Isaiah 65
Chapter 64 ended with the people's prayer hanging in the air - wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace? Chapter 65 is the LORD's answer, and He begins not with a defense but with a confession of grace so startling it almost sounds like a complaint. I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name (v. 1). The God of Israel reveals Himself to those who never came looking for Him; He says Behold me to a people who never bore His name. And then, with grief, He turns to those who did bear it: I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts (v. 2). The image is of God standing with His arms open all day long - and being refused.3
The reason the open hands were refused is laid bare in the verses that follow: a people who provoke Him to my face, who sacrifice in gardens and eat what is forbidden and yet say to the LORD, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou (v. 5). Their stored-up rebellion will be answered - I will not keep silence, but will recompense (v. 6). And yet judgment is not the last word even here. For the sake of His servants the LORD will not destroy the whole vine but keep the cluster where a blessing is in it (v. 8); He will bring forth a seed out of Jacob to inherit His mountains (v. 9). The chapter then divides the world along a single line - the destiny of those who seek Him against the destiny of those who forsake Him: my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry… my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart (vv. 13-14).
Then the oracle opens onto its widest horizon, and the language becomes some of the most hope-filled in all of Scripture: For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind (v. 17). What follows is a world made whole - weeping silenced, long life restored, every house lived in by the one who built it, every vineyard eaten by the one who planted it, and labor that is never in vain. The nearness of God reaches its height: before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear (v. 24). And the chapter comes to rest on the holy mountain, where the oldest enmity in the natural world is gone - The wolf and the lamb shall feed together… they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain (v. 25). This is the hope held out to carry the faithful through every dark chapter that came before it.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 65:1-7I Am Found of Them That Sought Me Not
1I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. 2I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; 3A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; 4Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; 5Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. 6Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, 7Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.
The chapter opens with a sentence that reverses everything we assume about how a person comes to God: I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name (v. 1). We tend to imagine the search running the other way - that the seeker labors and the prize is found at the end of the labor. Here the LORD says He was the one revealed to those who were not searching, made plain to those who never asked. Twice over He pictures Himself almost waving to get their attention: Behold me, behold me - here I am, here I am - held out to a nation that was not called by my name. It is the language of pure initiative, of a God who moves first toward people who had given Him no reason to. The verse does not describe a reward earned by spiritual effort; it describes grace arriving unasked. And it stands at the head of the whole chapter for a reason: everything that follows - the sparing of a seed, the new heavens and new earth - flows from a God like this, one who comes before He is called.3
Against that surprising grace the LORD sets the grief of His own people's refusal: I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts (v. 2). The picture is unforgettable. To spread out the hands is the posture of welcome and of pleading - arms open wide, the gesture of one inviting an embrace or begging a return. And He holds it all the day: not a single offered moment, but a long, patient, unwearied reaching out that goes on and on while it is ignored. The tragedy is not that God was distant; it is that He was near, arms open, and the people walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts. They preferred their own designs to His outstretched hands. There is something here that exposes a common misreading of our own lives. When God feels absent, the problem is rarely that He has withdrawn; far more often He has been standing in the doorway all along with His arms open, and we have been the ones looking away, walking our own road, following our own thoughts rather than turning to face Him.
Verses 3 through 5 spell out exactly what that self-chosen road looked like, and the catalogue is grim: a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face, sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on the wrong altars (v. 3), keeping vigil among the graves and eating swine's flesh and the broth of abominable things (v. 4). These were the rites of the surrounding nations - secret cults of the dead, forbidden foods, worship invented to suit themselves. But the most revealing line is the last: Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou (v. 5). Here is the bitter irony at the heart of the rebellion. The very people steeped in abomination imagine themselves holier than others, and they say it to the LORD's own messengers - come not near to me. It is religion turned completely inside out: defiled people congratulating themselves on a purity they do not have, fencing others out in the name of a holiness they have abandoned. God's verdict is sharp: These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day. Self-righteousness built on disobedience is not a fragrance to God; it is an irritant, smoke in the face, all day long.
After the open hands held out all day, the reckoning comes: Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom, Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together (vv. 6-7). The phrase it is written before me pictures a record kept - nothing forgotten, nothing slipping past unnoticed. And the doubled word recompense… recompense into their bosom presses the certainty of it: what they have stored up will be measured back to them, into the very fold of the garment where a person carried what was theirs. The mention of the iniquities of your fathers together with their own is sobering - rebellion compounds across generations, a debt passed down and added to, the same idols on the mountains and the hills burning incense and blaspheming. Yet notice where this sits. The God who keeps so patient a silence, hands outstretched all the day, is not indifferent to evil; His patience is not approval. There comes a point where He will not keep silence. Long mercy and real justice are not opposites in this chapter; they are held together in the same God, and the wonder is how long the mercy waits before the justice speaks.
