rom 10:20, Eph 2:12, Eph 2:13

Behold: Isa 40:9, Isa 41:27, Isa 45:22, Joh 1:29

unto: Isa 43:1, Isa 63:19, Hos 1:10, Zec 2:11, Zec 8:22, Zec 8:23, 1Pe 2:10

Reciprocal: 1Sa 22:12 – Here I am 2Sa 1:7 – Here am I 2Sa 22:44 – a people 2Ch 15:4 – found of them Job 38:35 – Here we are Isa 6:8 – Here am I Isa 62:12 – Sought out Isa 66:19 – that have Amo 9:12 – which are called by my name Luk 13:12 – Woman Joh 1:36 – Behold Joh 1:43 – and findeth Joh 5:6 – Wilt Act 15:17 – the Gentiles Rom 3:11 – seeketh Rom 9:16 – General Rom 15:21 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Isa 65:1. That in the primary sense of this text it is a prophecy of the conversion of the Gentiles, upon the rejection of the Jews, for their contempt and crucifying of Christ, cannot be doubted by any, who will not arrogate to themselves a greater ability to interpret the prophecies of the Old Testament than St. Paul had, who, Rom 10:20, expressly so interprets it, and applies it; which shows the vanity of the Jews in their other interpretations of it. I am sought Hebrew, , literally, diligent inquiry is made after me; or, I am diligently inquired of. Vitringa renders it, Qusitus sum cum effectu; I am sought so as to be found. The LXX. read, , I am made manifest, or, made known, as Bishop Lowth translates it; to them that asked not for me That in times past made no inquiry after me; I am now found by them that formerly sought me not. I said, Behold me, behold me I invited whole nations, by the preaching of my gospel, to behold me, and that with importunity, reiterating my calls and entreaties; and this I did unto a nation not called by my name, with which I was not in covenant, and which did not profess any relation to me. The prophet speaks of what was to take place some hundreds of years afterward, as if it were a thing already done, to signify the certainty of it.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 65:4. Which remain among the graves. The LXX add, dream. Perhaps Jude had this text in his eye, when he calls the wicked filthy dreamers.

See Augustines city of God. Which eat swines flesh, forbidden by the law, Lev 11:26, as less healthy than beef and mutton, and tending to scrophulous disease, as stated by Dr. Buchan.

Isa 65:10. The valley of Achor. This valley was very fertile, a presentiment of what the earth shall be in the latter day. Another prophet makes the same remark. Hos 2:15.

Isa 65:11. Ye prepare a table for that troop. Hebrews for Gad, good fortune. They worshipped the stars, Mercury, Mars, and others, for good luck. The heathens worshipped them as a goddess, and exposed themselves to the satire of their poets.

Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia: sed te Nos facimus, fortuna, deum cloq; locamus. There wants no god where prudence doth preside, But we fond fools have fortune deified.

Isa 65:13. Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry. While the Romans besieged Jerusalem, the famine so prevailed in the city that they destroyed one another for food, and delicate women, as Moses had foretold, ate the fruit of their own bodies. Deu 28:56. Meanwhile, the christians, having been driven out by persecution, were growing rich in gentile cities; and on the approach of the Roman armies, those that remained fled to Pella beyond the Jordan, where they found peace and protection. Eusebiuss Ecclesiastes Hist.

Isa 65:15. God shall slay thee, oh unbelieving Jew, as all the history of this people proves, since the burning of their city and temple by the Romans. Then God shall call his servants by another nameChristians, after Christ their Saviour and their Lord. Surely this is a striking prediction. See the general Reflections at the end of this book.

Isa 65:16. Shall bless himself in the God of truth. Bealohe Amen, in the God Amen. This is the title of Christ, of him who speaks, and no man can disannul his word. Rev 3:14. These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness.

Isa 65:17. Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. Whatever part of the Jews may be gathered to their own land, will not, it would seem, continue long under their old dynasty. The Messiahs laws will soon supersede those of Moses, according to the current language of the new covenant.

REFLECTIONS.

This chapter opens with the calling of the gentiles, and the rejection of the jews. Rom 10:20-21. Consequently, though Isaiah addressed those awful things to the jews of his own times; yet he looked forwards to happier days. The Lord stretched out his hands to a rebellious and idolatrous people, who practised necromancy in burial grounds; and the Lord latterly stretched out his hands by our Saviour to a stiffnecked and obdurate age, However, the gospel was graciously welcomed among the gentiles.

