Isaiah 64: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a prayer to God. The speakers ask God to tear open the heavens and come down as he did in the past, when the mountains shook, so that the nations would tremble. They admit that everyone has become unclean, that even their good deeds are like filthy rags, and that no one calls on God's name. They appeal to God as their father and their potter, describe their ruined cities and their burned temple, and end by asking whether God will keep silent after all this.

Claim by Claim

1. 64:1
   • The speaker wishes that God would tear open the heavens.
   • The speaker wishes that God would come down.
   • The speaker wishes that the mountains would quake at God's presence.
2. 64:2
   • The coming down is likened to fire setting brushwood ablaze (the King James renders it as melting fire burning).
   • It is likened to fire making water boil.
   • The purpose is to make God's name known to his adversaries.
   • The purpose is that the nations tremble at God's presence.
3. 64:3
   • God did terrible and awesome things.
   • The speakers did not expect those things.
   • God came down.
   • The mountains quaked at God's presence.
4. 64:4
   • From of old no one has heard.
   • No ear has perceived.
   • No eye has seen any God besides God himself.
   • God acts for, and has prepared something for, the one who waits for him.
5. 64:5
   • God meets the one who rejoices and does righteousness.
   • God meets those who remember him in his ways.
   • God was angry.
   • The speakers have sinned.
   • The closing words are obscure: in these there is continuance and we shall be saved, or, we continued long in our sins and shall we be saved.
6. 64:6
   • All the speakers have become like an unclean thing.
   • All their righteous acts are like a filthy garment.
   • They all wither like a leaf.
   • Their iniquities carry them away like the wind.
7. 64:7
   • There is no one who calls on God's name.
   • There is no one who rouses himself to take hold of God.
   • God has hidden his face from them.
   • God has made them melt away, delivering them into the hand of their iniquities.
8. 64:8
   • God is now addressed as the LORD and as the speakers' father.
   • The speakers are the clay.
   • God is the potter.
   • The speakers are all the work of God's hand.
9. 64:9
   • The speakers ask the LORD not to be angry beyond measure.
   • The speakers ask the LORD not to remember iniquity forever.
   • The speakers beg God to look upon them.
   • The speakers say they are all God's people.
10. 64:10
    • God's holy cities have become a wilderness.
    • Zion has become a wilderness.
    • Jerusalem has become a desolation.
11. 64:11
    • The speakers' house is holy and beautiful.
    • The speakers' fathers praised God in that house.
    • That house has been burned with fire.
    • All the speakers' precious things are laid waste.
12. 64:12
    • The speakers ask whether the LORD will restrain himself over these things.
    • The speakers ask whether God will keep silent.
    • The speakers ask whether God will afflict them beyond measure.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

64:1

In Hebrew Bibles this verse is counted as the second half of 63:19, so from here to the end of the chapter the verse numbers in Hebrew editions run one behind the numbering used here. Mountains shaking or melting at a god's arrival is standard imagery in ancient Near Eastern poetry for a divine appearance, described in the language of storm, fire and earthquake.

64:2

KJV's "melting fire" and the modern "brushwood" or "dry brush" are two readings of the same Hebrew word, which is spelled like the word for "melting" but is usually taken now as the name for kindling or twigs. Either way the picture is the same: a fire hot enough to make water boil.

64:3

"Terrible" in 1611 English meant awe-inspiring or terrifying, things that make people afraid, not "very bad" as it does today.

64:4

The last clause is read two ways. KJV takes it as "what God has prepared for those who wait for him" (the things themselves are unheard of); the reading behind the plain rendering takes it as "who acts for those who wait for him" (no other God has ever been seen acting this way). The Hebrew allows both. This verse, in a form close to KJV's, is quoted in 1 Corinthians 2:9.

64:5

The second half of this verse is one of the most obscure sentences in the book. KJV's "in those is continuance, and we shall be saved" reads the Hebrew as a statement of hope; other readings make it a question, how can we be saved if we go on like this? The plain rendering keeps the question open because the Hebrew itself is unclear.

64:6

"Unclean" is a ritual term, not a moral or hygienic one: it describes a person or thing that is temporarily unfit to take part in worship. "Filthy rags" translates a Hebrew phrase that means, specifically, a cloth stained with menstrual blood, the strongest available image of something that cannot be brought near the sanctuary. "Fade as a leaf" means to dry up and shrivel, as leaves do before they fall.

64:7

"Hide your face" is a standard Hebrew idiom for withdrawing attention and favor, the opposite of turning toward someone; it does not suggest concealment. The end of the verse differs between versions: the Hebrew as written says "you have melted us because of our iniquities," while the ancient Greek and Syriac translations read "you have handed us over to our iniquities", the reading behind the plain rendering.

64:8

In Hebrew usage a "father" is often the originator or maker of a family, a line or a trade, not only a parent. The potter shapes wet clay by hand on a wheel into vessels; the point of the image is that the material takes whatever form the maker gives it.

64:9

"Sore" in 1611 meant severely or to an extreme degree, not painful or aching, so "be not wroth very sore" means do not be this angry with us. "Beseech" means beg. "Remember iniquity" is legal language for holding an offense on the record and acting on it, rather than merely recalling it.

64:10

"Holy cities" means the towns of Judah, the land set apart to the LORD. Zion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem and came to stand for the temple mount and for the city as a whole.

64:11

"Our holy and beautiful house" is the temple in Jerusalem, burned by the Babylonian army when the city fell in 587 BC. "Our fathers" means ancestors, earlier generations, not the speakers' own parents.

64:12

"Hold thy peace" is older English for "stay silent", here, refusing to answer or act.