Isaiah 65:8-16For My Servants' Sakes · A Seed Out of Jacob
8Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all. 9And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. 10And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me. 11But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number. 12Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not. 13Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: 14Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. 15And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name: 16That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
After the long indictment, mercy speaks again through a picture every farmer would know: As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all (v. 8). When a harvester finds a cluster of grapes still holding good juice - a blessing - he does not throw the whole bunch away even if much of it is spoiled; he spares it for the sake of the good that remains. So the LORD will not destroy His people wholesale. For my servants' sakes - for the sake of the faithful remnant hidden within the mass - He preserves the whole. The principle is quietly enormous: a small core of the faithful can be the reason a larger body is spared. And He names what He will bring out of the sparing: a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains (v. 9). The line of promise is not snuffed out; a seed survives, an heir is preserved, the mountains and the pastures are kept for my people that have sought me (v. 10). Sharon and the valley of Achor - the troubled valley whose very name once meant disaster - become quiet folds where flocks lie down. Judgment runs its course, but it never has the last word; a seed is always kept.
Now the chapter draws the dividing line sharp and clear. Over against my people that have sought me stands another group: But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number (v. 11). They have set a table - but for the wrong gods, spreading a feast and pouring out drink offerings to deities of fortune and fate, the idols people turned to in hope of luck and good outcomes. The irony is bitter and deliberate: they lay a banquet for false gods who can give them nothing, and so they will go hungry at the true God's table. The verdict is plain: Therefore will I number you to the sword… because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear (v. 12). Here is the precise mirror of where the chapter began. In verse 1 the LORD said Behold me, behold me to those who did not ask; now He says of these, when I called, ye did not answer. The God who spread His hands all day was not silent - He called, He spake. Their ruin is not arbitrary fate; it is the long consequence of a refusal, of choosing that wherein I delighted not when the call had been going out all along.
The two paths are now set side by side in a series of hammer-blows, each beginning with the same word - Behold - and each splitting the same gift down the middle: Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart (vv. 13-14). The repetition is relentless on purpose. The same daily realities - food, drink, gladness, song - become for the one a feast and for the other an empty table. The difference is not that God arbitrarily favors some; it is the long outworking of two different answers to the same outstretched hands. Those who came when He called are His servants, and they eat and drink and sing. Those who forsook Him keep the hunger of the gods who could not feed them. The contrast lands hardest at the level of the heart: sing for joy of heart set against cry for sorrow of heart. What is finally at stake is not merely comfort or want but the deep condition of the soul - whether a life ends in song or in sorrow. And the chapter has already told us which way the door swings: it swings on whether, when He called, we answered.
The section ends on a turn that points forward to everything the new creation will be: And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name (v. 15). The old name - the identity bound up with rebellion and its ruin - is left behind, fit only to be a byword. But God's servants are given another name, a fresh identity no longer defined by the old failure. A renaming, in Scripture, is the mark of a new beginning, a life redefined by God rather than by its past. And under that new name a new way of swearing and blessing takes hold: he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth… because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes (v. 16). Twice God is named the God of truth - literally the God of Amen, the God who is faithful and sure, whose word can be relied on absolutely. And the former troubles are forgotten, hidden even from God's own eyes. That last phrase is the seed of the verses to come: a God who can put the old griefs so far away that they no longer come to mind. The renaming and the forgetting together open straight onto the new heavens and new earth.
Isaiah 65:17-25Behold, I Create New Heavens and a New Earth
17For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 18But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 19And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. 20There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
Here the oracle lifts to its highest reach, and the words are among the most hope-filled in all of Scripture: For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind (v. 17). Notice that this is not the language of repair. God does not say He will patch the old world or restore it to an earlier state; He says I create - He brings into being heavens and earth that are genuinely new. And so complete is the renewal that the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. The old order, with all its grief and wrong, will not merely be improved; it will be so far surpassed that it no longer rises into thought. This is the same forgetting promised in verse 16, where the former troubles are forgotten - now stretched across the whole of creation. The promise answers the deepest question the book of Isaiah has been pressing: is the brokenness of the world the final reality? Here is the answer. The broken world is not the last world. There is a making yet to come, vast as the heavens, in which everything that has caused weeping is left so far behind it does not even come to mind.
What stands at the center of the new creation is not first a place but a joy - and it is shared between God and His people: But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people (vv. 18-19). God makes the city itself a rejoicing and its people a joy - and then, astonishingly, says that He too will rejoice and joy in them. The gladness runs both directions: the redeemed delight in what God has made, and God delights in the redeemed. This is the warm heart of the whole vision - not a sterile perfection, but a mutual joy, a God glad over His people and a people glad in their God. And the first thing this joy displaces is named at once: the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying (v. 19). Sound is so often the carrier of grief - the weeping at a graveside, the cry of pain in the night. In the new creation that particular sound is simply gone, never to be heard again. The same promise will be lifted, almost word for word, into the closing vision of all Scripture, where God wipes away every tear and there is no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.
21And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 22They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. 24And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. 25The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.