The sin of eating the flesh and the broth of abominable things, and doing worse than the heathen, was peculiarly provoking to the Lord; and justifies the severe strokes of his providence in visiting upon them, both their own sins and the sins of their fathers.

When God destroyed the idolaters by the Babylonians, and the unbelievers by the Romans, he left a remnant, as the seeds in a cluster of grapes, in order that the counsel of his grace and love might take effect. A remnant returned from Babylon, to inherit the mountain of the Lord; and in the Roman times a remnant inherited the mountain of our christian Zion, while another, yea an unbelieving remnant was dispersed on the face of the whole earth.

From the seventeenth verse the promises of the restoration of Jerusalem, under a new heaven and a new earth, or an infinitely better state of things, are so far superior to anything that happened after the Babylonian captivity, that we must either understand them of the latter-day glory, or believe that the prophets were deranged, and the apostles wicked in applying them to the times of the restitution of all things. Act 3:21. It is introduced with, Behold, I create! And surely a note of admiration was never better employed. It is the jewish and gentile converts made one in Zion, under an entire new heaven of government, grace and love, as illustrated in the general reflections at the end of this book.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 65:1-7. Retribution Awaits those who Cling to the Old Ritual Practices and Refuse to Adhere to the Reformed Religion.Yahweh declares His readiness to respond to this people, but they would not approach Him or call upon (mg., cf. VSS) His name. I made, He says, unceasing entreaty to them, unruly as they were, but they steadfastly adhered to their own evil ways, insulting Me in My own holy city by their grove-worship and incense-burning. They pass the night among the tombs and recesses (to obtain dream-oracles from the dead). They eat the flesh of, and drink magical hell-broth made from, forbidden animals that they sacrifice. Having acquired in these mystic rites a taboo holinessphysically contagiousthey caution others to shrink away lest they too should be made taboo (read in Isa 65:5, lest I make thee holy: am holier than is an impossible translation). Such men are to Me a standing offence. But My remembrancer records their doings in his book. Nor will I be silent until I have punished their (so VSS) sins and those of their fathers, who defied (mg.) Me with their sacrifices in the high places. I will measure out their recompense upon their head (so emend first) and requite it into their bosom.

Isa 65:1. am: the Heb. verbs are tolerative; render both times, allowed myself to be.

Isa 65:3. bricks: the meaning is obscure. Perhaps under white poplars should be read; cf. Hos 4:13.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

65:1 I am sought by [them that] {a} asked not [for me]; I am found by [them that] sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, to a nation [that] was not called by my name.

(a) Meaning, the Gentiles who know not God, would seek him, when he had moved their heart with his Holy Spirit, Rom 10:20 .

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The divine response 65:1-16

The Lord responded, through the prophet, to the viewpoint expressed in the preceding prayer (Isa 63:7 to Isa 64:12).

"The great mass [of the Israelites] were in that state of ’sin unto death’ which defies all intercession (1 John Isa 65:16), because they had so scornfully and obstinately resisted the grace which had been so long and so incessantly offered to them." [Note: Delitzsch, 2:474.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Superficial righteousness 65:1-7

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

God replied that He had been gracious in allowing a nation to call on Him-and to obtain responses from Him-since that nation did not normally pray to Him. The Apostle Paul applied this verse to the Gentiles, people to whom God had responded before they called (cf. Rom 10:20). This was the "nation" that Isaiah had in view when he originally gave this prophecy.

"To pray in God’s name means to submit to him and to pray in terms of his revealed character and will." [Note: Watts, Isaiah 34-66, p. 342.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER XXV

