Isaiah 66: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD says no building can house him, since he made everything; he looks instead to the humble person who trembles at his word, and he rejects sacrifices offered by people who have chosen their own ways. He promises that Jerusalem will give birth to her children suddenly, and he will comfort her people like a mother and send peace and the wealth of nations to her. He also promises to come with fire and sword against his enemies, to gather all nations to see his glory, to send survivors to distant peoples, and to take some of them as priests and Levites. The chapter closes with all people coming to worship at each new moon and Sabbath, and with the corpses of those who rebelled against him.

Claim by Claim

1. 66:1
   • The LORD says this.
   • Heaven is the LORD's throne.
   • The earth is the LORD's footstool.
   • The LORD asks where the house is that they would build for him.
   • The LORD asks where the place of his rest is.
2. 66:2
   • The LORD's hand made all these things.
   • All these things came into being.
   • This is the declaration of the LORD.
   • The LORD will look with regard to this kind of person: the one who is poor and afflicted, crushed in spirit, and who trembles at the LORD's word.
3. 66:3
   • The one who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man.
   • The one who sacrifices a lamb is like one who breaks a dog's neck.
   • The one who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swine's blood.
   • The one who offers frankincense as a memorial is like one who blesses an idol.
   • They have chosen their own ways.
   • Their soul delights in their detestable things.
4. 66:4
   • The LORD will likewise choose harsh dealings for them.
   • The LORD will bring the things they dread upon them.
   • The LORD called and no one answered.
   • The LORD spoke and they did not listen.
   • They did what was evil in the LORD's eyes.
   • They chose what the LORD did not delight in.
5. 66:5
   • Those who tremble at the LORD's word are told to hear the word of the LORD.
   • Their brothers hated them.
   • Their brothers cast them out for the sake of the LORD's name.
   • Those brothers said, Let the LORD be glorified.
   • The next clause is ambiguous: it says either that the LORD will appear to their joy or that the brothers will see their joy.
   • Those brothers will be put to shame.
6. 66:6
   • There is a sound of uproar from the city.
   • There is a sound from the temple.
   • It is the voice of the LORD repaying his enemies what they deserve.
7. 66:7
   • Before she went into labor, she gave birth.
   • Before her pain came, she delivered a male child.
8. 66:8
   • The question is asked who has heard such a thing.
   • The question is asked who has seen such things.
   • The question is asked whether a land can be brought to birth in one day.
   • The question is asked whether a nation can be born at once.
   • As soon as Zion went into labor, she gave birth to her children.
9. 66:9
   • The LORD asks whether he brings to the point of birth and does not deliver.
   • The LORD says this.
   • The LORD asks whether he who delivers would shut the womb.
   • Your God says this.
10. 66:10
    • All who love Jerusalem are told to rejoice with her and be glad in her.
    • All who mourn over her are told to rejoice greatly with her.
11. 66:11
    • The purpose is that they may nurse and be satisfied from the breast of her consolations.
    • The purpose is that they may drink deeply and delight themselves in the abundance of her glory.
12. 66:12
    • The LORD says this.
    • The LORD will extend peace to her like a river.
    • The LORD will extend the glory of the nations to her like an overflowing stream.
    • They will nurse.
    • They will be carried on the side.
    • They will be bounced on the knees.
13. 66:13
    • As a mother comforts her son, so the LORD will comfort them.
    • They will be comforted in Jerusalem.
14. 66:14
    • They will see this.
    • Their heart will rejoice.
    • Their bones will flourish like new grass.
    • The hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants.
    • The LORD will show indignation toward his enemies.
15. 66:15
    • The LORD will come with fire.
    • His chariots are like a whirlwind.
    • He comes to render his anger with fury.
    • He comes to render his rebuke with flames of fire.
16. 66:16
    • By fire and by his sword the LORD will enter judgment with all flesh.
    • Those slain by the LORD will be many.
17. 66:17
    • There are those who consecrate themselves and purify themselves for the gardens.
    • They follow after one in the midst, and the text does not say what or who that one is.
    • They eat the flesh of swine.
    • They eat the detestable thing.
    • They eat the mouse.
    • They will come to an end together.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
18. 66:18
    • The LORD knows their works and their thoughts.
    • The time is coming for the LORD to gather all nations and tongues.
    • They will come and see the LORD's glory.
19. 66:19
    • The LORD will set a sign among them.
    • The LORD will send survivors from among them to the nations.
    • The nations named are Tarshish, Pul, and Lud who draw the bow.
    • The nations named also include Tubal and Javan.
    • They are sent to the distant coastlands.
    • Those distant peoples have not heard the LORD's fame.
    • Those distant peoples have not seen the LORD's glory.
    • They will declare the LORD's glory among the nations.
20. 66:20
    • They will bring all your brothers out of all the nations as an offering to the LORD.
    • They will bring them on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on swift beasts.
    • They will bring them to the LORD's holy mountain, Jerusalem.
    • The LORD says this.
    • This is like the way the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.
21. 66:21
    • The LORD will also take some of them for priests and for Levites.
    • The LORD says this.
22. 66:22
    • The LORD will make new heavens and a new earth.
    • The new heavens and the new earth will remain before the LORD.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • In the same way their offspring and their name will remain.
23. 66:23
    • It will come to pass that from one new moon to another and from one sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before the LORD.
    • The LORD says this.
24. 66:24
    • They will go out and look on the corpses of the men who rebelled against the LORD.
    • Their worm will not die.
    • Their fire will not be quenched.
    • They will be an object of abhorrence to all flesh.

