Yahweh says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest?
Parallel Translations
-
Yahweh says, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest?
-
Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
-
Thus saith the LORD: The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool; where is the house that ye may build unto Me? And where is the place that may be My resting-place?
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Isaiah 66:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 7:48-50 However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, ‘heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord. ‘Or what is the place of my rest? Didn’t my hand make all these things?’
- Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands.
- Matthew 5:34-35 but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
- 1 Kings 8:27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
- Psalms 132:7 “We will go into his dwelling place. We will worship at his footstool.
- 2 Samuel 7:5-7 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Yahweh says, “Should you build me a house for me to dwell in? For I have not lived in a house since the day that I brought the children of Israel up out of Egypt, even to this day, but have moved around in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all places in which I have walked with all the children of Israel, did I say a word to any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to be shepherd of my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ ” ’
- John 4:20-21 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.
- 1 Chronicles 28:2 Then David the king stood up on his feet, and said, “Hear me, my brothers, and my people! As for me, it was in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, and for the footstool of our God; and I had prepared for the building.
- 2 Chronicles 6:18 “But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house which I have built!
- Psalms 11:4 Yahweh is in his holy temple. Yahweh is on his throne in heaven. His eyes observe. His eyes examine the children of men.
- Jeremiah 7:4-11 Don’t trust in lying words, saying, ‘Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, Yahweh’s temple, are these.’ For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor; if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt; then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even forever more. Behold, you trust in lying words that can’t profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it,” says Yahweh.
- Matthew 23:21-22 He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who has been living in it. He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it.
- Psalms 99:9 Exalt Yahweh, our God. Worship at his holy hill, for Yahweh, our God, is holy!
- Matthew 24:2 But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”
- Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the nations,” says Yahweh of Armies.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (23 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain My majesty is so great, that it filleth both…
My majesty is so great, that it filleth both heaven and earth, and therefore cannot be included in a temple like an idol: condemning hereby their vain confidence, which trusted in the Temple and sacrifices.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is]…
Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest?
Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lard.] The same he saith in effect here in this last chapter that he had done in the first, rejecting the Jews’ vain confidence in their temple and sacrifices, and showing that he was neither confined to their temple nor contented with their sacrifices, so long as the hidden man of the heart and the spiritual worship was wanting - so long as they neglected his laws and served their own lusts. {Isa 66:3}
Read full note →
Heaven is my throne.] Coelum est solium meum; there do I manifest the most glorious and visible signs of my presence; there I am in a special manner worshipped according to mine excellent greatness; and there my courtiers have a more ardent zeal for me than those flatterers had for Darius. {Dan 6:7}
The earth is my footstool.] So it should be ours, since God hath in Christ "put all things under our feet." {Psa 8:6} The earth hath its name in Hebrew from treading upon; and terra a terendo, these earthly things should be trampled on as base and bootless.
Where is the house that ye build unto me?] q.d., A house indeed I commanded to be built for me, but not to hold me, or there to keep me cooped up as in a cell, that, you should therehence conclude, The temple, God’s house, shall never perish; therefore neither shall we. You must know that I am intra, et extra, et supra, et circa, et infra omnia, within and without, and above and about, and beneath all things.
“ Enter praesenter Deus hic et ubique potenter. ”
This the heathens knew. Empedocles said that God was a circle, the centre whereof is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. This the Turks acknowledge, by building their mosques or temples open at the top, to show that God is nowhere circumscriptively and definitively, but repletively everywhere. He is higher than heaven, saith Bernard, deeper than hell, larger than earth, broader than the sea: he is nowhere, and yet everywhere, yet he is everywhere all-present. The heavens have a large place, but they have one part here and another there; but the Lord is totally present wheresoever present, not commensurable by any place whatsoever.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The heaven is my throne; the heaven, that is,…
The heaven is my throne; the heaven, that is, the highest heavens, are the place where I most manifest my power and glory, and show myself in my majesty. Psa 11:4; 103:19; Mat 5:34. Hence we are taught to pray, Our Father which art in heaven. And
the earth is my footstool, or a place wherein I set my feet, Mat 5:35.
Read full note →
Where is the house that ye build unto me? can there be a house builded that will contain me, who can encompass the heavens and the earth with a house? Where is the place of my rest? or, where is the place wherein I can be said to rest in a proper sense? The ark is indeed God’s footstool, and the
place of his
rest, in a figurative sense, because there God manifested himself, though in degrees much beneath the manifestations of himself in heaven; but properly, God hath no certain place of rest.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here, I. The temple is slighted in comparison with…
Here, I. The temple is slighted in comparison with a gracious soul, Isa 66:1, Isa 66:2. The Jews in the prophet's time, and afterwards in Christ's time, gloried much in the temple and promised themselves great things from it; to humble them therefore, and to shake their vain confidence, both the prophets and Christ foretold the ruin of the temple, that God would leave it and then it would soon be desolate. After it was destroyed by the Chaldeans it soon recovered itself and the ceremonial services were revived with it; but by the Romans it was made a perpetual desolation, and the ceremonial law was abolished with it. That the world might be prepared for this, they were often told, as here, of what little account the temple was with God. 1. That he did not need it. Heaven is the throne of his glory and government; there he sits, infinitely exalted in the highest dignity and dominion, above all blessing and praise. The earth is his footstool, on which he stands, over-ruling all the affairs of it according to his will. If God has so bright a throne, so large a footstool, where then is the house they can build unto God, that can be the residence of his glory, or where is the place of his rest? What satisfaction can the Eternal Mind take in a house made with men's hands? What occasion has he, as we have, for a house to repose himself in, who faints not neither is weary, who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Or, if he had occasion, he would not tell us (Psa 50:12), for all these things hath his hand made, heaven and all its courts, earth and all its borders, and all the hosts of both. All these things have been, have had their beginning, by the power of God, who was happy from eternity before they were, and therefore could not be benefited by them. All these things are (so some read it); they still continue, upheld by the same power that made them; so that our goodness extends not to him. If he required a house for himself to dwell in, he would have made one himself when he made the world; and, if he had made one, it would have continued to this day, as other creatures do, according to his ordinance; so that he had no need of a temple made with hands. 2. That he would not heed it as he would a humble, penitent, gracious heart. He has a heaven and earth of his own making, and a temple of man's making; but he overlooks them all, that he may look with favour to him that is poor in spirit, humble and serious, self-abasing and self-denying, whose heart is truly contrite for sin, penitent for it, and in pain to get it pardoned, and who trembles at God's word, not as Felix did, with a transient qualm that was over when the sermon was done, but with an habitual awe of God's majesty and purity and an habitual dread of his justice and wrath. Such a heart is a living temple for God; he dwells there, and it is the place of his rest; it is like heaven and earth, his throne and his footstool.
II. Sacrifices are slighted when they come from ungracious hands. The sacrifice of the wicked is not only unacceptable, but it is an abomination to the Lord (Pro 15:8); this is largely shown here, v. 3, 4. Observe, 1. How detestable their sacrifices were to God. The carnal Jews, after their return out of captivity, though they relapsed not to idolatry, grew very careless and loose in the service of God; they brought the torn, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice (Mal 1:8, Mal 1:13), and this made their services abominable to God; they had no regard to their sacrifices, and therefore how could they think God would have any regard to them? The unbelieving Jews, after the gospel was preached and in it notice given of the offering up of the great sacrifice, which put an end to all the ceremonial services, continued to offer sacrifices, as if the law of Moses had been still in force and could make the comers thereunto perfect: this was an abomination. He that kills an ox for his own table is welcome to do it; but he that now kills it, that thus kills it, for God's altar, is as if he slew a man; it is as great an offence to God as murder itself; he that does it does in effect set aside Christ's sacrifice, treads under foot the blood of the covenant, and makes himself accessory to the guilt of the body and blood of the Lord, setting up what Christ died to abolish. He that sacrifices a lamb, if it be a corrupt thing, and not the male in his flock, the best he has, if he think to put God off with any thing, he affronts him, instead of pleasing him; it is as if he cut off a dog's neck, a creature in the eye of the law so vile that, whereas an ass might be redeemed, the price of a dog was never to be brought into the treasury, Deu 23:18. He that offers an oblation, a meat offering or drink-offering, is as if he thought to make atonement with swine's blood, a creature that must not be eaten nor touched, the broth of it was abominable (Isa 65:4), much more the blood of it. He that burns incense to God, and so puts contempt upon the incense of Christ's intercession, is as if he blessed an idol; it was as great an affront to God as if they had paid their devotions to a false god. Hypocrisy and profaneness are as provoking as idolatry. 2. What their wickedness was which made their sacrifices thus detestable. It was because they had chosen their own ways, the ways of their own wicked hearts, and not only their hands did but their souls delighted in their abominations. They were vicious and immoral in their conversations, chose the way of sin rather than the way of God's commandments, and took pleasure in that which was provoking to God; this made their sacrifices so offensive to God, Isa 1:11-15. Those that pretend to honour God by a profession of religion, and yet live wicked lives, put an affront upon him, as if he were the patron of sin. And that which was an aggravation of their wickedness was that they persisted in it, notwithstanding the frequent calls given them to repent and reform; they turned a deaf ear to all the warnings of divine justice and all the offers of divine grace: When I called, none did answer, as before, Isa 65:12. And the same follows here that did there: They did evil before my eyes. Being deaf to what he said, they cared not what he saw, but chose that in which they knew he delighted not. How could those expect to please him in their devotions who took no care to please him in their conversations, but, on the contrary, designed to provoke him? 3. The doom passed upon them for this. Theychose their own ways, therefore, says God, I also will choose their delusions. They have made their choice (as Mr. Gataker paraphrases it), and now I will make mine; they have taken what course they pleased with me, and I will take what course I please with them. I will choose their illusions, or mockeries (so some); as they have mocked God and dishonoured him by their wickedness, so God will give them up to their enemies, to be trampled upon and insulted by them. Or they shall be deceived by those vain confidences with which they have deceived themselves. God will make their sin their punishment; they shall be beaten with their own rod and hurried into ruin by their own delusions. God will bring their fears upon them, that is, will bring upon them that which shall be a great terror to them, or that which they themselves have been afraid of and thought to escape by sinful shifts. Unbelieving hearts, and unpurified unpacified consciences, need no more to make them miserable than to have their own fears brought upon them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne,....…
Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne,.... The third heaven, the heaven of heavens, where angels and glorified saints are, and some in bodies, as Enoch and Elijah, and where now Christ is in human nature; this is the seat of the divine Majesty, where he in a most illustrious manner displays his glory; and therefore we are to look upwards to God in heaven, and direct all our devotion to him there, and not imagine that he dwells in temples made with hands; or is confined to any place, and much less to any on earth, as the temple at Jerusalem, the Jews boasted of, and trusted in; and which were the unworthy notions they had of God in the times of Christ and his disciples; to confute which these words are here said, and for this purpose are quoted and applied by Stephen, Act 7:48. See Gill on Act 7:48, Act 7:49, Act 7:50,
and the earth is my footstool: on which he treads, is below him, subject to him, and at his dispose; and therefore is not limited to any part of it, or included in any place in it; though he for a while condescended to make the cherubim his throne, and the ark his footstool, in the most holy place in the temple; which were all figurative of other and better things, and so no more used:
Read full note →
where is the house that ye build unto me? what house can be built for such an immense Being? and how needless as well as fruitless is it to attempt it? where can a place be found to build one in, since the heaven is his throne, and the earth his footstool? and therefore, if any place, it must be some that is without them both, and that can hold both; but what space can be conceived of that can contain such a throne and footstool, and much less him that sits thereon? see Kg1 8:27,
and where is the place of my rest? for God to take up his rest and residence in, as a man does in his house? no such place can be found for him, nor does he need any; indeed the temple was built for an house of rest for the ark of the Lord, which before was moved from place to place; but then this was merely typical of the church, which God has chosen for his rest, and where he will dwell, as well as of heaven, the resting place of his people with him to all eternity; no place on earth is either his rest or theirs.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain God is served with the spirit, and not by…
God is served with the spirit, and not by ceremonies, ver. 1- 5. The wonderful birth and benefits of the gospel-church, ver. 6- 14. Severe judgments against the wicked, ver. 15-17. The Gentiles shall be an holy church, ver. 18-23. The eternal punishment of the wicked, ver. 24.