A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGMENT

Isa 63:7 through Isa 66:1-24

WE might well have thought, that with the section we have been considering the prophecy of Israels Redemption had reached its summit and its end. The glory of Zion in sight, the full programme of prophecy owned, the arrival of the Divine Saviour hailed in the urgency of His feeling for His people, in the sufficiency of His might to save them, -what more, we ask, can the prophecy have to give us? Why does it not end upon these high notes? The answer is, the salvation is indeed consummate, but the people are not ready for it. On an earlier occasion, let us remember, when our prophet called the nation to their Service of God, he called at first the whole nation, but had then immediately to make a distinction. Seen in the light of their destiny, the mass of Israel proved to be unworthy; tried by its strain, part immediately fell away. But what happened upon that call to Service happens again upon this disclosure of Salvation. The prophet realises that it is only a part of Israel who are worthy of it. He feels again the weight, which has been the hindrance of his hope all through, -the weight of the mass of the nation, sunk in idolatry and wickedness, incapable of appreciating the promises. He will make one more effort to save them-to save them all. He does this in an intercessory prayer, Isa 63:7 through Isa 64:1-12, in which he states the most hopeless aspects of his peoples case, identifies himself with their sin, and yet pleads by the ancient power of God that we all may be saved. He gets his answer in chapter 65, in which God sharply divides Israel into two classes, the faithful and the idolaters, and affirms that, while the nation shall be saved for the sake of the faithful remnant, Jehovahs faithful servants and the unfaithful can never share the same experience or the same fate. And then the book closes with a discourse in chapter 66, in which this division between the two classes in Israel is pursued to a last terrible emphasis and contrast upon the narrow stage of Jerusalem itself. We are left, not with the realisation of the prophets prayer for the salvation of all the nations, but with a last judgment separating its godly and ungodly portions.

Thus there are three connected divisions in Isa 63:7 through Isa 66:1-24. First, the prophets Intercessory Prayer, Isa 63:7 through Isa 64:1-12; second, the Answer of Jehovah, chapter 65; and third, the Final Discourse and Judgment, chapter 66.

I. THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE

(Isa 63:7 through Isa 64:1-12)

There is a good deal of discussion as to both the date and the authorship of this piece, was to whether it comes from the early or the late Exile, and as to whether it comes from our prophet or from another. It must have been written after the destruction and before the rebuilding of the Temple; this is put past all doubt by these verses: “Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary.” “Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. The house of our holiness and of our ornament, wherein our fathers praised Thee, is become for a burning of fire, and all our delights are for ruin.”

This language has been held to imply that the disaster to Jerusalem was recent, as if the citys conflagration still flared on the national imagination, which in later years of the Exile was impressed rather by the long cold ruins of the Holy Place, the haunt of wild beasts. But not only is this point inconclusive, but the impression that it leaves is entirely dispelled by other verses, which speak of the Divine anger as having been of long continuance, and as if it had only hardened the people in sin; compare Isa 63:17; Isa 64:6-7. There is nothing in the prayer to show that the author lived in exile, and accordingly the proposal has been made to date the piece from among the first attempts at rebuilding after the Return. To the present expositor this seems to be certainly wrong. The man who wrote Isa 63:11-15 had surely the Return still before him; he would not have written in the way he has done of the Exodus from Egypt unless he had been feeling the need of another exhibition of Divine Power of the same kind. The prayer, therefore, must come from pretty much the same date as the rest of our prophecy, -after the Exile had long continued, but while the Return had not yet taken place. Nor is there any reason against attributing it to the same writer. It is true the style differs from the rest of his work, but this may be accounted for, as in the case of chapter 53, by the change of subject. Most critics, who hold that we still follow the same author, take for granted that some time has elapsed since the prophets triumphant strains in chapter 60-62. This is probable; but there is nothing to make it certain. What is certain is the change of mood and conscience. The prophet, who in chapter 60 had been caught away into the glorious future of the people, is here as utterly absorbed in their barren and doubtful present. Although the salvation is certain, as he has seen it, the people are not ready. The fact he has already felt so keenly about them, -see Isa 42:24-25, -that their long discipline in exile has done the mass of them no good, but evil, comes forcibly back upon him. {Isa 64:5 b ff.} “Thou wast angry, and we sinned” only the more: “in such a state we have been long, and shall we be saved!” The banished people are thoroughly unclean and rotten, fading as a leaf, the sport of the wind. But the prophet identifies himself with them. He speaks of their sin as ours, of their misery as ours. He takes of them the very saddest view possible, he feels them all as sheer dead weight: “there is none that calleth on Thy name, that stirreth himself up to take hold on Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” But the prophet thus loads himself with the people in order to secure, if he can. their redemption as a whole. Twice he says in the name of them all, “Doubtless Thou art our Father.” His great heart will not have one of them left out; “we all,” he says, “are the work of Thy hand, we are all Thy people.”

But this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change of style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it is quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward into the glorious vision of his peoples future salvation, and again to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their present distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will certainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these different feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the recurrence of some of our prophecys most characteristic thoughts. We feel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another hand than that which has mainly written “Second Isaiah.” It may be at once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases, reminiscences, and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in use when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing for him to do in a prayer in which he represented the whole people and took upon himself the full burden of their woes.