The vision now comes down to earth in the most ordinary and tender details - the daily work of human hands, finally secure: And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat (vv. 21-22). Behind these lines lies one of the oldest human griefs and one of the curses of a fallen world - to labor and not enjoy the fruit, to build a house an enemy seizes, to plant a field another harvests, to pour out a life's work and watch it slip into other hands. In the new creation that sorrow is undone. The builder lives in the house; the planter eats the grapes; mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. Life is lengthened - as the days of a tree are the days of my people - and work is no longer futile: They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble (v. 23). Even childbearing, so often shadowed by fear and loss, is freed from dread, for they and their offspring alike are the seed of the blessed of the LORD. The redemption Isaiah pictures is not an escape from ordinary life into something ghostly; it is ordinary life at last made whole - homes, vineyards, families, work - every good labor finally bearing the fruit it was meant to bear.
At the climax of the vision comes a promise about prayer so intimate it nearly outpaces itself: And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear (v. 24). Set this beside how the chapter opened and the whole arc comes clear. There, the LORD called and they did not answer; He spoke and they did not hear (v. 12); His hands were spread out all day and refused (v. 2). Here, the relationship is mended so completely that the order of call and answer collapses: God answers before they call and hears while they are yet speaking. There is no delay, no distance, no straining to be heard. The God who once stood with open arms while His people looked away now meets them so closely that the prayer is answered before it is finished. This is the nearness the whole book has been reaching toward - not a God who must be roused or persuaded, but One whose attentiveness runs out ahead of the need itself, who knows what we will ask before the words are formed and is already moving to answer.
The chapter comes to rest on a picture of peace that reaches even into the animal world and the oldest enmities of creation: The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD (v. 25). What was unthinkable becomes ordinary: predator and prey at the same trough, the wolf beside the lamb, the lion turned from flesh to straw like an ox. The violence woven into the present order - the strong devouring the weak - is simply gone. This echoes the great earlier vision where the wolf dwells with the lamb and a little child leads them, and it draws the same conclusion: they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. The mention of the serpent, sent back to the dust, quietly recalls the very first curse in Eden and signals that the long story begun in the garden has at last been answered. Whether read as a portrait of a renewed earth, of the peace of God's reign, or of the consummation yet to come, the meaning the text itself presses is plain and unrestricted: in all God's holy mountain there will be nothing left that hurts and nothing left that destroys. The world that began in a garden ends on a mountain, and on that mountain nothing wounds anymore.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 65 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the Niphal verbs of verse 1, nidrashti and nimtseti (“I am sought… I am found”), and for the great creation verb bara in verse 17 (“I create”), the same word that opens Genesis.
- Isaiah 65 ↔ Romans 10 · 2 Peter 3 · Revelation 21Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 65 to the rest of Scripture - found of them that sought me not (v. 1) and the hands spread all the day (v. 2) quoted side by side in Romans 10:20-21, and the new heavens and a new earth (v. 17) read beside new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13) and the city where God shall wipe away all tears (Rev. 21:1-4).
- Isaiah 65 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 65 - the surprising grammar of verse 1 (God sought by those who did not ask), the cultic abominations catalogued in verses 3-5, the contrast of servants and rebels in verses 13-15, and the much-discussed long life and renewed world of verses 17-25.
Where this echoes in Scripture
I Am Found of Them That Sought Me Not
- Romans 10:20-21I was found of them that sought me not... All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.Paul quotes verses 1-2 directly - verse 1 of the nations who did not seek, verse 2 of Israel.
- Luke 19:10For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.The God who is found by those who sought Him not (v. 1) - the One who came seeking the lost.
- 1 John 4:19We love him, because he first loved us.The initiative of verse 1 named plainly - His love and seeking come before ours.
- Luke 18:11God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are... or even as this publican.The self-righteousness of verse 5 - “I am holier than thou” - on the lips of the Pharisee at prayer.
- Proverbs 8:17I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.The other side of the same grace - the God of verse 1 is found by all who seek, and even by those who do not.
For My Servants’ Sakes · A Seed Out of Jacob
- Romans 11:5Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.The seed spared for the servants’ sake (vv. 8-9) - the faithful remnant kept by grace.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.The servants called by another name (v. 15) - the old identity left behind, all things made new.
- Revelation 2:17To him that overcometh will I give... a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.The promise of verse 15 carried to its end - a new name given to those who overcome.
- Luke 6:21Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled... Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.The reversal of verses 13-14 - the hungry filled, the weeping turned to laughter for the LORD’s servants.
- 2 Corinthians 1:20For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.The God of truth - the God of Amen - of verse 16, in whom every promise is sure.
Behold, I Create New Heavens and a New Earth
- 2 Peter 3:13We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.The promise of verse 17 carried forward - the renewed creation as the Christian’s living hope.
- Revelation 21:1-4And I saw a new heaven and a new earth... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death.The vision of verses 17-19 brought to its fullness - weeping silenced, the former things passed away.
- Isaiah 11:6-9The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.The peaceable mountain of verse 25 - the same vision, the same closing line, earlier in the book.
- Matthew 6:8Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.The nearness of verse 24 - the Father who knows the need before the prayer is spoken.
- Romans 8:21The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.The renewal of verses 17-25 - creation itself set free from the bondage that now holds it.