The heaven - The highest heaven, is the place where I shew myself in my majesty. So Psalm xi, 4 Psalm ciii, 19 Matt. v, 34. Hence we are taught to pray; our father which art in heaven. And the earth is my footstool - Or a place wherein I set my feet, Matt. v, 35. The house - Can there be an house built, that will contain me? My rest - Or where is the place wherein I can be said to rest in a proper sense?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain This chapter treats of the same subject with the…
CHAPTER LXVI
This chapter treats of the same subject with the foregoing.
Read full note →
God, by his prophet, tells the Jews, who valued themselves much
on their temple and pompous worship, that the Most High
dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that no outward
rites of worship, while the worshippers are idolatrous and
impure, can please him who looketh at the heart, 1-3. This leads to a threatening of vengeance for their guilt,
alluding to their making void the law of God by their
abominable traditions, their rejection of Christ, persecution
of his followers, and consequent destruction by the Romans. But
as the Jewish ritual and people shadow forth the system of
Christianity and its professors; so, in the prophetical
writings, the idolatries of the Jews are frequently put for the
idolatries afterwards practiced by those bearing the Christian
name. Consequently, if we would have the plenitude of meaning
in this section of prophecy, which the very content requires,
we must look through the type into the antitype, viz., the very
gross idolatries practised by the members of Antichrist, the
pompous heap of human intentions and traditions with which they
have encumbered the Christian system, their most dreadful
persecution of Christ's spiritual and true worshippers, and the
awful judgments which shall overtake them in the great and
terrible day of the Lord, 4-6. The mighty and sudden increase of the Church of Jesus Christ at
the period of Antichrist's fall represented by the very strong
figure of Sion being delivered of a man-child before the time
of her travail, the meaning of which symbol the prophet
immediately subjoins in a series of interrogations for the sake
of greater force and emphasis, 7-9. Wonderful prosperity and unspeakable blessedness of the world
when the posterity of Jacob, with the fulness of the Gentiles,
shall be assembled to Messiah's standard, 10-14. All the wicked of the earth shall be gathered together to the
battle of that great day of God Almighty, and the slain of
Jehovah shall be many, 15-18. Manner of the future restoration of the Israelites from their
several dispersions throughout the habitable globe, 19-21. Perpetuity of this new economy of grace to the house of Israel,
22. Righteousness shall be universally diffused in the earth; and
the memory of those who have transgressed against the Lord
shall be had in continual abhorrence, 23, 24. Thus this great prophet, after tracing the principal events of
time, seems at length to have terminated his views in eternity,
where all revolutions cease, where the blessedness of the
righteous shall be unchangeable as the new heavens, and the
misery of the wicked as the fire that shall not be quenched.
NOTES ON CHAP. LXVI
This chapter is a continuation of the subject of the foregoing. The Jews valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict observance of all the externals of their religion. And at the very time when the judgments denounced in verses 6 and 12 of the preceding chapter Isa 65:6; Isa 65:12 were hanging over their heads, they were rebuilding, by Herod's munificence, the temple in a most magnificent manner. God admonishes them, that "the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands;" and that a mere external worship, how diligently soever attended, when accompanied with wicked and idolatrous practices in the worshippers, would never be accepted by him. This their hypocrisy is set forth in strong colours, which brings the prophet again to the subject of the former chapter; and he pursues it in a different manner, with more express declaration of the new economy, and of the flourishing state of the Church under it. The increase of the Church is to be sudden and astonishing. They that escape of the Jews, that is, that become converts to the Christian faith, are to be employed in the Divine mission to the Gentiles, and are to act as priests in presenting the Gentiles as an offering to God; see Ro 15:16. And both, now collected into one body, shall be witnesses of the final perdition of the obstinate and irreclaimable.
These two chapters manifestly relate to the calling of the Gentiles, the establishment of the Christian dispensation, and the reprobation of the apostate Jews, and their destruction executed by the Romans. - L.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 66:1-2. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is…
Isa 66:1-2. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne — That is, the throne of my glory and government; the place where I most manifest my power, and show myself in my majesty. Hence we are taught to pray, Our Father which art in heaven. And the earth is my footstool — Or, a place on which I set my feet, (Mat 5:35,) overruling all the affairs of it according to my will. Where is the house that ye build me? — Can there be a house built that will contain me, who encompass and fill heaven and earth? and where is the place of my rest? — Where is the place wherein I can be said to rest in a proper sense? The ark was indeed called God’s footstool, and the place of his rest, in a figurative sense, because there God manifested himself, though in degrees much beneath the manifestations of himself in heaven: but properly God hath no certain place of rest, and especially no temple built by man can be a place of rest for him. For what satisfaction can the Eternal Mind take in a house made with men’s hands? What occasion has he, as we have, for a house to repose himself in, who fainteth not, neither is weary; who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Or, if he had occasion, he would not tell us, Psa 50:12. For all those things hath his hands made — Heaven and all its courts, earth and all its borders, and all the hosts of both. And all these have been — Have had their beginning by the power of God, who was infinitely happy from eternity before they existed, and therefore cannot be benefited by them. Or, as the clause may be rendered, all these things are: they still continue upheld by the same power that made them; so that our goodness extendeth not to him. Vitringa is justly of opinion that “this discourse is directed to the hypocrites, who, despising the gospel of the Son of God, after they had made the temple a den of thieves, were yet zealous to repair and adorn it. They did not consider that a new economy being established, no earthly and material temple could be acceptable to Him whose throne was in heaven, and who everywhere found the place of his rest in the humble and contrite heart.” “The Jews,” says Bishop Lowth, “valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict observance of all the externals of their religion. And at the very time when the judgments denounced in Isa 66:6; Isa 66:12 of the preceding chapter were hanging over their heads, they were rebuilding, by Herod’s munificence, the temple in a most magnificent manner. God, therefore, admonishes them, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that a mere external worship, how diligently soever attended, when accompanied with wicked and idolatrous practices in the worshippers, would never be accepted by him. This their hypocrisy is set forth in strong colours, which brings the prophet again to the subject of the former chapter; and he pursues it in a different manner, with more express declarations of the new economy, and of the flourishing state of the church under it; the increase of which he shows is to be sudden and astonishing.”
But to this man will I look — But though I regard not the magnificence and splendour of a temple built with human hands, nor any ornaments that are or can be bestowed upon it, nor the pomp and show of the ceremonies and services performed in it, or connected with it; and though I reign on a throne in majesty in the highest heavens, and fill both heaven and earth with my glory, yet will I look with a favourable eye to him that hath a broken and contrite spirit — Whose heart is subdued to the will of God, and who is poor and low in his own eyes; and that trembleth at my word — Who trembles when he hears my threatening words, and receives every revelation of my will with reverence. Such a one is a living temple of God, (Isa 57:15,) and of infinitely more value in his sight than the most sumptuous edifice that can be raised by the art or power of man, though it should be adorned in the most costly manner with gold and silver, and precious stones.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The heaven is my throne - (See the notes…
The heaven is my throne - (See the notes at Isa 57:15). Here he is represented as having his seat or throne there. He speaks as a king. heaven is the place where he holds his court; from where he dispenses his commands; and from where he surveys all his works (compare 2Ch 6:18; Mat 5:34). The idea here is, that as God dwelt in the vast and distant heavens, no house that could be built on earth could be magnificent enough to be his abode.
The earth is my footstool - A footstool is that which is placed under the feet when we sit. The idea here is, that God was so glorious that even the earth itself could be regarded only as his footstool. It is probable that the Saviour had this passage in his eye in his declaration in the sermon on the mount, ‘Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool’ Mat 5:34-35.
Read full note →
Where is the house that ye build unto me? - What house can you build that will be an appropriate dwelling for him who fills heaven and earth? The same idea, substantially, was expressed by Solomon when he dedicated the temple: ‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!’ 1Ki 8:27. Substantially the same thought is found in the address of Paul at Athens: ‘God, that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands’ Act 17:24.
And where is the place of my rest? - It has already been intimated (in the analysis) that this refers probably to the time subsequent to the captivity. Lowth supposes that it refers to the time of the rebuilding of the temple by Herod. So also Vitringa understands it, and supposes that it refers to the pride and self-confidence of those who then imagined that they were rearing a structure that was worthy of being a dwelling-place of Yahweh. Grotius supposes that it refers to the time of the Maccabees, and that it was designed to give consolation to the pious of those times when they were about to witness the profanation of the temple by Antiochus, and the cessation of the sacrifices for three years and a half. ‘God therefore shows,’ says he, ‘that there was no reason why they should be offended in this thing. The most acceptable temple to him was a pious mind; and from that the value of all sacrifices was to be estimated.’ Abarbanel supposes that it refers to the times of redemption.
His words are these: ‘I greatly wonder at the words of the learned interpreting this prophecy, when they say that the prophet in this accuses the people of his own time on account of sacrifices offered with impure hands, for lo! all these prophecies which the prophet utters in the end of his book have respect to future redemption.’ See Vitringa. That it refers to some future time when the temple should be rebuilt seems to me to be evident. But what precise period it refers to - whether to times not far succeeding the captivity, or to the times of the Maccabees, or to the time of the rebuilding of the temple by Herod, it is difficult to find any data by which we can determine. From the whole strain of the prophecy, and particularly from Isa 66:3-5, it seems probable that it refers to the time when the temple which Herod had reared was finishing; when the nation was full of pride, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy; and when all sacrifices were about to be superseded by the one great sacrifice which the Messiah was to make for the sins of the world. At that time, God says that the spirit which would be evinced by the nation would be abominable in his sight; and to offer sacrifice then, and with the spirit which they would manifest, would be as offensive as murder or the sacrifice of a dog (see the notes at Isa 66:3).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain House. This is a prophecy that the temple should…
House. This is a prophecy that the temple should be cast off. (Challoner) --- Isaias alludes to the return of the captives, as to a figure of the Church. They had flattered themselves with the idea of building a magnificent temple. God regards it not, as long as they follow their own wills and cherish pride. (Calmet) --- He is pleased with the piety of his servants, which may be exhibited any where, though the temple is the most proper place. See Acts vii., and xiv. After the gospel, the sacrifices of the law became unlawful. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Isa_66:1-3 a.
5. THE NEW LIFE IN ITS INWARD RELATIONS
Isa_66:1-3 a.
Read full note →
1 Thus saith the Lord,
The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool:
1 Where is the house that ye build unto me?
And 2 where is the place of my rest?
2 For all those things hath mine hand made,
And all those things 3have been, saith the Lord:
But to this man will I look,
Even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And trembleth at my word.
3 aHe that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man;
He that sacrificeth a 4lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck;
He that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood;
He that 5burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The Prophet continues to describe the condition of things which is to be expected in the time of the end when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Here he has respect more to the inward life, as in Isa_65:17 sqq. he had depicted the renovation of the life of nature. What he here declares is to be regarded only as a measure to help us to estimate what will take place. The question, it is true, “What house will ye build me, and what shall be the place of my rest?” appears primarily to have practical application to those returning home from Exile, while it looks as if this question interdicted them from building a temple in Jerusalem. But this cannot possibly have been the design of the Prophet. For that the Lord desired for that time the erection of a temple is proved most clearly by such places as Isa_44:28; Isa_56:7; Isa_60:7; Ezr_1:2-4; Haggai 1, 2 This, then, must be the meaning of the words, that the external temple is at all times a thing of minor importance, and that hereafter, in the time of the new heaven and the new earth, the external temple will exist no longer (Isa_66:1). For all that the Lord has made belongs to Him. If He needed a house, the whole vast world would be at His command. But He does not dwell in temples built by human hands. In the hearts of the afflicted, contrite and obedient He will make His spiritual dwelling (Isa_66:2). And as He needs no temple, so He needs no external ceremonial worship. In the time when all things will be new, every act of the old, external, ceremonial worship must rather be regarded as an offence against the spirit of the new aeon (Isa_66:3 a).