If such be the intention of Isa 63:7 through Isa 64:1-12, then in them we have one of the noblest passages of our prophets great work. How like he is to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the loftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge of his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and sorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said of the Servant, he himself “bears the sin of many, and interposes for the transgressors.” Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear some obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer.

It opens with a recital of Jehovahs ancient lovingkindness and mercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with the previous section. In chapter 62 the prophet, though sure of the coming glory, wrote before it had come, and “urged” upon “the Lords remembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” This work of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in Isa 63:7 : “The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record,” literally, “cause to be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us.” And then he beautifully puts all the beginnings of Gods dealings with His people in His trusting of them: “For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them.” This must be understood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the Presence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, Gods own Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God. “In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Then he tells us how they disappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days of old. “But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against them.” This refers to their history down to, and especially during, the Exile: compare Isa 42:24-25. Then in their affliction they “remembered the days of old”-the English version obscures the sequence here by translating he remembered- and then follows the glorious account of the Exodus. In Isa 63:13 the wilderness is, of course, prairie, flat pasture-land; they were led as smoothly as “a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that come down into the valley”-cattle coming down from the hillside to pasture and rest on the green, watered plains-“the Spirit of Jehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious name.” And then having offered such precedents, the prophets prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people fed no longer at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: “Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me.” Then he pleads Gods fatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates between the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and, notwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of old; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and remember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over them, as the power of the potter over the clay.

Two points stand out from the rest. The Divine Trust, from which all Gods dealing with His people is said to have started, and the Divine Fatherhood, which the prophet pleads.

“He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely: so He was their Saviour.” The “surely” is not the fiat of sovereignty or foreknowledge: it is the hope and confidence of love. It did not prevail; it was disappointed.

This is, of course, a profound acknowledgment of mans free will. It is implied that mens conduct must remain an uncertain thing, and that in calling men God cannot adventure upon greater certainty than is implied in the trust of affection. If one asks, What, then, about Gods foreknowledge, who alone knoweth the end of a thing from the beginning, and His sovereign grace, who chooseth whom He will? are you not logically bound to these?-then it can only be asked in return, Is it not better to be without logic for a little, if at the expense of it we obtain so true, so deep a glimpse into Gods heart as this simple verse affords us? Which is better for us to know-that God is Wisdom which knows all, or Love that dares and ventures all? Surely, that God is Love which dares and ventures all with the worst, with the most hopeless of us. This is what makes this single verse of Scripture more powerful to move the heart than all creeds and catechisms. For where these speak of sovereign will, and often mock our affections with the bare and heavy (if legitimate) sceptre they sway, this calls forth our love, honour, and obedience by the heart it betrays in God. Of what unsuspicious trust, of what chivalrous adventure of love, of what fatherly confidence, does it speak! What a religion is this of ours in the power of which a man may every morning rise and feel himself thrilled by the thought that God trusts him enough to work with His will for the day; in the power of which a man may look round and see the sordid, hopeless human life about him glorified by the truth that for the salvation of such God did adventure Himself in a love that laid itself down in death. The attraction and power of such a religion can never die. Requiring no painful thought to argue it into reality, it leaps to light before the natural affection of mans heart; it takes his instincts immediately captive; it gives him a conscience, an honour, and an obligation. No wonder that our prophet, having such a belief, should once more identify himself with the people, and adventure himself with the weight of their sin before God.

