Isaiah 66
Isaiah ends here, and the ending circles back to where the book's long word of comfort began. After all the warnings and all the promises, the final chapter opens with a question that puts every human achievement in its place: 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? (v. 1). The God who made all things cannot be housed by anything His people could construct. And yet - this is the heart of the chapter - the One too vast for any temple stoops to a single kind of person: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word (v. 2). Over against that humble heart the chapter sets a hollow religion of sacrifice without obedience, where killing an ox is no better than murder because the heart behind it has gone its own way (vv. 3-4).3
From there the word turns to comfort. To the faithful who tremble at God's word and have been cast out by their own brethren, the LORD promises that He will appear to your joy while their persecutors are put to shame (v. 5). Then comes the wonder of a nation born in a single day - before she travailed, she brought forth (v. 7); shall a nation be born at once? (v. 8) - for the God who brings to the birth will surely cause to bring forth. And the comfort reaches its tenderest note in an image of motherhood: As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem (v. 13). It is the same comfort the book promised at the opening of its second half, where the first word was Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.2
Then the chapter lifts its eyes to the last things. The LORD will come with fire and plead with all flesh (vv. 15-16); He will gather all nations and tongues to see His glory and send the survivors out to declare my glory among the Gentiles, even to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame (vv. 18-19). He will make new heavens and a new earth that shall remain before Him, and in them all flesh shall come to worship (vv. 22-23). And the book ends, unflinching, on its other note - the rebels whose worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched (v. 24). Worship and judgment, comfort and warning, are set side by side, and the reader is left standing before the choice the whole book has been pressing.
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Isaiah 66:1-4The Heaven Is My Throne · To This Man Will I Look
1Thus 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? 2For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have 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. 3He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. 4I also will choose their delusions, 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.
The book's final chapter opens with God measuring Himself against the grandest thing His people could attempt for Him - a house - and finding it far too small: 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? (v. 1). The image is staggering when you let it land. If the sky itself is merely the seat He sits on, and the whole earth only the stool beneath His feet, then no temple, however magnificent, could ever contain Him or be the place He needs in order to rest. For all those things hath mine hand made (v. 2) - the heavens and the earth that dwarf any building are themselves His handiwork. This is not a rejection of worship or of the temple as such; Isaiah's whole book honours Zion and the house of the LORD. It is a rejection of a particular lie - the notion that God can be managed, housed, put in our debt by the scale of what we build for Him, as though He were a local deity who lived in a box and could be kept content with an impressive enough shrine. The God who fills heaven and earth cannot be bought or boxed. The question where is the house that ye build unto me? exposes the smallness of every attempt to domesticate the infinite.3
Having said that no house can hold Him, God names the one dwelling He actually seeks - and it is not a place at all but a person: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word (v. 2). The contrast could not be sharper. The God whose footstool is the earth bends His gaze past every cathedral to a single broken heart. Three things mark the one He looks to. He is poor - not necessarily destitute in money, but lowly, without the self-importance that imagines it has something to offer God. He is of a contrite spirit - crushed and humbled, the proud crust broken open. And he trembleth at my word - he takes what God says with trembling seriousness, neither shrugging it off nor arguing it down. This is the same truth Isaiah sounded near the start of his long comfort, that the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity dwells also with him… that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). It is the great reversal of the whole book in a single verse: the way to draw the eye of the Most High is not to grow large, but to grow low.
Against the poor and trembling heart God now sets its opposite - a religion full of activity and empty of obedience: He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol (v. 3). The shock of the line is deliberate. These are not pagan rites; they are the appointed offerings of the temple - the ox, the lamb, the grain offering, the incense. Yet God says that when they rise from a heart that has chosen their own ways, they are as offensive to Him as murder, as the carcase of an unclean dog, as the blood of a pig, as blessing an idol. The ritual is correct; the worshipper is not. They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations - the outward act has become a mask over an inward rebellion. So the verdict falls: I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear (v. 4). The root sin is named plainly - God called and they would not answer; He spoke and they would not listen. This is the dark photograph of which verse 2 is the bright one: the trembler heeds the word, and these would not hear it.
Isaiah 66:5-14A Nation Born in a Day · As One Whom His Mother Comforteth
5Hear 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, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. 6A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies. 7Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. 8Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. 9Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God. 10Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: 11That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. 12For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. 13As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. 14And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.
God turns now to address a particular group - the same faithful remnant marked in verse 2: Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word (v. 5). These are people in pain, and the pain comes from within their own community: Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified. It is a bitter scene. Their own brethren have hated and expelled them - and have done it in God's name, mocking, Let the LORD be glorified, as if to say, “Let us see this God of yours show up and help you now.” To the cast-out, God speaks a promise that answers the taunt directly: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. The LORD will appear - not to confound the faithful, but to their joy; and the shame the mockers tried to heap on them will fall back on the mockers. Verse 6 catches the moment in fragments of sound, like a distant commotion drawing near: A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies. Something is happening at the very center, in the city and the temple from which the faithful were driven - the voice of the LORD, settling accounts. To those rejected for His name, the message is steady: hold on; He will appear, and your joy, not your shame, will have the last word.
Now comes one of the most arresting images in the book - a birth that defies the whole order of nature: Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child (v. 7). Birth without labour, a child delivered before the pangs even begin - it is impossible, and that is the point. The questions stack up in astonishment: Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? (v. 8). The answer is yes - for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Zion, the city that seemed barren and bereaved, suddenly teems with children; a whole people comes into being at once, as if in a single day. And lest anyone think God might begin such a work and leave it undone, He seals it with two unanswerable questions of His own: Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God (v. 9). The God who opens the womb does not abandon the delivery half-finished. What He starts, He completes. The restoration of His people is not a hope that might fizzle; it is a birth the Almighty Himself is bringing to term.
The newborn city becomes a nursing mother, and the faithful are called to come and be fed: Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her… That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations (vv. 10-11). Those who once mourned for her are now summoned to her abundance, to draw comfort from her as a child draws milk - satisfied, delighted, filled. Then God Himself names what He will pour into her: Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream (v. 12). Peace will not trickle; it will run like a river, deep and unfailing. And the wealth of the nations will flow toward her like a stream in flood. The maternal picture deepens into one of the tenderest in all of Scripture: the children will be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees - carried on the hip, bounced gently on the knee, the very gestures of a mother delighting in her little one. Out of the barren, mocked, cast-out condition of verse 5, God brings a city overflowing with peace, plenty, and the kind of intimate care that holds a child close. The reversal is complete: those driven out are gathered in and cradled.
At the center of this whole movement stands a single sentence that gathers up the book's deepest promise: As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem (v. 13). Through the previous verses Jerusalem has been the mother who nurses and dandles her children. Now God steps past the picture and speaks in the first person: it is I who comfort you, and I do it the way a mother comforts the child she loves. There is no gentler image of God in the prophets. He does not say He will comfort like a distant benefactor or a stern judge softening for a moment; He says as one whom his mother comforteth - the unhurried, bodily, instinctive tenderness of a mother soothing a frightened or hurting child, drawing it close until the crying stops. And the comfort has an address: ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem, in the very place that was the scene of their sorrow. The promise is not abstract; it lands where the wound was. The result is life returning to a body that felt dead: your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb (v. 14) - dry bones greening like spring grass. And the same hand that comforts His servants is known in its indignation toward his enemies. The tenderness and the justice are one God's.
Isaiah 66:15-24All Flesh Shall Come to Worship · The New Heavens and the New Earth
15For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. 16For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many. 17They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD. 18For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. 19And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. 20And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD. 21And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. 22For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. 23And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. 24And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
The tenderness of a mother's comfort does not cancel the seriousness of God; the same chapter that cradles His people also shows Him coming in judgment. For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire (v. 15). The imagery is the storm-theophany of the prophets - the LORD arriving not on foot but in a whirlwind of chariots and fire, to settle accounts with all that has set itself against Him. For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many (v. 16). The word plead is a courtroom word: God enters into judgment with the human race, and the verdict against the rebellious is grave. Verse 17 names a specific corruption He judges - those who go through self-purifying rites in pagan garden-shrines while eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, deliberately defiling themselves with what God forbade. Their meticulous religion is aimed in the wrong direction altogether, and it ends in ruin: they shall be consumed together. This is the hard counterpart to verse 2. The God who looks tenderly to the contrite and trembling does not look away from the proud and rebellious. His coming is real comfort to the one and real reckoning to the other - and the chapter refuses to let us hold only the half we prefer.
Out of the fire of judgment, the vision opens to its widest horizon - a gathering that reaches every people on earth: For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory (v. 18). This is the goal toward which the whole book has strained - not the glory of one nation but the glory of God seen by all. Then God says He will send out heralds: I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations - to Tarshish far to the west, to Lud and Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles (v. 19). Survivors of the judgment become missionaries of the glory, carrying the report of God to peoples who never knew Him. And the response is a great homecoming: from all nations they bring the scattered people of God back to my holy mountain Jerusalem as an offering, by every means of travel the ancient world knew (v. 20). Most startling of all, God says of these gathered peoples, I will also take of them for priests and for Levites (v. 21) - not merely admitting the nations to the courtyard, but drawing some of them into the very service of His house. The reach of God's mercy in these verses is breathtaking: the glory once entrusted to Israel will be declared to the ends of the earth, and the outsiders will be brought all the way in.
Now the chapter names the permanence of what God is making: For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain (v. 22). Isaiah had already spoken of this new creation a chapter earlier - I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered (Isa. 65:17) - and here it becomes the measure of God's faithfulness: as surely as the new world will last, so surely will His people endure. Nothing in the old order was this stable; this remains before me, in God's own presence, for ever. And the life of that world is worship without end: from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD (v. 23). The rhythm of the worshipping year becomes the rhythm of eternity, and the worshippers are no longer a single nation but all flesh - the full gathering of verse 18 now bowing together before God. Here is the destination of the entire book of Isaiah: a new creation that does not fade, a people that does not perish, and the whole of humanity gathered in unbroken worship before the LORD. The vision the prophet glimpsed from afar is, at the last, simply God dwelling with a worshipping world that will never end.
And then Isaiah ends his book not on the note of worship but on a darker one, deliberately held in view beside the bright: And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh (v. 24). The worshippers who come in to bow before God in verse 23 go forth in verse 24 and see the terrible end of rebellion against Him. The picture is drawn from a battlefield or a place of refuse where the slain lie unburied - the worm that consumes them never finishing its work, the fire never going out. It is the language of a ruin that does not reverse, a consequence that does not lift. The prophet does not explain the timing or the mechanics of it; he sets the image down with stark finality and lets it stand. That the book of Isaiah - so full of comfort, so rich with the glory of the gathered nations - should close on these words is itself a sermon. The same God who comforts like a mother is the God against whom one may finally, fatally set oneself. Worship and ruin are placed in a single closing sentence, and the reader is left to feel the full weight of the choice the whole book has pressed: to be among those who tremble at His word and are comforted, or among those who transgress and are not.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 66 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak side by side - useful for nekeh (v. 2, the “contrite” that means stricken or smitten in spirit), for charad (v. 2, the trembling at God's word), and for the threefold nacham in verse 13 (“comforteth… comfort… comforted”) that answers the doubled nachamu of chapter 40.
- Isaiah 66 ↔ Acts 7 · Matthew 5 · Revelation 7 & 21 · Mark 9Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 66 to the New Testament - heaven is my throne (v. 1) quoted by Stephen in Acts 7:49, the poor and contrite (v. 2) read beside the beatitudes of Matthew 5, all nations and tongues gathered (v. 18) beside the multitude of Revelation 7:9, and the undying worm of verse 24 taken up by Jesus in Mark 9:48.
- Isaiah 66 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 66 - the rhetorical force of “where is the house that ye build unto me?” in verse 1, the comparisons that level sacrifice with murder in verse 3, the imagery of birth without travail in verses 7-9, and the much-discussed final scene of verse 24.
Where this echoes in Scripture
The Heaven Is My Throne · To This Man Will I Look
- Acts 7:48-49the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands... Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool.Stephen quotes verses 1-2 before the council - the God too great for any house.
- Isaiah 57:15I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.The same paradox as verse 2 - the high God dwelling with the contrite and lowly.
- Matthew 5:3-4Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven... Blessed are they that mourn.The poor and contrite of verse 2 named blessed by the One who is Himself the wisdom of God.
- 1 Samuel 15:22to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.The truth behind verses 3-4 - obedience God wants, not ritual from a rebel heart.
- Psalm 51:17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.The one offering verse 2 prizes - the broken and contrite spirit God looks to.
A Nation Born in a Day · As One Whom His Mother Comforteth
- Isaiah 40:1Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.The doubled word that opened the book’s consolation - answered here in verse 13 with the same root, nacham.
- John 14:16-18I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter... I will not leave you comfortless.The comfort of verse 13 carried forward - the Comforter sent to abide for ever.
- Isaiah 49:15Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? ... yet will I not forget thee.The same mother-tenderness as verses 11-13 - God’s compassion outlasting even a mother’s.
- Galatians 4:26-27Jerusalem which is above is free... Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not... for the desolate hath many more children.Paul takes up the barren-then-teeming Zion of verses 7-11 - the city above, mother of the free.
- Matthew 23:37how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.The gathering, mothering tenderness of verses 11-13 on the lips of Christ over Jerusalem.
All Flesh Shall Come to Worship · The New Heavens and the New Earth
- Mark 9:48Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.Jesus quotes verse 24 word for word - the seriousness of the book’s last line on His own lips.
- Revelation 7:9-10a great multitude... of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne.The gathering of all nations and tongues (v. 18) seen at its end - every people worshipping before God.
- Revelation 21:1-4I saw a new heaven and a new earth... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.The new heavens and new earth of verse 22 made the dwelling of God with His people.
- Philippians 2:10-11that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue should confess.The worship of all flesh in verse 23 - the end toward which every knee bows.
- Isaiah 65:17I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered.The new creation named just before (Isa. 65) - the world that remains in verse 22.