2. Thus saith the Lord—an idol.
Isa_66:1-3 a. The Prophet begins by setting forth the infinite greatness and majesty of God by means of a figure used elsewhere in holy Scripture. For we read that the heaven is God’s throne also in Psa_11:4; Psa_103:19; Mat_5:34; Mat_23:22. That the earth is his footstool is directly stated only here and Mat_5:35, which latter place is based on the one before us. But the thought is indirectly contained in those places where the holy mountain or the temple is named the footstool of God: Psa_99:5, comp. Psa_66:9; Psa_132:7; Lam_2:1; 1Ch_28:2. With this view of the greatness and majesty of God the idea of an earthly habitation for God stands in contradiction, if God is conceived as a local god like the heathen divinities, and the temple is a space that encloses Him. This is a view from which even the Israelites (comp., e.g., the prophet Jonah) could not get free. Even the Christian martyr Stephen had to protest against this vain imagination (Act_7:48 sqq.), and in doing so he appeals to our place (comp. Act_17:24 sq.). But the idea of a temple did not contradict God’s infinity, when the temple was regarded as a place in which God was present only partially and repraesentativo modo, with a shining forth of His glory. The Rabbis call this effulgence of the absolute glory the Shekinah, and appeal to passages such as Exo_25:21 sq.; Lev_16:2; Lev_26:11 sqq.; Num_7:89; 1Sa_4:4, etc. Solomon, too, was fully conscious that the heaven and heaven of heavens could not contain God, much less a house built on the earth (1Ki_8:27). He therefore did not think of building a place for the Deity which should enclose Him in His totality. Our Prophet, in asking the question, “What house will ye build?” has manifestly the returning exiles before his mind, 6 and while he rejects an external temple and temple-worship, he has in view the remotest end of the time of salvation, the time of the new heaven and new earth, when, according to Rev_21:22, there shall be no temple. The form of a question is intentionally chosen in the sentence אי־זח בית וגו׳. For it makes known that the Lord declares an earthly place to be insufficient to be a habitation for His Godhead, without directly forbidding the erection of such a habitation. Such a prohibition He could not possibly design to make. For, in fact, He plainly disclosed to the returning exiles His will that His house should be rebuilt in Jerusalem (comp. the close of chap. 46; Ezr_1:2 sqq.; Hag_1:2 sqq.). There is no indication that the rebuilding of the temple and the re-institution of the Mosaic cultus were hindered by the place before us. Doubtless there was found in Isa_66:1 b merely the thought that there is no place which, as a dwelling, corresponds in the least degree to the greatness of God, and that the Prophet warns against such rude childish notions as formerly were entertained in Israel, that Jehovah really dwells in the most holy place of the temple as a man dwells in his house. The thought would readily suggest itself when this passage would be considered, that the new temple was not intended to be a place to contain God, but only to be the restoration of the old place where God revealed Himself. מְנוּחָה is=place of rest, Psa_132:14. The second question is literally rendered: what place is my resting place? I will not undertake to decide whether it was also seen that the look of the Prophet is here directed also to the time of the end. But we can have no doubt on this point. For it is undeniable that all through chapters 65 and 66 even the remotest time of the end is present to the spirit of the Prophet. And in this last time there will really, according to Rev_21:22, be no temple. For God is then inwardly and outwardly ever present to all. He is then Himself their temple. The Prophet assigns as reasons for the questions which he puts: First, God has heaven for His throne, the earth for His footstool. Secondly, he declares that God has made all these, that all have arisen through His almighty “Let there be.” He evidently alludes to the word of the Creator in Genesis 1, יְהִי. He thus lets it be known that God, if He wished, could build Himself a temple. For what would that be for Him who made “all these,” heaven and earth? And thirdly and lastly, he tells why God does not do this, although He could do it. He needs no temple. Hearts that feel their misery, that with contrition (comp. Isa_16:7; Pro_15:13; Pro_17:22; Pro_18:14) are conscious of their sin, and humbly hearken to His word (חָרֵד, comp. Jdg_7:3; 1Sa_4:13; Ezr_9:4; Ezr_10:3. עַל for אֶל, comp. Isa_66:5; Isa_60:5; Isa_10:3) are the temple which He most desires and values. On these He looks, these He regards and loves, and in these He will dwell. And because He is in them, they also are in Him. They are His temple, and He is their temple. While I cannot believe that the Prophet in Isa_66:1-2 absolutely repels the design of the returning Israelites to build God a temple, still less can I believe that he in Isa_66:3 a declares only to those estranged from God that the Lord will accept no religious services from them. Where is it by a single syllable intimated that Isa_66:3 is addressed solely to those estranged from God?—[See the words immediately following Isa_66:3 b and Isa_66:4.—D. M.]—Delitzsch indeed affirms that the sentence: “He who slays in the new Jerusalem an ox in sacrifice is like one who slays a man,” could not possibly be contained in the Old Testament. If under the “new Jerusalem” he means the city rebuilt by the exiles on their return, I admit that Delitzsch is perfectly right. But distingue tempora et concordabit Scriptura! The Prophet does not distinguish the times. He surveys the whole time of salvation from the end of the Exile to the αἰὼν μέλλων at one view, and in this space of time he perceives really a temple and sacrificial worship; but he declares both to be insufficient. He utters no absolute prohibition; but he declares most unambiguously that this temple must disappear and give place to a better. And when this shall have happened, then (this the Prophet sees quite clearly, as it is also self-evident), an animal sacrifice will be an abomination. He who in the Christian church would present an ox or a sheep as as sin-offering—would he not commit a crime, which in its way would be as great as if a Jew should present a sacrifice of a man or of a dog? Would he not thus despise the blood of the Lamb of God? If in chaps. 56 and 60 and also in our chapter, Isa_66:6; Isa_66:20 sqq., a temple and sacrificial worship are still spoken of, are we to suppose that the old temple of stone, with its material, bloody offerings, is intended? Verily chaps. 53 and 55 testify that the Prophet knew of an infinitely better offering and of an infinitely better way of appropriating salvation. Even Jeremiah can speak of a time in which the ark of the covenant will be no more thought of (Jer_3:16). And Isaiah emphatically testifies that the religious conception of the Israelites of his time will be superseded by one infinitely higher (Isa_55:8 sqq.). I cannot therefore agree with those who propose this explanation: “He who with a disposition unholy and estranged from God offers an ox, a sheep, etc., is like one who kills a man, etc.” For in the time present to the mind of the Prophet every animal sacrifice will be a crimen laesae majestatis. Still less is that explanation to be approved which Hahn, not after the example of Gesenius, whom he misunderstands, but after the example of Lowth, adopts: “He who slays an ox kills at the same time a man,” etc. According to it the Prophet is supposed to censure those who, while they offer sacrifice to the Lord in His sanctuary, outside of it commit all possible abominations; a course of conduct which is reproved by Eze_23:39, and in the New Testament by our Lord,Mat_23:14. We have here sentences containing comparisons in which the figure and the thing compared are put in the relation of subject and predicate, whereby they are not absolutely, but yet relatively, identified. The offerer of an ox is a manslayer,i. e. he is, viewed as to his religious worth, a manslayer. He stands before God on the same level with one who now should offer a human sacrifice. For according to the context the Prophet does not mean to compare animal sacrifices in the time of the end with every kind of offence, but with offerings which would be abominable in the present time. Human sacrifices in general are not expressly forbidden in the law. Implicitly they are prohibited by all the places of the law which command Israel to shun all the abominations of the heathen (comp. Exo_23:24; Lev_18:3, et saepe). But the offering of children, such as was practised in the worship of Baal, is in various places most strictly prohibited (comp. Lev_18:21; Lev_20:2 sqq.; Deu_12:31, et saepe). Regarding the custom of sacrificing dogs practised by the Carians, Lacedaemonians, Macedonians and other Greeks, see Bochart,Hieroz. I., p. 798 sqq., ed Lips.עֹרֵף is part. act. Kal. from עָרַף, verb. denom. from עֹרֵף, the neck (comp. Exo_13:13; Deu_21:4; Deu_21:7; Hos_10:2). It means to break the neck.—In the clause מעלה מנחה ד׳ ח׳ we have in order to complete the sentence simply to repeat מעלה before דם (comp. Isa_57:6). On the offering of swine, comp. on Isa_65:4. Dogs and swine are in the Scriptures, as in profane authors, often joined together (comp. Mat_7:6; 2Pe_2:22; 1Ki_21:19; 1Ki_22:38 in several codices of the LXX. Horatii,Epist. I. 2, 26; II. 2, 75). אַזְכִּיר stands only here as direct causative Hiphil in the sense of to make an אַזְכָּרָה, to offer as מַזְכָּרָה אָוֶן is taken by most interpreters correctly in the sense of vanum, i. e.idolum (comp. 1Sa_15:23; Hos_10:8; Hos_12:12), for this particular meaning corresponds better to the context than the general one of iniquitas, scelus, wickedness (Luther).
____________________
6. PUNISHMENT TO THE WICKED! REWARD TO THE FAITHFUL
Isa_66:3-6
3 b 7Yea, they have chosen their own ways,
And their soul delighteth in their abominations.
4 8 I also will choose their [9]10delusions,
And will bring their fears upon them;
Because when I called, none did answer;
When I spake, they did not hear:
But they did evil before mine eyes,
And chose that in which I delighted not.
5 Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word;
Your brethren that hated you,
That cast you out for my name’s sake, said,
11Let the Lord be glorified:
But he shall appear to your joy,
12And they shall be ashamed.
6 A voice of 13noise from the city,
A voice from the temple,
A voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his enemies.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. There were among the exiles in Babylon not a few who forsook Jehovah and forgot His holy mountain (Isa_65:11). These looked upon the theocracy as a played-out game. Jehovah had not protected them against the gods of Babylon. To these, therefore, they now attached themselves. Between such persons and the faithful Israelites there existed naturally a hostile relation. The apostates mocked those who remained faithful, while the latter abhorred the others as shameful apostates, and threatened them with the wrath of Jehovah. We repeatedly find traces of this enmity in chaps. 65 and 66. It appears that one of those who remained faithful used every opportunity which he could find in chapters 65 and 66 in order to attach to the words of the Prophet a commination against the abhorred apostates [!]. If we must discard the opinion that the Prophet in Isa_66:3 a rejects only the sacrifices of the wicked, we cannot avoid perceiving that a wide chasm exists between Isa_66:3 a and b. For Isa_66:3 a relates to the glorious time of the end. Yea, the highest elevation of its spiritual life is indicated by these words. But Isa_66:3 b–6 bring us back into the particular relations of the Exile.—[Dr. Naegelsbach accordingly condemns Isa_66:3 b–6 as an interpolation. The interpolator we are asked to regard as a faithful servant of Jehovah. But assuredly he was not one “who trembled at Jehovah’s word,” else he would have shrunk with horror from corrupting that holy word. Even the Pharisees did not venture to alter the text of Scripture to make it support their views. The apostates, too, whom the interpolator is supposed to threaten, having openly renounced the worship of Jehovah, would pay no regard to the fictitious or real utterances of His Prophet. Were the transition in Isa_66:3 a–3b sqq. as abrupt as our author supposes, from the time of the end to concrete existing relations, such a transition could not be pronounced unparalleled. Look, e.g. at the surroundings of the glorious promise respecting the abolition of death contained in Hos_13:14. Shall we say that what follows that promise is to be rejected as spurious? But the want of coherence, of which our author here complains, is only imaginary. If we adopt the view of Isa_66:3 a taken by Delitzsch and others “that not the temple-offerings in themselves are rejected, but the offerings of those whose heart is divided between Jahve and the false gods, and who refuse Him the offering which is most dear to Him (Psa_51:19; comp. Psa_50:23),” then there is no difficulty in perceiving the coherence of the words that follow. But if we should (as I believe Dr. Naegelsbach rightly does) regard the Prophet as here predicting the future abolition of the temple-service under a more glorious dispensation, we should be at no loss to perceive the coherence of Isa_66:3 b, 4 with such a prediction. The language can be aptly applied to those Jews who obstinately refused to obey the revealed will of God, and persisted in practising rites which were superseded by the establishment of the new and better economy. This is the view taken by many interpreters who, in order to justify it, do not find it necessary to condemn the Hebrew text as interpolated. Henderson,e.g., looks upon Isa_66:3 a “as teaching the absolute unlawfulness of sacrifices under the Christian dispensation. When the Jews are converted to the faith of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, they must acquiesce in the doctrine taught in the ninth and tenth chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the one offering which He presented on the cross forever set aside all the animal sacrifices and oblations which had been appointed by the law of Moses. Any attempt to revive the practice is here declared to be upon a par with the cruel and abominable customs of the heathen, who offered human sacrifices and such animals as the ancient people of God were taught to hold in abomination.” And he finds what follows Isa_66:3 b to have this connection with the aforesaid teaching: “In retribution of the unbelieving and rebellious persistence of the Jews in endeavoring to establish the old ritual, Jehovah threatens them with condign punishment: while such of them as may render themselves obnoxious to their brethren by receiving the doctrines of the Gospel on the subject, have a gracious promise of divine approbation and protection given to them.” In no case, then, is there any necessity for supposing the hand of an interpolator to have been here at work. Strange would be the course taken by this assumed interpolator! The sentiments which he utters do not look like those of one who would recklessly alter the sacred text, and give out his own words for those of Jehovah. See especially Isa_66:5 where the writer addresses those who tremble at God’s word. Can we suppose that he was, while using this language, corrupting the word of God and making his own additions to it? The character of this passage strongly attests its genuineness. We have to add that Isa_66:3 b, 4, should not have been separated from what precedes, as the close connection between the two parts has been pointed out.—D. M.]