The other point of the prayer is the Fatherhood of God, concerning which all that is needful to say here is that the prophet, true to the rest of Old Testament teaching on the subject, applies it only to Gods relation to the nation as a whole. In the Old Testament no one is called the son of God except Israel as a people, or some individual representative and head of Israel. And even of such the term was seldom employed. This was not because the Hebrew was without temptation to imagine his physical descent from the gods, for neighbouring nations indulged in such dreams for themselves and their heroes; nor because he was without appreciation of the intellectual kinship between the human and the Divine, for he knew that in the beginning God had said, “Let us make man in our own image.” But the same feeling prevailed with him in regard to this idea, as we have seen prevailed in regard to the kindred idea of God as the husband of His people. The prophets were anxious to emphasise that it was a moral relation, -a moral relation, and one initiated from Gods side by certain historical acts of His free, selecting, redeeming, and adopting love. Israel was not Gods son till God had evidently called and redeemed him. Look at how our prophet uses the word Father, and to what he makes it equivalent. The first time it is equivalent to Redeemer: “Thou, O Lord, art our Father; our Redeemer from old is Thy name”. {Isa 63:16 b} The second time it is illustrated by the work of the potter: “But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are all the work of Thy hand”. {Isa 64:8} Could it be made plainer in what sense the Bible defines this relation between God and man? It is not a physical, nor is it an intellectual relation. The assurance and the virtue of it do not come to men with their blood or with the birth of their intellect, but in the course of moral experience, with the sense that God claims them from sin and from the world for Himself; with the gift of a calling and a destiny; with the formation of character, the perfecting of obedience, the growth in His knowledge and His grace. And because it is a moral relation time is needed to realise it, and only after long patience and effort may it be unhesitatingly claimed. And that is why Israel was so long in claiming it, and why the clearest, most undoubting cries to God the Father, which rise from the Greek in the earliest period of his history, reach our ears from Jewish lips only near the end of their long progress, only (as we see from our prayer) in a time of trial and affliction.

We have a New Testament echo of this Old Testament belief in the Fatherhood of God, as a moral and not a national relation, in Pauls writings, who in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians {2Co 6:17-18} urges thus: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

On these grounds, then, -that God in His great love had already adventured Himself with this whole people, and already by historical acts of election and redemption proved Himself the Father of the nation as a whole, -does our prophet plead with Him to save them all again. The answer to this pleading he gets in chapter 65.

II. GODS ANSWER TO THE PROPHETS INTERCESSION

(Chapter 65)

Gods answer to His prophets intercession is twofold. First, He says that He has already all this time been trying them with love, meeting them with salvation; but they have not turned to Him. The prophet has asked, “Where is Thy zeal? the yearning of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me. Thou hast hid Thy face far from us. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Jehovah? Wilt Thou hold Thy peace and afflict us very sore?” And now, “in the beginning of chapter 65, Jehovah answers, not with that confusion of tenses and irrelevancy of words with which the English version makes Him speak; but suitably, relevantly, and convincingly.” “I have been to be inquired of those who asked not for Me. I have been to be found of them that sought Me not. I have been saying, I am here, I am here, to a nation that did not call on My name. I have stretched out My hands all the day to a people turning away, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that have been provoking Me to My face continually,”-and then He details their idolatry. This, then, is the answer of the Lord to the prophets appeal. “In this I have not all power. It is wrong to talk of Me as the potter and of man as the clay, as if all the active share in salvation lay with Me. Man is free, – free to withhold himself from My urgent affection; free to turn from My outstretched hands; free to choose before Me the abomination of idolatry. And this the mass of Israel have done, clinging, fanatical and self-satisfied, to their unclean and morbid imaginations of the Divine, all the time that My great prophecy by you has been appealing to them.” This is a sufficient answer to the prophets prayer. Love is not omnipotent; if men disregard so open an appeal of the Love of God, they are hopeless; nothing else can save them. The sin against such love is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, of which our Lord speaks so hopelessly. Even God cannot help the despisers and abusers of Grace.

The rest of Gods answer to His prophets intercession emphasises that the nation shall be saved for the sake of a faithful remnant in it (Isa 65:8-10). But the idolaters shall perish (Isa 65:11-12). They cannot possibly expect the same fare, the same experience, the same fate, as Gods faithful servants (Isa 65:13-15). But those who are true and faithful Israelites, surviving and experiencing the promised salvation, shall find that God is true, and shall acknowledge Him as “the God of Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten” (those felt so keenly in the prophets prayer in chapter 64) “and because they are hid from Mine eyes.” The rest of the answer describes a state of serenity and happiness wherein there shall be no premature death, nor loss of property, nor vain labour, nor miscarriage, nor disappointment of prayer nor delay in its answer, nor strife between man and the beasts, nor any hurt or harm in Jehovahs Holy Mountain. Truly a prospect worthy of being named as the prophet names it, “a new heaven and a new earth!”

