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Isaiah 65: What the Passage Says

96 claims across 25 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Isaiah 65 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD says he was found by people who were not looking for him, while he held out his hands all day to a people who kept refusing him. He lists their worship in gardens and among graves and their claim to be holier than others, and says he will pay back their sins and their ancestors' sins. Yet for his servants' sake he will not destroy them all, but will keep descendants from Jacob and Judah to hold the land. The chapter ends with new heavens and a new earth, a Jerusalem without weeping, long life, secure homes and work, and animals at peace on his holy mountain.

Claim by Claim

  1. 65:1
    • The LORD says he was sought by those who did not ask for him.
    • The LORD says he was found by those who did not seek him.
    • The LORD said, 'Behold me, behold me,' to a nation that was not called by his name.
  2. 65:2
    • The LORD says he spread out his hands all day long to a rebellious people.
    • That people walks in a way that is not good.
    • That people walks after their own thoughts.
  3. 65:3
    • The people provoke the LORD to anger continually to his face.
    • The people sacrifice in gardens.
    • The people burn incense upon bricks.
  4. 65:4
    • The people sit among the graves.
    • The people spend the night in secret or guarded places.
    • The people eat swine's flesh.
    • Broth of unclean or foul things is in their vessels.
  5. 65:5
    • The people say, 'Keep to yourself; do not come near me.'
    • The people say, 'For I am holier than you.'
    • The LORD says these people are smoke in his nose.
    • The LORD says these people are a fire that burns all day long.
  6. 65:6
    • It is written before the LORD.
    • The LORD will not keep silent.
    • The LORD will repay.
    • The LORD will repay into their bosom.
  7. 65:7
    • The repayment is for your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together.
    • The LORD says this.
    • They burned incense upon the mountains.
    • They reproached the LORD upon the hills.
    • The LORD will measure their former work into their bosom.
  8. 65:8
    • The LORD says this.
    • New wine is found in the cluster.
    • One says, 'Do not destroy it, for a blessing is in it.'
    • The LORD will act in the same way for the sake of his servants.
    • The LORD will not destroy them all.
  9. 65:9
    • The LORD will bring forth a seed out of Jacob.
    • The LORD will bring forth out of Judah an inheritor of his mountains.
    • The LORD's elect shall inherit it.
    • The LORD's servants shall dwell there.
  10. 65:10
    • Sharon shall become a fold for flocks.
    • The valley of Achor shall become a resting place for herds.
    • This is for the LORD's people who have sought him.
  11. 65:11
    • The LORD addresses those who forsake him.
    • They forget the LORD's holy mountain.
    • They prepare a table for Fortune.
    • They fill mixed drink for Destiny.
  12. 65:12
    • The LORD will number them to the sword.
    • They shall all bow down to the slaughter.
    • The LORD called and they did not answer.
    • The LORD spoke and they did not hear.
    • They did evil in the LORD's eyes.
    • They chose that in which the LORD did not delight.
  13. 65:13
    • The Lord GOD says this.
    • The LORD's servants shall eat.
    • Those addressed shall be hungry.
    • The LORD's servants shall drink.
    • Those addressed shall be thirsty.
    • The LORD's servants shall rejoice.
    • Those addressed shall be ashamed.
  14. 65:14
    • The LORD's servants shall sing for gladness of heart.
    • Those addressed shall cry out for pain of heart.
    • Those addressed shall howl for brokenness of spirit.
  15. 65:15
    • Those addressed shall leave their name as a curse for the LORD's chosen.
    • The Lord GOD shall slay you.
    • The LORD shall call his servants by another name.
  16. 65:16
    • Whoever blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself by the God of Amen, the God of truth.
    • Whoever swears in the earth shall swear by the God of Amen, the God of truth.
    • The former troubles are forgotten.
    • The former troubles are hidden from the LORD's eyes.
  17. 65:17
    • The LORD is creating new heavens and a new earth.
    • The former things shall not be remembered.
    • The former things shall not come into mind.
  18. 65:18
    • The LORD commands them to be glad and rejoice forever in what he creates.
    • The LORD creates Jerusalem a rejoicing.
    • The LORD creates her people a joy.
  19. 65:19
    • The LORD will rejoice in Jerusalem.
    • The LORD will joy in his people.
    • The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her.
    • The voice of crying shall no more be heard in her.
  20. 65:20
    • There shall no more be from there an infant of days.
    • There shall no more be an old man who has not filled out his days.
    • The child shall die a hundred years old.
    • The sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
  21. 65:21
    • They shall build houses and inhabit them.
    • They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
  22. 65:22
    • They shall not build and another inhabit.
    • They shall not plant and another eat.
    • The days of the LORD's people shall be like the days of a tree.
    • The LORD's elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
  23. 65:23
    • They shall not labor in vain.
    • They shall not bring forth for sudden terror.
    • They are the seed of those blessed by the LORD.
    • Their offspring shall be with them.
  24. 65:24
    • Before they call, the LORD will answer.
    • While they are yet speaking, the LORD will hear.
  25. 65:25
    • The wolf and the lamb shall feed together.
    • The lion shall eat straw like the ox.
    • Dust shall be the serpent's food.
    • They shall not hurt nor destroy in all the LORD's holy mountain.
    • The LORD said this.

Words Worth Explaining

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

65:1
The Hebrew of the last phrase can be read two ways: "a nation that did not call on my name" (they never invoked him) or "a nation not called by my name" (they never bore it, i.e. were not counted as his). Both readings are old and the wording does not settle between them. "Here I am" is the ordinary Hebrew answer given by someone who has been called, the point is that God gives the answer to people who never called.
65:2
Holding out or spreading the hands was the normal posture of prayer and appeal, used by a person begging a superior. Here it is reversed: God takes the posture of the one pleading.
65:3
Gardens here are not vegetable plots but planted enclosures used as open-air shrines, associated with fertility rites outside the Jerusalem temple. Israelite law required altars of earth or uncut stone; a molded-brick altar marks the worship as foreign.
65:4
Sitting among graves and spending nights in hidden places describes two practices: seeking messages from the dead, and sleeping at a shrine in the hope of receiving a dream oracle. Contact with the dead also made a person ritually unclean, so the acts break the purity rules as well. Pig meat was forbidden food in Israelite law, and "unclean things" covers other animals the law barred from the table.
65:5
In Hebrew thought, holiness, like uncleanness, was catching, transmitted by touch. The speaker is warning others off so that his own consecrated state is not disturbed by contact with them; the tone is ritual self-protection, not only moral snobbery. (The King James phrase "holier than thou" entered English from this verse.) In Hebrew, anger sits in the nose: a hot or snorting nose means fury, so smoke in the nostrils is a constant irritant that keeps the anger burning.
65:6
The "lap" is the loose fold of a long garment gathered above the belt, used as a pocket for carrying grain, coins or fruit. To measure payment into someone's lap is to hand it over in full, the way a merchant pours out a measured amount.
65:7
Where the King James prints LORD in capitals it stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, which the translators did not spell out; "Lord GOD" in verses 13 and 15 renders a double title, roughly "my Master, the LORD." Burning incense on the mountains and hills refers to worship at hilltop shrines, the "high places" repeatedly condemned elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures.
65:8
A saying from the grape harvest: when a picker finds one cluster still holding good juice in an otherwise spoiled bunch, the call goes up not to throw it away. The cluster is not spared for its own sake but because of what is in it.
65:9
Jacob is the ancestor of the nation, later renamed Israel, and his name is used for the whole people; Judah is his son and the name of the southern kingdom around Jerusalem. "My mountains" means the hill country of Judah, the highland spine of the land.
65:10
Sharon is the fertile coastal plain in the northwest; the Valley of Achor lies near Jericho at the eastern edge, and its name means "trouble," from a disaster recorded in the book of Joshua. Naming the two together covers the land from one side to the other, and the valley named Trouble becomes quiet grazing.
65:11
"Fortune" and "Destiny" translate two Hebrew proper names, Gad and Meni, gods of luck and allotted fate worshiped in the region. Setting out a table means laying a meal before a god's image; mixed wine is wine blended with spices or water, poured out as a drink offering. The King James "that troop" and "that number" are attempts to translate the two names as ordinary words.
65:12
There is a play on words here that English cannot carry: the god Meni ("Destiny") in verse 11 and the verb "I will allot you" or "count you out" come from the same Hebrew root. Those who chose the god of allotted fate get an allotment, the sword. Bowing down describes kneeling for execution.
65:13
Here God is called "the Lord GOD." GOD in big letters is again his own special name.
65:14
To wail means to cry out loud with a long, sad sound.
65:15
A ruined person's name could become part of a curse formula: "may you end up like so-and-so." To leave your name as a curse is to be remembered only as the standard example of disaster.
65:16
Blessing and oath formulas named a god as guarantor, "as surely as such-and-such a god lives", so who a person swore by showed whose they were. "God of truth" is in Hebrew "God of Amen"; amen means reliable, firm, it stands.
65:17
The verb translated "create" is the one used in the opening of Genesis, and in Hebrew it takes only God as its subject; it is never used of a human making something.
65:19
Jerusalem was the city where God's people came to worship him.
65:20
The Hebrew of this verse is compressed and its exact sense is disputed. The general picture is clear, lifespans so long that a death at a hundred counts as dying in childhood, but the second half can be read either as "anyone failing to reach a hundred is reckoned accursed" or as "the sinner, though he reaches a hundred, dies under a curse," and the wording supports both.
65:22
Olives, oaks and cedars in this region live for centuries, and their lifespan was proverbial for something that outlasts many human generations.
65:23
The Hebrew behind "children who come to ruin" is literally "bearing for sudden terror", bearing children only to lose them to disaster. In a world of high infant mortality and repeated wars, this is the ordinary fear of a parent, not a rare one.
65:25
Dust as the snake's food repeats the wording of the curse on the serpent in Genesis, and the closing line is almost identical to the end of the animal scene in Isaiah 11. The holy mountain is the temple hill in Jerusalem, used here as a name for the whole city and land.

Read Isaiah 65