2. “Yea, they have chosen—delighted not, Isa_66:3 b–4. גס־גם are related as et-et, tamquam (comp. Gen_24:25; Jer_51:12, et saepe). דֶּרֶןְ stands here, as often (comp. Amo_8:14; Psa_139:24), in the signification of the religious bent. שִׁקּוּץ is likewise used frequently of the abominations of idolatry (comp. 1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:7; Jer_7:30, et saepe). The word is found only here in Isaiah. תעלול (in which word the signification of the Hithpael הִתְעַלֵּל with בְּ following (comp. Jdg_19:25) is reflected) is ἄπ. λεγ.—[This is an error. The word occurs in Isa_3:4 in the plural as here. There it means the petulances, the puerilities of boys. Here it retains the kindred notion of annoyances, vexations. The occurrence of this peculiar word here and in Isa_3:4 speaks in favor of identity of authorship. The rendering of the E. V. delusions, in the sense of childish, wayward follies, may be defended. These childish delusions would mock and disappoint those who entertained them. God could be said to choose their delusions by allowing them in His providence, and causing the people to eat the fruit of them. Their fears,מְגוּרֹת, may be taken as what is feared by them, or, with Delitzsch, situations, conditions, which inspire dread. The latter part of Isa_66:4 from becauseDr. Naegelsbach regards as a needless repetition from Isa_65:12; but Alexander rightly judges that the repetition serves not only to connect the passages as parts of an unbroken composition, but also to identify the subjects of discourse in the two places.—D. M.]
3. Hear the word—His enemies, Isa_66:5-6. These words are a consolation for the faithful adherents of Jehovah, who tremble at His word. The verb נָדָה occurs only in Piel, and is found only here and Amo_6:3. In later Hebrew the word is employed of removal, exclusion from the community, or excommunication (comp. Luk_6:22; Joh_9:22; Joh_12:42; Joh_16:2). The Rabbis use the word נִדּוּי to denote the lowest of the three grades of excommunication (comp. Buxtorf,Lex. Chal., p. 1303). The Masoretes connect למען שׁמי with what follows, because they could not conceive, or would not admit that an Israelite was ever put out of the community for the sake of the name of Jehovah. But this is what the forsakers of Jehovah did in the Exile where they had the power [?]. And they scoffingly called out to the excommunicated: “Let Jehovah be (appear as) glorious (comp. Job_14:21; Eze_27:25), and we will (in consequence) behold with delight your joy.” They thus mock the Lord and their brethren, regarding whom they do not think that they will experience the joy of seeing their hopes fulfilled. But this scoffing misses the mark. Not those who are scoffed at, but the scoffers will be put to shame.—[Barnes, Alexander and Kay think with Vitringa that in this verse we are brought down to New Testament times. Vitringa applies it “to the rejection of the first Christian converts by the unbelieving Jews: Hear the word (or promise) of Jehovah, ye that wait for it with trembling confidence: your brethren (the unconverted Jews) who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake, have said (in so doing): Jehovah will be glorious (or glorify Himself on your behalf no doubt), and we shall witness your salvation (a bitter irony like that in Isa_5:19); but they (who thus speak) shall themselves be confounded (by beholding what they now consider so incredible). The phrase those hating you may be compared with Joh_15:18; Joh_17:14; Mat_10:22; 1Th_2:14; and casting you out with Joh_16:2; and Mat_18:17 : for my name’s sake, with Mat_24:9; Joh_15:21.” Alexander.And they shall be ashamed. “How true this has been of the Jews who persecuted the early Christians! How entirely were they confounded and overwhelmed! God established permanently the persecuted; He scattered the persecutors to the ends of the earth.” Barnes Isa_66:6. “The Hebrew word שֳַאון is never applied elsewhere to a joyful cry or a cry of lamentation, but to the tumult of war, the rushing sound of armies and the shock of battle, in which sense it is repeatedly employed by Isaiah. The enemies here mentioned must of course be those who had just been described as the despisers and persecutors of the brethren. The description cannot without violence be understood of foreign or external enemies.” Alexander. Barnes observes here: “1) that it is recompense taken on those who had cast out their brethren (Isa_66:5). 2) It is vengeance taken within the city, and on the internal, not the external enemies. 3) It is vengeance taken in the midst of this tumult. All this is a striking description of the scene when the city and temple were taken by the Roman armies; and it seems to me that it is to be regarded as descriptive of that event. It was the vengeance which was to precede the glorious triumph of truth and of the cause of the true religion.”—D. M.]
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 ἐκλογή (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 pædagogical discipline of the law. They felt simply that they were forsaken by God. Their spirit was hungry. And when for the first time God’s 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. God’s 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 totâ die manus ad populum perversum etc., non posterius. Expansio brachiorum notat quidem blandam et benevolam Dei invitationem, quâ 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, quâ brachium Domini illis revelatur qui docentur á 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 God’s 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 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.” 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 remnant…Our 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 Isaiah’s 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. Israel’s 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 (Israel’s 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. 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 disappointment. b. 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 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 twofold—inward 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]What.
[2]what.
[3]began to be.
[4]Or, kid.
[5]Heb. maketh a memorial of.
[6][“From the whole strain of the prophecy and particularly from Isa_66:3-5, it seems probable that it refers to the time when the temple which Herod had reared was finishing; when the nation was full of pride, self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and when all sacrifices were about to be superseded by the one great sacrifice which the Messiah was about to make of Himself for the sins of the world.” Barnes.—D. M.].
[7]As they have chosen.
[8]So I also will choose.
[9]Or, devices.
[10]vexations.
[11]Let Jehovah be glorified that we may see your joy!
[12]But.
[13]tumult.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Heaven is my throne… earth is my footstool…
1. Heaven is my throne… earth is my footstool — This is a restatement of doctrines made familiar at the dedication of the first temple, (see 1 Chronicles 6,) and often elsewhere repeated, as well as everywhere implied in Holy Scripture. See Stephen’s speech, Acts vii, especially. God’s empire is the universe; the indefinite expanse above is his throne, or the scene in which his sovereignty is in exercise; and the earth is his footstool, (Act_7:49,) or the scene extended so as to take in the panorama of the scheme of redemption. Being thus everywhere present, how is he to be located in a man-made temple? How weak such a mistake regarding the divine Being! The occasion of the words in this verse appears to have been the prophet’s far-seeing view of the Jews’ worldly pride in the newly repaired and gorgeously ornamented temple under Herod the Great, at Christ’s advent. The temple of Christ’s body was to be the one only temple of sole and solid interest to the world, an effective and enduring shrine before which a world of lost men should bow in worship and supplication for mercy. This is such a place which God seeks for his rest.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1, 2. Jehovah, who fills and has created heaven…
1, 2. Jehovah, who fills and has created heaven and earth, “dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Comp. the citation in Act_7:48 ff., also 1Ki_8:27; Jer_23:24.
The heaven is my throne] Psa_11:4; Psa_103:19.
Read full note →
the earth is my footstool] Hence the Temple itself (or the ark) is spoken of as Jehovah’s footstool; Lam_2:1; Psa_99:5; Psa_132:7; 1Ch_28:2.
where is the house &c.] Render: what manner of house will ye build unto me? and what manner of place is my resting place (Psa_132:8; Psa_132:14)?
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) The heaven is my throne . . .—We…
LXVI.
(1) The heaven is my throne . . .—We are left to conjecture the historical starting-point of this utterance of a Divine truth. Was the prophet condemning in advance the restoration of the temple on the return from Babylon, or, as some critics have supposed, the intention of some of the exiles to build a temple in the land of their captivity, as others did afterwards at Leontopolis in Egypt? Was he anticipating the vision of the Apocalypse, that in the new Jerusalem there was to be “no temple” (Rev_21:22)? Neither of these views is satisfactory, Isa_56:7; Isa_60:7, and the writings of Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, all pre-supposing the existence of a new temple. It seems better to see in the words the utterance, in its strongest form, of the truth that God dwelleth, not in temples made with hands, that utterance being compatible, as in the case of Solomon himself (2Ch_6:18), of our Lord (Joh_2:16-17; Joh_4:21-23), of St. Stephen, who quoted this passage (Act_7:48-50), with the profoundest reverence for the visible sanctuary. Cheyne quotes a striking parallel from an Egyptian hymn to the Nile of the fourteenth century B.C., in which we find the writer saying of God, “His abode is not known . . . there is no building that can contain Him.” (Records of the Past, iv. 109.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-4. THE UNGODLY EXILES REBUKED. Israel, being about…
Vers. 1-4. THE UNGODLY EXILES REBUKED. Israel, being about to return from the Captivity, had the design of rebuilding the temple and re-establishing the temple worship. God rebukes this design in persons devoid of any spirit of holiness, and warns them that mere formal outward worship is an abomination to him (vers. 1-3). In ver. 4 he threatens them with punishment.
Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. (comp. Psa_11:4 Psa_103:19) The Hebrews, while they earnestly desired to have a material emblem of the presence of God in their midst, were deeply impressed with the feeling that no temple could be worthy of him, or other than most unworthy. "Will God," said Solomon, "indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heavens of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?". (1Ki_8:27) And again, "Who is able to build him a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before trim?". (2Ch_2:6) Thus Isaiah"s note of warning was no novelty, and might rind responsive echoes in the hearts of many. Where is the house that ye build unto me? rather, what manner of house is it that ye would build to me, add what manner of place for my rest? God needs no "house;" and they cannot build him a house that could be in any way worthy of him. They, moreover, are unworthy to build him any house, which is the real ground of the refusal. There was no refusal, when the better part of the exiles, having returned, took the building in hand. (see Ezr_3:8-13 Ezr_6:14, 15 Hag_1:8-Zec Hag 1:16 Hag 4:9, etc.)
Read full note →
Ver. 1. God to be worshipped in buildings, though no building can be worthy of him.
Of a surety, God "dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Act_7:48) in any such sense as to be accessible in such places exclusively. There is truth, as well as grandeur, in the words"My altars are the mountains, and the ocean, Earth, air, sea, all that springs from the Great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive, the soul.
And it is always to be borne in mind that we are in his presence everywhere; that he may be worshipped everywhere; that "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him"; (2Ch_2:6) that he inhabits all space, as he inhabits all eternity. (Isa_57:15) But, in condescension to the infirmity of human nature, he has been pleased in all ages that men should build him "houses" and has condescended, in a certain sense, to localize himself therein. At Sinai he gave exact and most elaborate commands for the construction of the tabernacle and its appurtenances (Exodus 25-30). To David he communicated by his Spirit the pattern" of the first temple" of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat, and of the courts of the house of the Lord, and of all the chambers round about, and of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things". (1Ch_28:11, 1Ch_28:12) On the return from the captivity he required the Israelites to "go up into the mountain, and bring the wood, and build the house," and declared that he would "take pleasure in it and be glorified". (Hag_1:8) Under Christianity the first church was the "upper room" where "all continued with one accord with prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren". (Act_1:13, Act_1:14) Churches are human, not Divine, necessities; but God has been pleased to give them his sanction, as needed by man. Without them worship would decay, if not disappear; for men cannot live in the rare atmosphere of mere spiritualism.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 2. (Vide homily on Isa_57:15, Isa_57:16) C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1, 2. The place of God"s rest.
This passage should be associated with that second temple which was raised by the returned captives from Babylon, at the direction of Ezra and Nehemiah, and under the inspirations of the prophets Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. A subtle peril lies in building any house for God. That peril lay in the building of the first house. It still lies in the erection of every new house. It is the danger of thereby limiting and materializing our idea of God. If, in our thought, God actually comes to dwell in any earthly temple, we limit the infinite; we lose that wide, sublime, spiritual, unnameable glory that properly belongs to the Deity. We are in danger of making him take a place among the idol-gods who are attached to a certain mountain, or stream, or wind, or country, or shrine. To this peril the people were exposed who watched the second temple arise from amidst the ruins of the first. Though cured of their idolatries by their sufferings in Babylon, they yet might fail to retain those nobler thoughts of God which were the treasure of their race. Therefore Isaiah pleads with them as in this text.
I GOD REVEALING HIMSELF. By the aid of outward, sensible figures God discloses his spiritual nature, his moral attributes, his character. "The heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool." We are bidden to look for help towards realizing God from the great, the solemnizing things of nature. All creation with which we have to do was made to serve the moral and spiritual culture of God"s reasoning and free creatures. Everywhere around us things are full of God. They are pictures, illustrations, words, suggestions, of the Divine. The great, the majestic, the oppressive, is around us. The noonday sky, with its serene height of blue; the midnight sky, with its myriad worlds crowding the infinite depths; mountains rising to pierce the clouds, or hanging in frowning precipice; the great floods of water rolling in their ceaseless tides: all compel us to say, "How marvellous are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy greatness." One instance, illustrating the figure "Heaven is my throne," may be given. A star in the far depths attracted the attention of an observer. it seemed to be a single star, but to his educated eye it resolved itself into two stars. Those two proved to be each a star, centre of a planetary system like our own. Those two stars, which seemed but one, were really distant from each other five hundred times the distance separating our earth and the sun. Who of us can conceive such sublime spaces as are thus unfolded? What must he be who walketh among the shining lights, whose throne rises higher than these stars, whose canopy is gemmed with myriad suns! And if the telescope can put such meaning into the figure of the heavens, the microscope puts equal meaning into the figure of the earth. God needs this whole earth for a" footstool." This great earth, with its giant trees, and inaccessible mountains, and unfathomable waters, and millionfold forms of life, cannot hold God; it is but a resting-place for his foot.
II GOD APPEALING TO MAN TO FIND HIM REST. "Where is the place of my rest?" We should not have dared to represent God as seeking rest. The marvel of his condescension is, that he does need his creatures, and even seeks his rest in them. If God were only the embodiment of wisdom, greatness, and power, then his rest might be found in some of the everlasting hills. But every being seeks rest according to his spiritual nature, his character. The infinitely pure One can only seek rest in goodness. The infinitely condescending One seeks rest in humility. The infinitely loving One seeks rest in love. The eternal Father finds his satisfaction in his sons and his daughters.
III MAN VAINLY OFFERING GOD REST IN THINGS. The first shrine for human worship was the open firmament of heaven. It was the only worthy one. The only befitting walls were the distant horizon and the eternal hills; the only suitable roof was the illimitable sky. Yet, from the first of human sin, this temple has proved too vast, too glorious, for man to use. So he has planted groves to circle God to a space; and consecrated mountain-peaks to fix God to a point; and built temples and churches to narrow the Infinite to human grasp. Too often man has offered his temples as an act of sacrifice. He has given them to God in the vain hope that, satisfied with them, God would cease to ask for higher and holier things. We, indeed, in these days, flood no altars with the blood of sacrifices, yet do we not think to offer God rest in the beauty of our churches and the charm of our services? Are we not, even under this spiritual dispensation, offering God things instead of persons? And yet even we men cannot be satisfied with things; then how can we expect our God to be? Our hearts cannot rest in the artistic fittings of our dwellings, the creations of genius, or the associations of culture. We want love; we must have persons. Lord Lytton expresses our deepest feeling thus"O near ones, dear ones! you in whose right hands Our own rests calm; whose faithful hearts all day Wide open wait till back from distant lands, Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way! "Helpmates and hearthmates, gladdeners of gone years, Tender companions of our serious days, Who colour with your kisses, smiles, and tears, Life"s warm web woven over wonted ways. "Oh, shut the world out from the heart ye cheer! Though small the circle of your smiles may be, The world is distant, and your smiles are near, This makes you more than all the world to me.
We are "the figures of the true:" shadows in our feeling of the feeling of God. He, too, puts aside all the things we offer him, be they temple, or gold, or work, and persuasively pleads thus with us, "My son, give me thy heart." We may give him our things, if we have given him ourselves. Things dead cannot please him. Things alive with holy love, quickened by the humble, contrite, thankful heart, may find for him the rest he seeks. We may give him our buildings when they are alive with the spirit of consecration, our services when they are filled with the spirit of reverential worship, our works when they are animated with gratitude and devotion. Of the living temple he will say, "This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
IV MAN SUCCESSFULLY OFFERING GOD REST IN HIMSELF IN THE POOR AND CONTRITE HEART. The one thing towards which we must think God is ever moving, ever working, by creation, by gracious providences, by the mission of his Son, is to sway the heart of man towards himself, and constrain him voluntarily to say, "This God is our God for ever and ever." But it is only the man of poor and contrite spirit who will ever thus turn to God, and give himself over to him. Bruised and broken, in the sense of our ingratitude and sin, penitent and contrite alone, shall we ever be found willing to turn our faces towards our Father. We can give God nothing. We can bring him just our consciously unfaithful and sinful selves. A man can come, unreservedly exposing his whole heart to the eye of God. He can say, "Slay me, O God, if thou wilt; I deserve it. I am miserable, but leave me not sinful thus. Put me to shame; I am shameful. Behold! I hide nothing. Thou art Light; expose my darkness. I will not palliate. I am worse than I know. Show me all that I am. I cannot heal myself. If I must die, I will die in thy light." "In this lies the simplicity of faith. He has trusted himself to the Judge of all the earth; he has abandoned all self-justification; his heart is broken, and is ready to welcome mercy undeserved. Guilelessness (the contrite, humble heart) is the whole secret of Divine peace. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne
Isa_66:1-2
Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne
Read full note →
The eternal blessedness of the true Israel; the doom of the apostates
This chapter continues the antithesis that runs through chap.
65., carrying it onward to its eschatological issues. The connection of ideas is frequently extremely difficult to trace, and no two cities are agreed as to where the different sections begin and end. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Temple building
Hitzig thinks (and with him Knobel, Hendewerk) that the author here begins quite abruptly to oppose the purpose of building a temple to Jehovah; the builders are those who meditated remaining behind in Chaldea, and wished also to have a temple, as the Jews in Egypt, at a later time, built one in Leontopolis. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The offerings of the impenitent offensive to God
The address, directed to the entire body ready to return, says without distinction that Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth, needs no house made by mens hands; then in the entire body distinguishes between the penitent and those alienated from God, rejects all worship and offering at the hand of the latter, and threatens them with just retribution. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The inward and spiritual preferred by God to the outward and material
[These great words] are a declaration, spoken probably in view of the approaching restoration of the temple (which, in itself, the prophet entirely approves, Isa_44:28, and expects, Isa_56:7; Isa_55:7; Isa_62:9),reminding the Jews of the truth which a visible temple might readily lead them to forget, that no earthly habitation could be really adequate to Jehovahs majesty, and that Jehovahs regard was not to be won by the magnificence of a material temple, but by humility and the devotion of the heart. How needful the warning was history shows. Jeremiah (Jer_7:1-15) argues at length against those who pointed, with a proud sense of assurance, to the massive pile of buildings that crowned the height of Zion, heedless of the moral duties which loyalty to the King, whose residence it was, implied. And at a yet more critical moment in their history, attachment to the temple, as such, was one of the causes which incapacitated the Jews from appropriating the more spiritual teaching of Christ: the charge brought against Stephen (Act_6:13-14)is that he ceased not to speak words against this holy place and the law; and, the argument of Stephens defence (Act_7:1-60.) is just to show that in the past Gods favour had not been limited to the period during which the temple of Zion existed. Here, then, the prophet seizes the occasion to insist upon the necessity of a spiritual service, passing on (verses 3-5) to denounce, in particular, certain superstitious usages which had apparently, at the time, infected the worship of Jehovah. (Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D.)
The inwardness of religion
1. The tendency to make religion consist in external actions, apart from the inward dispositions which should accompany them, is very common. The reason for this is discovered from the fact that outward actions are easier than inward. It is easier, for instance, to become outwardly poor than to become poor in spirit; easier to adore with the body than to worship with the soul. The tendency is observable in all dispensations. For instance, whatever other differences there may have been between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, we are expressly told that it was by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice (Heb_11:4). The outward act was linked with the right inward disposition. So, again, in the time of the Levitical Law, the tendency often manifested itself to put ceremonial above moral obligations (Psa_1:1-6.). And Isaiah, in his first chapter (verses 11-18), shows how an outward service, without the putting away of evil, is an abomination to God. In the same way our Lord condemned the Pharisees Mat_15:8).
2. This closing prophecy of Isaiah seems to contain a warning against formalism. It is not that the outward is unimportant, for this would be to run from one extreme to the other, but that the outward will not avail. The return of Israel from captivity will be followed by the building of a new temple, as the event has shown; and the warning of the text is twofold--one, to remind the Israelites that Jehovah had no need of a temple; the other, to impress them with a truth they were very apt to forget, that religion must be a matter of the heart.
I. A REVELATION OF GOD. Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.
1. These words, or the substance of them, are again and again repeated in Holy Scripture (1Ki_8:27; Mat_5:34; Act_7:49). Repetitions in the Bible show the importance of a truth, or our difficulty in remembering it.
2. What is the truth? That God is incomprehensible. He is everywhere and cannot be localized (Jer_23:24). There is nowhere where Cods power and essence and presence do not reach. He knows no limit of space or time, of knowledge or love.
II. THE REFERENCE TO THE EXTERNAL TEMPLE. Where is the house that ye build unto Me?
1. These words are not intended to deter Israel from building a material temple when they had returned to their own land. The prophet would be contradicting himself (Isa_56:5-7; Isa_60:7); and he would be running counter to the solemn injunctions of other prophets, such as Haggai and Zechariah, who were in part raised up by God to further the work of building the temple. What the words are intended to rebuke is the falseness of the ideas that God requires a temple, and that His presence can be restricted to its walls. God does not need a temple, but we do. In heaven there will be no necessity for any temple (Rev_21:22), where the glory of God and of the Lamb floods with its radiance the whole place.
2. Here the church, with its sacred objects and associations, appeals to us and excites our devotion; here in the sacred place there is a distinct promise to prayer; here God acts upon us, and we upon God, through prescribed ordinances; here He promises to be present in some especial manner; here we act upon one another, and kindle fervour, and therefore must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together in the house of Heb_10:25).
III. BUT THE TEXT ALLUDES TO THE INTERNAL TEMPLE--THE DISPOSITIONS OF THE SOUL OF THE WORSHIPPER, WHICH ATTRACT THE FAVOUR OF GOD. To this man will I look,. . . who is poor,. . . contrite, and who trembleth at My word.
1. Poor, not merely outwardly, but poor in spirit (Psa_138:6). The man who at all realizes the Divine majesty will have a sense of his own nothingness.
2. Of a contrite spirit. A perception of the Divine holiness brings self-humiliation by force of contrast (Job_42:6).
3. Trembleth at My word. Fear is ever an element of the spirit of worship. A sense of the Divine justice and judgments fills the soul with awe in approaching God. The Word or revelation of God is received, not in the spirit of criticism, but with reverence and godly fear.
IV. LESSONS.
1. The remembrance of the all-pervading presence of God should be a deterrent from evil, and an incentive to good.
2. The obligation of regularity in attendance at Divine worship ought to be insisted upon, both as a recognition of God and our relations with Him, and for the sake of the subjective effects on human character.
3. But outward worship is of no avail without inward. There are tests, in the text, of the presence of the spirit of worship--lowliness, contrition, and awe, as products of the realization of Gods presence and perfections. (The Thinker.)
Gods elevation and condescension
1. The subject of remark--God Himself. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, the earth is My footstool. The attention is turned simply to God--His grandeur, His magnificence, His immensity, His omnipresence. He abides in heaven, He puts the earth under His feet.
2. The manner in which the remark about God is conducted, is that of a kind of contrast betwixt Him and men. Where is the house that ye build unto Me, and where is the place of My rest? God is unlike man. He challenges any comparison. The heaven, even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him. Ancient kings aimed often to Impress their subjects with an idea of their magnificence, and surrounded themselves with a solemn and salutary awe, by rearing palaces of the most imposing splendour and magnificence. They wished to overawe the multitude. On this ground, God Himself, seems to have ordered the unequalled grandeur of the ancient temple. But in doing it, He took care that its dazzling beauty and stateliness should only be an aid, a stepping-stone, to assist the imagination in its upward reach towards the grandeur of God. In the prayer of the dedication, Solomons devotion soars infinitely above the temple.
Here, the majesty of God, and the littleness of man, stand side by side. After mentioning the earth and the heaven, God says, All these things hath My hand made.
3. But yet, lest dread should too much terrify the worshipper, or a high and just idea of Gods infinite majesty lead the humble into the error of supposing that such an august Being would not regard such an insignificant creature as man, he adds, To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word. A turn of thought well worthy of our admiration. A contrite sinner has nothing to fear from God. His very majesty need not terrify him. Indeed, His majesty constitutes the very ground for his encouragement. It can condescend. Just as much does the King of kings and Lord of lords glorify Himself, when He consoles, by the whisperings of His Spirit, the poorest and most unworthy sinner that ever felt the pangs of a bruised heart, as when He thunders in the heavens as the most High, and gives His voice, hail-stones and coals of fire. With this idea, sinners should-approach Him and meditate His grandeur. (I. S. Spencer, D. D.)
The magnificence of God
I. THE STYLE OF THE TEXT. God speaks of Himself. The heaven is My throne, the earth is My footstool. This style of religious address is especially common in the Scriptures (Psa_137:1-9.; Job_11:7-8; Job_26:6-14; Isa_40:1-31.). These passages all speak of God in a style which we cannot attempt to analyze. Their aim appears to be twofold.
1. To lead us to make the idea of God Himself the leading idea in religion.
2. To have this idea, which we are to entertain about God, an idea of the utmost grandeur, of the most amazing magnificence, and solemn sublimity.
II. THE DESIGN IN VIEW CANNOT EASILY BE MISTAKEN. They would give us just ideas of God. The impression they aim to make is simply this, that God is incomparably and inconceivably above us--an infinite and awful mystery!
III. THE NECESSITY OF THIS MAY EXIST OH DIFFERENT GROUNDS.
1. Our littleness. In the nature of the case, there can be no comparison betwixt man and God. All is contrast--an infinite contrast.
2. Our sinfulness. Sin never exists aside from the minds losing a just impression of the Deity; and wherever it exists, there is a tendency to cleave to low and unworthy ideas of Him.
3. Our materiality, the connection of our minds with material and gross bodies. This connection renders it difficult for us to soar beyond matter. We are in danger of introducing the imperfections of our existence into our religion, even into our ideas of God. Consequently, when God speaks to us of Himself, He speaks in a manner designed to guard us from error. He says to us, The heaven is ,My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house ye build unto Me? We are limited to the world. We cannot get foothold anywhere else. We are circumscribed within very narrow limits. But God asks, Where is the place of My rest? He would elevate our conceptions of Him beyond matter, out of the reach of its bounds.
4. The nature of God. Man is only a creature. He owes his existence to a cause without him. That cause still rules him. That cause allows him to know but little, and often drops the veil of an impenetrable darkness before his eyes just at the point, the very point, where he is most desirous to look further, and it drops the veil there, in order to do him the twofold office of convincing him of the grandeur of God and his own littleness, and of compelling him, under the influence of those convictions, to turn back to a light which concerns him more than the darkness beyond the veil can, to a light where are wrapped up the duties and interests of his immortal soul. God would repress his curiosity, and make him use his conscience. Therefore, He makes darkness preach to him.
IV. APPLICATION.
1. Let us be admonished to approach the study of religion with a solemnity of mind which belongs to it. It is the study of God. The voice comes from the burning bush, Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground. How unlike all other subjects is religion! How differently we should approach it!
2. This mode in which God teaches us--this grandeur and magnificence which belong to Him--ought to remove a very common difficulty from our minds, and prepare us to receive in faith, those deep and dark doctrines, whose mystery is so apt to stagger us. What can we expect?
3. Since God is so vast a being, how deep should be our humility!
4. How deep should be our homage.!
5. The greatness of God should gauge the depth of our repentance. Our sin is against Him.
6. The greatness of God should invite our faith. If God be for us, who can be against us?
7. The magnificence of God should be a motive to our service. He is able to turn our smallest services to an infinite account.
8. The greatness of God ought to encourage the timid. Because He is great, His regard reaches to every one of your annoyances. Your enemies cannot hurt you.
9. The grandeur of God ought to rebuke our reliance upon creatures. (I. S. Spencer, D. D.)
What God does not, and what He does, regard
I. WHAT THE LORD DOES NOT REGARD. He speaks quite slightingly of this great building. But is it not said elsewhere that the Lord loved the courts of Zion? Did He not expressly tell King Solomon when his temple was completed, Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be on it perpetually? He did; but in what sense are we to understand those words? Not that He delighted in the grandeur of the house, but in as much of spiritual worship as was rendered there. The temple itself was no otherwise well pleasing to Him than as it was raised in obedience to His orders, and as it served, in its fashion and its furniture, for an example and a shadow of heavenly things; but the Lord loved the gates of Zion because the prayers of Zion were presented there. He points out to us two things--His throne, and His footstool! and then He leaves it to ourselves to say whether any building man can raise to Him can be considerable in His eyes.
II. Hear from the Lords own lips THE DESCRIPTION OF THE MAN WHO DRAWS HIS EYE. To this man, etc.
1. The sort of character described.
(1) He is poor--humble towards God. He is humble, too, towards his fellow-creatures; carrying himself meekly towards all men, and in lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than himself. He is slow to wrath--patient under provocation--anxious not to be overcome of evil but rather to overcome evil with good.
(2) Another quality which marks the man to whom the Lord looks is contrition.
(3) He trembleth at My word. But what kind of trembling is meant? Felix trembled at Gods word; and many a wicked man from his days to the present has trembled at it also. And yet it has been but a momentary pang--a sudden fright that has come over them, but which they have soonlaughed off again. Now it is certainly not this sort of trembling which the Lord regards. The man who trembleth at Gods word is one who entertains a deep and abiding reverence for every word which hath proceeded from Gods lips.
2. What does the Lord mean when He saith, To this man will I look? He evidently means, To this man will I look with an eye of notice and regard. The Lords favourable look, be it remembered, is quite another thing from mans; there is help, and comfort, and support conveyed by it Isa_57:15). The Lord but looked on Gideon, and Gideon, weak before, was wonderfully strengthened (Jdg_6:14). (A. Roberts, M. A.)
Gods greater glory
Here are described two phases of the Divine greatness, one material, and the other moral; the superiority of the latter being clearly implied.
I. THE MATERIAL GREATNESS OF GOD. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Here God represents Himself as a mighty potentate, leaving us to infer the measure of His kingly glory and the extent of His dominion from these two things--His throne and His footstool. Thus the glory of the whole is indicated by the glory of the part.
1. The throne. We must note carefully the full extent and purport of the figure, The heaven is My throne. It is not that the heaven is the place of His throne, but that the heaven is itself the throne. The conception, bold as it is, strikingly agrees with another figure used by inspiration to set forth the transcendent majesty of God, Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee. The figure is a bold one. The human imagination, daring as its flights often are, could never have conceived it. It is purely a Divine conception, and the text is careful to say so, Thus saith the Lord.
2. His footstool. The earth. We know very little of the heaven. We know a great deal about the earth. Men have taken its dimensions, explored its resources, and discovered its glories. Yet this magnificent object is but His footstool. The footstool is the humblest article of furniture in the household; so needless is it deemed that thousands of houses dispense with it altogether. Others easily convert the thing nearest to hand into a footstool, as occasion may require. Nevertheless, some have expended no little skill and expense upon the construction even of footstools. There is preserved as a relic in Windsor Castle such an article, once belonging to the renowned Hindoo prince, Tippoo Sahib. It is in the form of a bears head, carved in ivory, with a tongue of gold, teeth of crystal, and its eyes a pair of rubies. This article is adjudged worth £10,000. It is after all but a footstool. If Tippoo Sahibs footstool were so magnificent, what must have been the splendour of his throne! Yet, were all the thrones of the world collected together into one vast pile, they would form but a heap of rubbish as compared with Gods footstool.
II. THE TEXT PRESENTS US WITH ANOTHER PHASE OF HIS GLORY--THE MORAL, WHICH IS ALSO HIS GREATER GLORY. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word. What a contrast we have presented to us here. God, the Mighty Potentate, from the height of His heavenly throne, looking down with yearning, compassionate regard upon such objects as are here described, the very dust of His footstool. There is a moral grandeur in this far transcending the power of language to describe. In order to appreciate fully the beauty and glory of this act, we must notice particularly the characters which are its special objects. They are described as those who are poor and are of a contrite spirit, and that tremble at His word. These several expressions do not describe one and the same condition. They indicate three distinct and progressive stages of spiritual experience.
1. Destitution. Poor. It is not physical poverty that is meant, for the wealthiest, those who abound most in worldly possessions, are equally with the most destitute in the condition here indicated by the term poor. It describes a spiritual condition--the spiritual poverty into which all men are reduced through sin--the wretched, the miserable, the oppressed of sin and guilt--the poor in the sense of being without hope, destitute of true peace and happiness.
2. The second stage indicated is one of conviction--the misery becoming a felt fact. And of a contrite spirit. In these words we have indicated that condition of the mind when the all-crushing fact of its poverty and wretchedness has come home with overwhelming conviction.
3. The third stage is one of hope. Trembleth at My word. God, out of the infinite depth of His compassion, hath spoken to this poor, wretched, sin-convicted creature, and the word spoken is a word of hope. The trembling at the word does not mean regarding it with fear, terror, or dismay, but solemnly, feelingly, and trustingly. It is the trembling of gratitude and of an awakened hope--an exquisite thrill of gratitude piercing the whole soul, causing it to vibrate with responsive joy to the message of hope. This wonderful condescension of God in relation to sinful men is His greater glory, it redounds to His honour far more than His conversion of the heavens into His throne and of the earth into His footstool. (A. J. Parry.)
Worship and ritual
The desire for Divine communion has ever been strong in man. This desire was originated by God Himself. If not from God, whence could it come? We have no right to suppose it to be self-originated. That finite man should conceive an infinite Deity is an incredible supposition, for, to use the words of Pascal, the infinite God is infinitely inconceivable. The manner in which God has thus revealed Himself in response to the passionate desire which He originated in man is a study fraught with a singular interest. He made Himself known to our first parents in Edens garden, and in our first Scriptures we have several examples recorded of revelations made by Him after the banishment to the fathers of our race. By tradition these revelations were spread throughout the earth, and so we find the earliest religious faiths of our world abounding in sublime truths. But He specially revealed Himself to a chosen people. Israel lived under the very shadow of Jehovah, for God dwelt in that temple ann specially manifested His presence in it. But that presence did not restrain the people from rebellion. When not open followers of the idolatries of the surrounding nations, they left worship for ritual and forsook God for observances, and so made that temple to be at once their glory and their shame. It was at such time as this that the words of our text were uttered. Thus are we taught that Divine worship is not material, but spiritual, and that the habitation of God is not the building, but the soul.
I. THE NATURE OF THE BEING WHOM WE WORSHIP. Our text brings before as His omnipresence. He is in heaven, and He is on earth. We have a revelation also of the Divine omnipotence. Not only is He in heaven, not only is He on earth, but He has a throne. Of course the one includes the other. If He be the omnipresent One, He is also the omnipotent One. That which is Infinite must be Absolute. We, however, distinguish, so as to obtain clearer conceptions. We are in danger of supposing that amidst all this vastness we can be but of little consequence. But mind is greater than matter, and such ideas immediately vanish when we remember that the vastest material substance can never outweigh a holy thought, a feeling of devotion, a thrill of love. The man who can tell the motions of the stars is greater than the stars. And thus looking at the question, what shall we say of that man in whom God dwells? He who lives in a palace is greater than the palace, no matter how gorgeous it may be; and in the presence of a holy man the whole material creation is dwarfed into nothingness.
II. THE NATURE OF THAT WORSHIP WHICH THIS GREAT GOD REQUIRES. It must be something more than outward. Of all ceremonialism the Jewish was the most gorgeous. It was also of Divine appointing. The temple was built according to Divine plan and under Divine direction. The services were divinely commanded. The priests belonged to a Divinely set apart; tribe. Tokens of the Divine presence were given. But although this ceremonial was thus gorgeous, and of Divine appointment, yet God rejected it so soon as it lost its spiritual significance. All true religion begins in poverty of spirit. There must be a sense of natural defect and a consciousness of our own inability either to atone for the past or to deliver in the future. And with this poverty of spirit there must be contriteness. The heart needs to be broken before it can be bound up. (Allan Rees.)
A transcendent existence and a transcendent doctrine
I. AN EXISTENCE THAT STANDS IN CONTRAST WITH ALL THAT IS CREATED.
1. Here is an omnipresent Existence. One whose throne is heaven, whose footstool is earth, and to whom all places are alike. One who fills heaven and earth, not merely with His influence, but with His actual presence, as much at all times in one point of space as in another. The incommensurable One, not only everywhere, as the pantheists teach, as a substance, but everywhere as a Personality, free, conscious, active. All created existences are limited by the laws of space, and those that occupy the largest space are mere specks in immensity. Concerning the stupendous fact of Gods Omnipresence, observe--
(1) This fact is agreeable to reason. The denial of it would involve a contradiction. It enters into our very conception of God. A limited God would in truth be no God.
(2) This fact is essential to worship. It is essential to the spirit of worship. Worship implies mystery. It is essential to constancy of worship. True worship is not an occasional or specific service confined to times and places, it is an abiding attitude of the soul. God is a Spirit, etc.
(3) This fact is promotive of holiness. Let men realize the constant presence of God, and how strongly will they feel restraint from sin and stimulation to virtue and holiness.
(4) This fact is assurative of retribution. Who can hide himself from the Lord?
(5) This fact is illustrative of heaven. There is nothing local or formal in the worship of heaven. I saw no temple in heaven, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. He is felt to be everywhere, and He is worshipped everywhere.
2. Here is a creative Existence. For all those things hath Mine hand made, etc. Because He made all, He owns all. Creatorship implies Eternity, Sovereignty, Almightiness, and Proprietorship.
II. A DOCTRINE THAT TRANSCENDS HUMAN DISCOVERY. To this man will I look, etc. The doctrine is this,--that this Infinite Being, who is everywhere, who created the universe and owns it, feels a profound interest in the individual man whose soul is in a humble, contrite, and reverent state. Could reason ever have discovered such a truth as this? Never. Although this doctrine transcends reason it does not contradict it. (Homilist.)
Living temples for the living God
I. GODS REJECTION OF ALL MATERIAL TEMPLES. There was a time when it could be said that there was a house of God on earth. That was a time of symbols, when as yet the Church of God was in her childhood. She was being taught her A B C, reading her picture-book, for she could not as yet read the Word of God, as it were in letters. She had need to have pictures put before her, patterns of the heavenly things. Even then, the enlightened amongst the Jews knew well that God did not dwell between curtains, and that it was not possible that He could be encompassed in the most holy place within the veil It was only a symbol of His presence. But the time of symbols is now passed altogether. In that moment when the Saviour bowed His head, and said It is finished! the veil of the temple was rent in twain, so that the mysteries were laid open. So, one reason why God saith He dwelleth not in temples made with hands, is, because He would have us know that the symbolical worship is ended and the reign of the spiritual worship inaugurated at this day (Joh_4:21; Joh_4:23). But our text gives,from Gods own mouth, reasons why there can be no house at the present time in which God can dwell; and, indeed, there never was any house of the kind in reality--only in symbol For, say now, where is the place to build God a house? In heaven? It is only His throne, not His house! On earth? What, on His footstool? Will ye put it where He shall put His foot upon it and crush it? Fly through infinite space, and ye shall not find in any place that God is not there. Time cannot contain Him, though it range along its millenniums! Space cannot hold Him, for He that made all things greater than all the things that He has made. Yea, all the things that are do not encompass Him. But then, the Lord seems to put it,--What kind of a house (supposing we had a site on which to erect it) would we build God? Sons of men of what material would ye make a dwelling-place for the Eternal and the Pure? Would ye build of alabaster? The heavens are not clean in His sight, and He charged His angels with folly! Would ye build of gold? Behold, the streets of His metropolitan city are paved therewith, not indeed the dusky gold of earth, but transparent gold, like unto clear glass. And what were gold to Deity? Find diamonds, as massive as the stones whereof Solomon built his house on Zion, and then lay on rubies and jaspers - pile up a house, all of which shall be most precious. What were that to Him? God is a Spirit. He disdaineth your materialism. And yet men think, forsooth, when they have put up their Gothic or their Grecian structures, This is Gods house. And then the Lord shows that the earth and the heavens themselves, which may be compared to a temple, are the works of His hand. How often I have felt as if I were compassed with the solemn grandeur of a temple, in the midst of the pine forest, or on the heathery hill, or out at night with the bright stars looking down through the deep heavens, or listening to the thunder, peal on peal, or gazing at the lightning as it lit up the sky! Then one feels as if he were in the temple of God! Afar out on the blue sea, where the ship is rocking up and clown on the waves foam--then it seems as if you were somewhere near to God--amidst the sublimities of nature. But what then? All these objects of nature He has made, and they are not a house for Him.
II. GODS CHOICE OF SPIRITUAL TEMPLES. To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.
III. THOSE THAT ARE OF THIS CHARACTER SECURE A GREAT BLESSING. God says He will look to them. That means several things.
1. Consideration.
2. Approbation.
3. Acceptance.
4. Affection.
5. Benediction. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The greatness and condescension of God
That is an excellent answer which was given by a poor man to a sceptic who attempted to ridicule his faith. The scoffer said, Pray, sir, is your God a great God or a little God? The poor man replied, Sir, my God is so great that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; and yet He condescends to be so little, that He dwells in broken and contrite hearts. Oh, the greatness of God, and the condescension of God! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Isa_66:1-2. Thus saith the LORD, the heaven is My…
THE OBJECTS OF THE DIVINE FAVOUR
Isa_66:1-2. Thus saith the LORD, the heaven is My throne, &c.
Read full note →
In opposition to their formality, &c., a great truth is here asserted; viz.: That the special object of Jehovah’s gracious regard is the contrite and lowly spirit, who, with reverence and godly fear, offereth to Him sincere spiritual worship. This truth is unfolded in a threefold aspect—I. BY WAY OF REPROOF.
1. The pernicious notion that merely ritual and external service is acceptable to God is denounced and condemned. The reproof of the text is equally applicable to all that is unspiritual in religion at the present day—all heartless formality and Pharisaic ritualism.
2. Self-righteous pride is here rebuked and condemned. The Jews prided themselves in their splendid temple and their gorgeous ritualism. II. BY WAY OF INSTRUCTION. I. The text implies that the God of nature is likewise the God of grace and salvation. There are some who profess to worship the God of nature, but who ignore and deny the God of redemption in Christ. They are one and the same.
2. The human soul, in its sinful and degraded state, is an object of greater interest and value in the sight of God than all the material universe.
3. God’s gracious and approving regard is connected with a specific state of mind on the part of man. III. BY WAY OF CONSOLATION. Consolation to a man of a poor and contrite spirit.
1. God looks upon the contrite spirit—
(1) To heal its anguish.
(2) To enrich and exalt him.
(3) To comfort and protect him.
(4) In approbation of their worship. Pomp and pageantry he spurns, &c.
(5) To dwell with him for ever. Let the ungodly remember that God looketh upon them also, but not with pleasure and approbation.—E. Roberts: The Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 787.
I. MAN’S LOOK (Mic_7:7). Man needs help. Where is he to look?
1. Personal. Whatever it may cost, whoever else will not, I will.
2. Reliance—“unto.” In weakness, confusion, difficulty.
3. Object—“the Lord.” He is able, willing, has promised to help.
II. GOD’S LOOK.
1. God has promised to look, i.e., after. “I will.” His look is one of power, and it means help and protection.
2. Object—poor, needy. “Him that hath no helper” applies both to temporal and spiritual concerns of God’s people.
3. Contrite, repentant (Isa_57:15).
4. One who has reverence for God’s Word. Tries to keep it; fears to break it. Let us look to God, and God will look to us.—John R. Taft, M.A.: The Study and Homiletic Monthly, 1879, p. 163.
I. The character of those who are the peculiar objects of the Divine regard. II. God’s regard to such characters. To turn away the face is expressive of disgust, disdain, &c.; to look is to approve, to care, to bless. The text expresses Divine approval, care, blessing. Conclusion:
1. How different the characters whom God esteems to those the world delights in!
2. What admirable condescension in God (Psa_8:3-5).
3. What encouragement to, the penitent (1 John 1).
4. What a source of terror to hypocrites, pharisees, &c.—R. Watson: Sermons and Outlines), pp. 285–288.
I. God’s grandeur. II. Self-sufficiency. III. All-sufficiency. IV. Condescension.
Isa_66:3. Formal worship. I. Its features. II. Offensiveness to God. III. Utter worthlessness (pp. 625–627).
Isa_66:4. I. The offence. Impenitence—aggravated transgressions, wilful contempt. II. The punishment. Delusion, fear, ruin.—J. Lyth, D.D. (See outlines on Isa_57:15.)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain The peace of God’s Church resembles a river.
Isa 66:12
The peace of God’s Church resembles a river.