Chapter 65 is thus closely connected, both by circumstance and logic, with the long prayer which precedes it. The tendency of recent criticism has been to deny this connection, especially on the line of circumstance. Chapter 65 does not, it is argued, reflect the Babylonish captivity as Isa 63:7 through Isa 64:1-12 so clearly does; but, on the contrary, “while some passages presuppose the Exile as past, others refer to circumstances characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan.” But this view is only possible through straining some features of the chapter adaptable either to Palestine or Babylon, and overlooking others which are obviously Babylonian. “Sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on tiles” were practices pursued in Jerusalem before the Exile, but the latter was introduced there from Babylon, and the former was universal in heathendom. The practices in Isa 65:5 are never attributed to the people before the Exile, were all possible in Babylonia, and some we know to have been actual there. The other charge of idolatry in Isa 65:11 “suits Babylonia,” Cheyne admits, “as well as (probably) Palestine.” But what seems decisive for the exilic origin of chapter 65 is that the possession of Judah and Zion by the seed of Jacob is still implied as future (Isa 65:9). Moreover the holy land is alluded to by the name common among the exiles in flat Mesopotamia, My mountains, and in contrast with the idolatry of which the present generation is guilty the idolatry of their fathers is characterised as having been “upon the mountains and upon the hills,” and again the people is charged with “forgetting My holy mountain,” a phrase reminiscent of Psa 137:4, and more appropriate to a time of exile, than when the people were gathered about Zion. All these resemblances in circumstances corroborate the strong logical connection which we have found between chapter 64 and chapter 65, and leave us no reason for taking the latter away from the main author of “Second Isaiah,” though he may have worked up into it recollections and remains of an older time.

III. THE LAST JUDGMENT

(Chapter 66)

Whether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get footing in the Holy Land is doubtful. It was said that, “in Isa 66:1-4 the Temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun.” This latter clause should be modified to, “the building would seem to be in immediate prospect.” The rest of the chapter, Isa 66:6-24, has features that speak more definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are not conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other verses. Isa 66:6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and Isa 66:20 that the sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may be, like parts of chapter 60, statements of the prophets vivid vision of the future. Isa 66:7-8 seem to describe a repeopling of Jerusalem that has already taken place; but Isa 66:9 says, that while the “bringing to the birth” has already happened, which is, as we must suppose, the deliverance from Babylon, -or is it the actual arrival at Jerusalem?-the “bringing forth from the womb,” that is, the complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Isa 66:13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem.

These few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to decide the question of date, as between the days immediately before the Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor the balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the difference is very small. We are at least sure-and it is really all that we require to know-that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is very near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The Temple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk of the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if they had been resumed.

To the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or immediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet addresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division that chapter 65 had emphasised between the two parties in Israel. These oracles are so, intricate that we are compelled to take up the chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting certain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the rebuilding and the glory of the Temple. “Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a house that ye will build (or, are building) Me, and what is this for a place for My rest? Yea, all these things” (that is, all the visible works of God in heaven and earth) “My hand hath made, and so came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will I look, unto the humble and contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word.” These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond, anything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the building of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which contains chapter 60. They condemn only the kind of temple which those whom they address had in view, -a shrine to which the presence of Jehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which the religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While the former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus misconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion to have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And now, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the same formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes them, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them of a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised, according to Gods own promise and direction, it wilt not be to its structure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but to the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety. The Temple is to be raised: “the place of His feet God will make glorious,” and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for instruction, for comfort, and for rejoicing. But. let them not think it to be indispensable either to God or to man, -not to God, who has heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man, for God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent, and sensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old Testament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much about Gods other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple shall be past, His Servant Stephen {Act 7:49} shall be able to employ these words to prove why it should disappear.

The next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: “A slaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a breaker of a dogs neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swines blood; the maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an idol, or vanity.” Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled with four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the eye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when performed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful sacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice associated with it, -the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a human sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there are persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by Paul, {1Co 10:1-33} both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of the Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether we take the four parallels with Isa 66:2, which precedes them, or with the rest of Isa 66:3, to which they belong, and Isa 66:4. If we take them with Isa 66:2, then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning; if with Isa 66:4, then the second of these meanings is the right one. Now there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical one, between Isa 66:2 and Isa 66:3, but there is a grammatical connection with the rest of Isa 66:3. Immediately after the pairs of lawful and unlawful sacrificial acts, Isa 66:3 continues, “yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.” That surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in Isa 66:3 are things already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of putting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovahs religion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of the lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, Isa 66:3-4 form a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the equally distinct oracle in Isa 66:1 and Isa 66:2. The subject of Isa 66:3-4 is, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto Satan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation: In Isa 66:5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed Gods word by the prophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall certainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation of the judgment against them (Isa 66:6). It comes forth from the city where they had mockingly cried for Gods glory to appear. The mocked city avenges itself on them. “Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from the Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!” A new section begins with Isa 66:7, and celebrates to Isa 66:9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and “to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood, -children suckled, borne, and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother.” As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass.” But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in One, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgment. “The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies” (enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgment) “For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with, all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: “they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle; eaters of swines flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I” (know, or will punish,) “their works and their thoughts.” In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with Isa 66:17. Then begins a new subject.