Words Worth Explaining

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

66:1

"House" here means the temple in Jerusalem, the building where sacrifices were made and where God was understood to be present among his people. "A place for me to rest" is temple language too: the resting place was where a god was thought to settle down and stay. The question is not whether a temple should exist but what sort of building could ever hold the one who made the sky and the ground.

66:2

The Hebrew word behind "humble" also means poor or afflicted, someone beaten down by circumstances, not just modest in attitude. The phrase translated "deeply sorry for his sin" is literally "struck in spirit," a person whose confidence has been broken.

66:3

Pigs and dogs were unclean animals under Israelite law and were never offered to God; a dog's blood or a pig's blood on an altar would have been shocking rather than merely irregular. A grain offering was a bloodless gift of flour, oil and incense. The Hebrew has no word for "like" in these lines (it reads flatly "one who kills an ox, one who strikes down a man"), so the sentence can be read either as a comparison (worship offered in this spirit counts as murder) or as a description of people who do both things side by side.

66:4

The Hebrew word rendered "harsh treatment" is uncertain; it is related to a word for wanton or abusive dealing, and older translations took it as "delusions." The point either way is that their choices are answered in kind.

66:5

Being "thrown out" means being excluded from the worshiping community and its assemblies, not merely disliked. "Let the LORD show how great he is" is a taunt in the mouths of the opponents, a sneer at people whose God has not yet acted for them.

66:6

The temple is the one in Jerusalem, the center of Israel's worship. A sound coming from it means the reckoning is coming from God's own house, not from an army outside the walls.

66:7

"She" is Jerusalem, pictured as a woman in childbirth; her children are the people who will fill the city again. Birth without labor pains is the impossible thing being described, the population appearing suddenly, without the generations it would normally take.

66:8

Zion is the hill Jerusalem stands on, and is used as another name for the city and its people.

66:9

The birth image from verse 7 continues. God is pictured as the one who brings a birth to its final moment and also as the one who could close a womb, and the two questions ask whether he would begin something like this and then stop short.

66:10

Jerusalem had been wrecked by enemies and many of its people carried far away. People who loved the city grieved for it for years.

66:11

The city is the mother and the returning people are her nursing children. "Breasts of her consolations" reads strangely in English; consolation means comfort, and the picture is of a child feeding until it is full and settled.

66:12

"Borne upon her sides" means carried on the hip, the ordinary way a mother carried a small child, and "dandled" is old English for bounced on the knees. "The glory of the Gentiles" means the wealth of the other nations; Gentiles is the King James word for everyone who is not an Israelite.

66:14

In Hebrew, "bones" often stands for a person's physical strength and vitality, the equivalent of saying you feel strong again after being worn down.

66:15

The chariot was the fastest and most feared weapon of the age. Storm, fire and chariots together are the standard picture of a god arriving as a warrior.

66:16

"Plead" in 1611 English means to argue a legal case and settle it, not to beg. "All flesh" means every living human being.

66:17

The gardens were open-air sites used for rites outside Israel's official worship. The middle phrase is obscure in Hebrew: "following the one in the middle" may mean following a leader or priest who stands at the center of the rite, or following an object or image set up there, translators have never agreed. Pigs and rodents were unclean under Israelite food law, so eating them marks the practice as deliberately outside that law.

66:19

"A sign" here means a signal or standard, something set up to be seen from a distance, but what it is is not specified. The place names sweep from one edge of the known world to the other: Tarshish lay far to the west (perhaps Spain), Pul (usually read as Put) and Lud were African or Anatolian peoples known as archers, Tubal was in eastern Asia Minor, and Javan is the Hebrew name for the Greeks. "Coastlands" covers the islands and shorelines of the Mediterranean, the far-off places at the limit of Israel's map.

66:20

The word for "offering" is the one used for a grain offering, and also for tribute presented to a king: a gift brought in homage. "A clean container" means a vessel that meets the ritual purity rules, food or gifts brought to the temple in an unclean vessel could not be presented. "My holy mountain" is the temple hill in Jerusalem.

66:21

Priests were drawn from the descendants of Aaron and alone handled the altar; Levites were the wider tribe that served the temple in supporting roles. Both offices were closed by birth. "Some of them" is deliberately open: it can be read as the returning Israelites just described, or as the foreign peoples who brought them.

66:22

"New heavens and new earth" picks up the phrase used a chapter earlier (65:17). "Last before me" means endure in God's presence, the comparison is about permanence, not about the sky itself.

66:23

The new moon (the first sighting of the crescent, marking the start of each lunar month) was a monthly festival day with its own sacrifices. The Sabbath was the weekly day of rest. Together they mean simply: month after month and week after week, without a break.

66:24

Corpses left unburied outside the city walls were the ultimate disgrace in this culture; burial was owed even to enemies. "Their worm" is the maggot that consumes a body left in the open. Worms that never finish and a fire that never burns out picture a ruin that is never cleared away and stays permanently in view.