Read full note →
I. In its source. The source or spring of a river is hidden. It wells up from the fountains of the great deep beneath the earth. Many see the river in its course, and witness the fertility with which its progress is attended, whose footsteps never approached its source, nor indeed could do so. The source of peace to God’s children is God Himself. The peace of God is a well of water springing up in the depths of the spirit. And accordingly men can see that peace only in its effects and results.
II. In the method of its nourishment. It is true that rivers are fed perpetually by their springs. But an external nourishment is also supplied to them by occasional rains and landfloods, which swell the rivers and cause them to rise, and even to overflow their channels. The river of the Christian’s peace is augmented by contrition. The tears and sighs of godly sorrow are essential to the fulness of that peace. "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
III. In its course. (1) A river in its course is quietly progressive. The Christian’s peace is a peace of progress in grace. (2) A river is exceeding deep. And the peace of God is said to "pass all understanding." The nature and character of that peace is unintelligible to those who have not tasted it, and by those who have tasted it its depth is unfathomable. (3) A river in its course is fertilising and enriching. The peace of God is at the root of all holy fruitfulness. (4) A river in its course is clean and cleansing. The peace of God’s Church is a clean and holy (because a living) peace—clear as crystal, and perfectly alien from all defilement. (5) A river bears burdens. It is one of the most delightful characteristics of the Christian’s peace that its buoyancy supports many and grievous burdens.
IV. At its mouth. A river expands at its mouth. For the last few miles of its progress the distance between its banks becomes wider, till at length it pours itself with a full flood into the ocean. The peace of the true believer is enlarged as he draws near to the heavenly goal, and accordingly the country of his soul is more abundantly fertilised.
E. M. Goulburn, Sermons in the Parish Church of Holywell, p. 229.
Isa 66:13
I. God comforts like the ideal mother. The only perfect mother is in the mind and heart of God. And He comforts as that image might be expected to comfort and would be capable of comforting.
II. God comforts as the mothers comforted of whom the prophet spoke. No mother is perfect, but every true and good mother is a great consoler. (1) God comforts naturally; (2) He comforts personally; (3) He comforts lovingly; (4) He comforts practically; (5) He comforts broadly; (6) He comforts constantly; (7) He comforts effectually.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 1.
References: Isa 66:13.—J. T. Stannard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 252. Isa 66:19.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 272. Isa 66:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 992; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 332.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain 1. Where, etc.] RV 'what manner of house.. what…
1. Where, etc.] RV 'what manner of house.. what place shall be my rest.' The v. is a strong rebuke of such as, without a really religious spirit, idly trusted in the inviolability of Zion, and the protection they thought the sanctuary would afford. A like fault is rebuked in Jer_7:1-16. This passage is quoted by St. Stephen (Act_7:49-50).
2. Those things] i.e. the universe. All.. have been] RV 'so all these things came to be.'
Read full note →
3. They who offer the due sacrifices, yet without a proper spirit, are no better than they who perform unclean or idolatrous acts.
4. Their delusions] i.e. things to delude them.
5. Your brethren, etc.] These are the apostate Israelites (also referred to Isa_65:5) who despise the true worshippers of Jehovah. Let the Lord, etc.] RV 'Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy; but they '(who so speak) 'shall be ashamed.' The apostate taunt the faithful with worshipping a God who does not help them.
6. The prophet seems to hear a sound as of one stirring in the Temple and preparing for vengeance.
7-9. The mother is Zion, the child regenerate Israel, and in Isa_66:8 the normally slow processes of birth and growth are contrasted with the astonishing development of God's people.
8. Shall the earth.. bring forth] RV 'Shall a land be born.'
9. God will not delay, or leave unfinished, the work of restoration.
11. The figure of Zion as a mother is still continued.
12. Flowing] RV 'overflowing.'
14. An herb] RV 'the tender grass'; their youth will be renewed.
16. Plead] i.e. hold judgment.
17. Sanctify themselves] referring (as in Isa_65:5) to the apostates who are initiated into some form of heathen mysteries. Behind one] i.e. (a) 'behind one Asherah,' i.e. idol tree-trunk (RM, cp. Isa_17:8); or, (b) 'behind one man,' as priest and leader of their worship. LXX omits the words. Eating, etc.] cp. Isa_65:4. The mouse] unclean by the Law (Lev_11:29).
8. It shall come] RV 'the time cometh.'
19. Those that escape the divine judgment on the nations opposed to Israel are represented as going as missionaries to the more distant peoples. Tarshish] in Spain; put for the far West. Pul(i.e. Phut) and Lud] probably African peoples; they are mentioned together as serving in the Egyptian army (Eze_30:5). Tubal] Scythian tribes near the Black Sea (Eze_38:2-3). Javan] Ionians, i.e. Greeks settled in Asia Minor.
20. The remoter nations bring back the Israelites dispersed among them.
21. Take of them] i.e. (a) of the nations who bring back the Jews; or, (b) of the Jews themselves thus brought back; all Israel shall be eligible for the priesthood. Isa_61:6 favours this latter interpretation.
22. Cp. Isa_65:17.
24. The picture of restoration is completed with the thought of the judgment upon the wicked (similarly Isa_48:22; Isa_57:21), who are here thought of as having been slain in battle by Jehovah (Isa_66:15-16). Their worm, etc.] These words may be intended to refer only to the literal destruction of their corpses, or may also include the torment of the spirits of the ungodly. Jewish interpretation adopted the latter view (Sir_7:17; Jdt_16:17), and it appears also to have the sanction of our Lord's teaching (Mar_9:43-48).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain The Finale: The Two Classes and the Prophecy of…
CHAPTER 66
The Finale: The Two Classes and the Prophecy of Isaiah in a Retrospect
Read full note →
1. The apostates and their wicked worship (Isa 66:1-4) 2. The remnant suffering and encouraged (Isa 66:5) 3. The sudden manifestation of the Lord (Isa 66:6) 4. The nation’s rebirth (Isa 66:7-9) 5. Jerusalem’s supremacy and glory (Isa 66:10-14) 6. The warning of judgment (Isa 66:15-18) 7. The regathering after judgment (Isa 66:19-21) 8. The blessings for the righteous (Isa 66:22-23) 9. The destiny of the wicked (Isa 66:24) This great chapter is the fitting conclusion of the prophecy of Isaiah. The leading predictions contained in Isaiah concerning the future are once more restated. The opening verses have mystified many readers of this book. The apostate part of the Jewish nation, restored in unbelief (a restoration now going on) , erect a temple once more and resume their ancient worship. This worship without faith in Jehovah is an abomination before Him. It were as if they offered swine’s blood. Their coming judgment is announced in Isa 66:4. The pious remnant, the praying remnant is seen once more. They tremble at the Word of the Lord. The unbelievers in their own nation hate them. They are mocked because they expect Jehovah’s intervention from above. “Let the Lord be glorified”--they say in ridicule (Isa 66:5). Then the coming of the Lord takes place. This is described in the sixth verse. The nation’s rebirth, the supremacy and glory of Jerusalem, additional warnings, the gathering of the people into the kingdom, the blessedness of the righteous and the destiny of Jehovah’s enemies conclude the chapter and the book.
The reader will have noticed that each section of the second part begins with a chapter which is the key and introduction to the section. Each concludes with a description of the two classes which compose the nation in the last days and emphasizes the fact that for the wicked there is no peace, but punishment. Each section reveals a person. The first section reveals Cyrus, under whom the remnant returned from Babylon; the second, the suffering Servant of Jehovah; the third, the King of Glory to execute vengeance and deliver His people. May He give us to see these wonderful things to come. May the vision of the future be the inspiration of our lives.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Abominations of a Dead Worship and The Birth…
The Abominations of a Dead Worship and The Birth of the New Church
v. 1. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool, a majestic declaration of His almighty power and rule; where is the house that ye build unto Me, and where is the place of My rest? The Lord desires neither the Temple nor the worship of such as have forsaken Him; they are an abomination in His sight.
Read full note →
v. 2. For all those things hath Mine hand made, everything that men might offer to Him was His even by virtue of His creation, and all those things have been, saith the Lord, heaven and earth with all their creatures having been brought into being by the word of His power, wherefore the hypocrites and believers in name only have nothing upon which they might pride themselves; but to this man will I look, such a one the Lord will regard with favor, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, whose heart is filled with genuine repentance, and trembleth at My Word, who stands in awe of God’s holy Word and will and shuns a dead orthodoxy as well as a religion of works. Upon such a person the Lord looks with merciful compassion, him He accepts with a full and free expression of His grace. The loathing which the Lord feels with regard to a mere external observance of the forms of religion is now set forth.
v. 3. He that killeth an ox, in an act of sacrifice which is nothing but a dead custom, is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb as if he cut off a dog’s neck, as if he insulted the Lord by the sacrifice of a dog; he that offereth an oblation, a drink-offering, as if he offered swine’s blood, the sacrifice of which was forbidden in the Law of God; he that burneth incense, with a heart not turned to the Lord in true faith, as if he blessed an idol. The Lord feels nothing but the deepest loathing and horror of the sacrifices and the worship of the apostate Jews. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, different from those prescribed by God’s holy will, and their soul delighteth in their abominations, that being their condition of mind.
v. 4. I also will choose their delusions, picking out and appointing to them misfortune, and will bring their fears, all the misery that men dread, upon them; because when I called, bidding them come to repentance, holding out to them the riches of His grace, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear, but they did evil before Mine eyes and chose that in which I delighted not. Cf. Isa 65:6-7 Thus the Lord sets forth and rebukes the abomination of a dead worship. He now turns to the believers, His children, and announces to them the full glory of the Gospel comfort.
v. 5. Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His Word, in a wholesome awe, in the reverence engendered by a childlike faith: Your brethren that hated you, the hypocrites and godless people whom the Lord has just exposed, that cast you out for My name’s sake, for in opposing the Lord they also became open enemies of His confessors, said, in giving expression to the bitter mockery of their hearts, Let the Lord be glorified, let Him reveal Himself in a miracle of punishment upon them! These scorners would find that the Lord would indeed glorify Himself upon them. But He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed, so Jehovah comforts His people. The sentence may also be constructed to read, in the jeering call of the unbelievers, Let the Lord by all means glorify Himself, that we may see your joy! the Lord’s retort being: They shall be brought to shame. The revelation of Jehovah’s glory in founding and establishing His Church in the Messianic era is now described.
v. 6. A voice of noise from the city, of a great uproar, a voice from the Temple, the seat of Jehovah, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to His enemies, on the great day of vengeance, the time of deliverance of His children, which is so often referred to in Isaiah’s prophecies.
v. 7. Before she, Zion, the bride, the Church of the Lord, travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.
v. 8. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? The event to which the Lord has reference is unheard of. Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Is a whole land or nation thus brought into being? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, with the first show of labor, she brought forth her children.
v. 9. Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? so that the birth is not completed, saith the Lord. Shall I cause to bring forth and shut the womb? saith thy God. This description fits all the great crises in the history of the Church, the birth of the Christian Church, the reformation of the Church in the sixteenth century. When traditions and customs obscure the true life of the Church and bring about a condition of dead orthodoxy or of false teaching, the Lord comes with His mighty, merciful intervention and brings about a rebirth, which renews His Church to an extent that makes it almost a new creation. What the Lord has once undertaken He carries out to His own glory and that of His Church.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my…
Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool
Yahweh compares heaven to a throne and the earth to a footstool to emphasize how great he is. (See: Metaphor)
Read full note →
Where then is the house you will build for me? Where is the place where I may rest?
Yahweh uses questions to emphasize that humans cannot build a place for him to dwell. (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
Yahweh
heaven
throne
footstool
house
rest
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 66:1 my throne . . . my footstool: God’s…
66:1 my throne . . . my footstool: God’s kingdom extends over all creation (see 40:22; Matt 5:34-35). • a temple . . . a resting place: Because the entire universe is God’s dwelling place, humans cannot limit him to a building (see 1 Kgs 8:27). • Stephen quoted Isa 66:1-2a in his last sermon (Acts 7:49-50).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.