“It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign” (a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgment, for he immediately speaks of their survivors) “and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan” (that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to “Greece, a full round of the compass) the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. And also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith Jehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your seed and your name.” But again the prophecy swerves from the universal hope into which we expect it to break, and gives us instead a division and a judgment: the servants of Jehovah on one side occupied in what the prophet regards as the ideal life, regular worship-so little did he mean Isa 66:1 to be a condemnation of the Temple and its ritual!-and on the other the rebels unburied carcasses gnawed by the worm and by fire, an abomination to all. “And it shall come to pass from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, saith Jehovah: and they shall go out and look on the carcasses of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

We have thus gone step by step through the chapter, because its intricacies and sudden changes were not otherwise to be mastered. What exactly it is composed of must, we fear, still remain a problem. Who can tell whether its short, broken pieces are all originally from our prophets hand, or were gathered by him from others, or were the fragments of his teaching which the reverent hands of disciples picked carefully up that nothing might be lost? Sometimes we think it must be this last alternative that happened; for it seems impossible that pieces so strange to each other, so loosely connected, could have flowed from one mind at one time. But then again we think otherwise, when we see how the chapter as a whole continues the separation made evident in chapter 65, and runs it on to a last emphatic contrast.

So we are left by the prophecy, -not with the new heavens and the new earth which it promised: not with the holy mountain on which none shall hurt nor destroy, saith the Lord; not with a Jerusalem full of glory and a people all holy, the centre of a gathered humanity, -but with the city like to a judgment floor, and upon its narrow surface a people divided between worship and a horrible woe.

O Jerusalem, City of the Lord, Mother eagerly desired of her children, radiant light to them that sit in darkness and are far off, home after exile, haven after storm, -expected as the Lords garner, thou art still to be only His threshing-floor, and heaven and hell as of old shall, from new moon to new moon, through the revolving years, lie side by side within thy narrow walls! For from the day that Araunah the Jebusite threshed out his sheaves upon thy high windswept rock, to the day when the Son of Man standing over against thee divided in his last discourse the sheep from the goats, the wise from the foolish, and the loving from the selfish, thou hast been appointed of God for trial and separation and judgment.

It is a terrible ending to such a prophecy as ours. But is any other possible? We ask how can this contiguity of heaven and hell be within the Lords own city, after all His yearning and jealousy for her, after His fierce agony and strife with her enemies, after so clear a revelation of Himself, so long a providence, so glorious a deliverance? Yet, it is plain that nothing else can result, if the men on whose ears the great prophecy had fallen, with all its music and all its gospel, and who had been partakers of the Lords Deliverance, did yet continue to prefer their idols, their swines flesh, their mouse, their broth of abominable things, their sitting in graves, to so evident a God and to so great a grace.

It is a terrible ending, but it is the same as upon the same floor Christ set to His teaching, -the gospel net cast wide, but only to draw in both good and bad upon a beach of judgment; the wedding feast thrown open and men compelled to come in, but among them a heart whom grace so great could not awe even to decency; Christs gospel preached, His Example evident, and Himself owned as Lord, and nevertheless some whom neither the hearing nor the seeing nor the owning with their lips did lift to unselfishness or stir to pity. Therefore He who had cried, “Come all unto Me,” was compelled to close by saying to many, “Depart.”

It is a terrible ending, but one only too conceivable. For though God is love, man is free, -free to turn from that love; free to be as though he had never felt it; free to put away from himself the highest, clearest, most urgent grace that God can show. But to do this is the judgment.

“Lord, are there few that be saved?”

The Lord did not answer the question but by bidding the questioner take heed to himself:

“Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast sent this book to be the revelation of Thy great love to man, and of Thy power and will to save him, grant that our study of it may not have been in vain by the callousness or carelessness of our hearts, but that by it we may be confirmed in penitence, lifted to hope, made strong for service, and above all filled with the true knowledge of Thee and of Thy Son Jesus Christ, Amen.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary