Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional completes the study notes on Isaiah. The passage gives vital lessons about prayer, heaven, and hell. God bless you.
Because of Calvary,
John Janney

Adult SS Elective: Isaiah 62:1-66:24                                                                                                                                November 27, 2016

1. The Bestowing of a New Name (62:1-12)
2. God will not hold His peace (62:1-5)

“The bridal beauty of Zion. This is another poem in the series (beginning at 49:14, ending with 66:7-16) that depicts Zion as a woman yearning for her husband family. But here the stress is on God’s side of the reunion: the energy of his will (1a); the height (1b) and width (2) of hi ambition for her; the pride he takes in perfecting her (3); his joy in bringing home the outcast (4a); and the central mystery ― that this is not philanthropy but ardent love (4b, 5b).” [Kidner, p. 667-668]

“The new names are descriptive of the new era: ‘Hephzibah’ (‘my delight is in her’) instead of ‘Deserted,’ and ‘Beulah’ (‘married’) instead of Desolate (vv. 304). The Lord will rejoice over his people.” [VanGemeren, p. 512]

(A)  The Great Intercessor (62:1-3)

“The Anointed One expresses his determination that Zion may so come to possess the blessings of righteousness and salvation that it may be plain for all to see; and to possess, too, a new name and royal dignity.” [Motyer, p. 505]

“new name, symbol of a new character and a new relation to God. Rev. ii.17, iii.12; Isa. lxv.15.” [Cambridge Bible in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 354]

(B)  The Great Joy (62:4-5)

“…The metaphor of God as husband is one of fidelity (cf. on 50:1) and delight, whereas Baal as husband was little more than s source of fertility (cf. Ho. 2:12-13).” [Kidner, p. 668]

“Both prosperity and adversity tend to make us forgetful of our God, even the steady ongoing, that has no ups and downs, makes the thought of God fade in our minds. So we need the witness of our watchers, our praying men, and their muezzin, or call to prayer.” [R. Tuck in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 354]

1. The watchmen must not hold their peace (62:6-12)

“Hastening the great day.” [Kidner, p. 668]

(A)  The Great Intercessors (62:6-7)

“Parallel with the second stanza, in which the Anointed One prays, he now appoints those who will intercede ceaselessly until the full work of salvation and righteousness is accomplished. Before the first coming of the Lord Jesus there were such (Lk. 2:36-38; cf. Mt. 24:42; 25:13; Mk. 13:33-37; Lk. 21:36)…. Those who engage in prayer are the true guardians and true prayer is: (i) ceaseless (lit.) ‘all the day and all the night’; (ii) vocal, verbalizing the need (never be silent…cf. verse 1a); (iii) effective Godward… We do not conclude that otherwise he would forget, but that are prayers are, by his will, in some way a vital ingredient in the implementing of his promises…. Prayer is also (iv) disciplined (give yourselves no rest); (v) urgent and pressing (give him no rest; cf. Lk. 18:1-8); and (vi) sustained (till he establishes, i.e. fulfills all that was foretold in chapter 60 regarding Zion, the whole work of salvation and righteousness in 61:10-62:1).” [Motyer, p. 507]

(B)  The Great Oath (62:8-9)

“The enemies of Israel having all been swept away by the powerful judgments of God, the most perfect tranquility shall reign throughout the land, and those who may go up to worship at Jerusalem shall enjoy unmolested the fruit of their labor.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 354-355]

(C)  The Great Pilgrimage (62:10-12)

“The picture is of a prepared and welcoming city. The invitation has been issued, the gates are open, the roads have been resurfaced. All that has been said about the gathering of the world pilgrims to Zion…is now consummated.” [Motyer, p. 508]

1. The Announcing of a New Victory (63:1-64:12)
2.   The Conqueror (63:1-6)

“…The Anointed One comes with a ministry of comfort, vengeance and salvation (61:2), and…it is on him that the Lord puts the garments of salvation and righteousness (61:20). The third Song of the Anointed One and its tailpiece focused on salvation (61:20:62:1, 11), and not it falls to the final Song to unfold the last act of the drama, the day of Vengeance. We rightly see the New Testament counterpart of this in the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:15ff.) and the treading of the winepress of the wrath of God (Rev. 14:17-20; 19:15)…” [Motyer, p. 509]

“The solitary Avenger. This is the companion piece to 59:15b-21 (cf. v 5 with 59:16). While both treat of judgment and consequent salvation, this poem…highlights the day of vengeance (4)… The two activities are related causally, as victory (with its bloodshed) is to liberation (with its joy and peace); the NT endorses the sequence, developing this poem in Rev. 19:11-16, where Jesus is the warrior. But in both testaments God has first offered a refuge from his judgment (cf. 27:5).” [Kidner, p. 668]

“The day of vengeance…. Because of his righteousness, his concern for his people, and his great anger, the Lord comes to this world as the great Warrior (v. 1).” [VanGemeren, p. 512-513]

“Edom and its city Bozrah have already typified the impenitent world in 34:6…. Notice mighty to save; this is the dominant interest, even in this judgment passage.” [Kidner, p. 688]

“This conqueror is Jehovah and Rev. xix.13 in its representation of the triumph of the Messianic Word of God has this passage in view.” [Briggs in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 355-356]

“The Symbol of the Blood, ― This symbol of the blood ― and by-and-by, when we turn from the Old Testament to the New, from the prophecy to the fulfillment, we find that it was not only the enemy’s blood, but his own blood too, that stained the victorious Deliverer’s robes ― this symbol of the blood bears this great truth, which has been the power of salvation to millions of hearts, and which must make this Conqueror the Savior of your heart too, the truth that only in self-sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer sin. Sin is never so dreadful as when we see the Savior with that blood upon his garments. And the Savior himself, surely he is never so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, as when we see what it has cost him to save us. Out of that love born of his suffering comes the new impulse after a holy life; and so, when we stand at last purified by the power of a grateful obedience, it shall be said of us, binding our holiness and escape from sin close to our Lord’s struggle with sin for us, that we ‘have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” [Phillips Brooks in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 356-357]

“From the start of the description of the work of the Anointed One here and then right through verses 4-5 his solitariness is stressed. The whole work of judgment, just as the whole work of salvation (5c), is his alone…. His clothing was stained (was it originally white?)…” [Motyer, p. 510]

“In all Christ’s redeeming work he was alone. None could help him to redeem his people. He must alone pay the ransom price. None could help him in his last great battle, when he stood forth as the sole Champion of all whom his Father had given to him.

‘Death and hell will he dethrone,

By his single arm alone.’

[Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 586]

1. The Intercessor (63:7-64:12)

“…Here begins a new section extending to lxiv.12” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 357]

“The Isaianic literature is characterized by a wonderful perception of the future, yet every time we are brought to the point where all seems to be fulfilled we meet a ‘not yet.’ Chapter 12 sings in joy over the glory of the coming king (chapters 6-11), but chapters 13-27 intervene to remind us of the scale in time and space on which the Lord is working. Again, we trace the work of the Servant to the point where all is done and only the enjoyment of the Messianic banquet remains (chapter 55), and then we discover (56:1) that salvation is still to come. Finally, we reach the somber but marvelous 63:1-6). Surely now, with the overthrow of ever foe, the redeeming work is fully done! But no, the remembrancers take their place on the walls to give the Lord no rest till he fulfills all that is promised. This is the theme of the final section: the praying church (63:7-64:12) and the promising God (65:1-66:24).” [Motyer, p. 512]

This is “one of the most eloquent intercessions of the Bible…” [Kidner, p. 668]

(A)  The Foundation of the Intercession (63:7-14)

“It is well to talk of God’s love and God’s mercy, for, if we afterwards speak of our own sin and unfaithfulness, it tends to set our sin in a clearer light, and we are the more ready to confess it, and to mourn over it. God has dealt well with us; and, therefore, that we have dealt ill with him, is the more shameful. See what he did for his ancient people, and behold in his action a picture of what he has done for his spiritual Israel.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 587]

“These verses speak of how the Lord’s love began, in election and salvation (8) and how it continued in identification (9a), salvation, redemption, and support.” [Motyer, p. 513]

“This is what he did for them in Egypt, what he did for them in the desert. He was very near them, one with them, very tender to them.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 587]

“…‘In all their affliction, affliction to him/he had affliction’, i.e. he identified with them and shared their tribulation.” [Motyer, p. 513]

“If your cup is sweet, drink it with grace. If your cup is bitter, drink it in communion with Him.”  [Oswald Chambers in Emolyn C. Lambert, From the Back of My Bible, (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing Inc., 1998), p. 68]

“…Just as the angel who is His face, i.e. the representation of His nature, is designated as a person both by His name and also by the redeeming activity ascribed to Him; so also is the Spirit of holiness, by the fact that he can be grieved (compare Eph. 4:30)… Hence Jehovah, and the angel of His face, and the Spirit of His holiness are distinguishable as three persons…” [Delitzsch, p. 601]

“See what God did for his people in his tenderness and lovingkindness. Is it not strange that, after that, they rebelled against him?” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 587]

“From the gods of Egypt to the incantations of Balaam (Nu. 22ff.), no obstacle (natural or supernatural) was allowed to impede his people, unworthy though they were (10ab).” [Motyer, p. 515]

(B)  The Content of the Intercession (63:15-64:12)

     “In this appeal of Israel to God we have an admirable example of what should be our prayer in times when seemingly all things go against us, and God has forsaken us. First, we must beseech God to open the ‘heavens,’ which are apparently shut against our cry, and to ‘come down’ by His Spirit to our help, so that ‘mountains’ of opposition may melt away at His presence. Next we must appeal to His concern for the honor of His ‘name,’ which is at stake in the case of all who cry to Him. God’s ‘terrible’ doings exceeding all expectation, are another strong ground of the believer’s expectation that He will again interpose in behalf of His suffering people, and that mountain-like obstacles, as in times past, will disappear at His presence.” [Fausset, p. 759]

“God’s forlorn family… The plea three times over, you are our Father (63:16; 64:8), give this prayer special intensity, as the sense of estrangement struggles with that of acceptance.

“The symptoms of estrangement are partly outward with the enemy treading down all that was holy (63:18; 64:8); but far more serious are the inward symptoms; the spiritual hardness of 63:17, the ravages of sin described in 64:5b-6 (a brilliant portrayal of its power to habituate, defile and disintegrate) and a general listlessness (64:7) which makes the condition humanly incurable.

“In all this there is seen the judgment of God, who has withheld his intervention (63:15), hardened their hearts (63:17; cf. 6:10) and made them waste away (Heb. ‘melt’) because of (or ‘by means of’) their sins (64:7. The last of these phrases makes it clear that God is not to blame for their spiritual plight; it stems from their own dalliance with evil.

“On the other side there is a Father’s constancy to appeal to…; it is more tenacious than human faithfulness (cf. 63:16 with 49:15; Ps. 27:10) and of longer standing (of old; 63:16). Further, it is proved by his mighty interventions for those who wait for him (64:4; cf. 8:17; 30:18) ― and why should those not be renewed (64:1-5a)?” [Kidner, p. 668-669]

“If you are in trouble tonight, if you have lost the light of God’s countenance, here are words for you to use in prayer to God.” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVIII, (1892), p. 587]

(I)   The Problem (63:15-19)

“A powerful argument is here drawn from the tenderness of parental affection, as formerly displayed in so signal a manner in behalf of the nation.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 359]

“A plea for divine attention (15ab) leads to a question whether God has changed, because formerly he was known for zeal on behalf of his people, and compassion and a tender heart (15cd). This is a real problem because, come what may, he is still Father and Redeemer (16).” [Motyer, p. 516]

“Why do you make us wander from your ways? Is not an attempt to lay the blame on the Lord but, in Old Testament thought, a recognition of guilt of such proportions that the Lord could not let it pass but judicially sentenced his people to the consequences of their own choices…. The heart set on disobedience hardens progressively against the way and will of God until the moment, known only to the Lord (and known, indeed, appointed, by him in advance), arrives when the sentence of hardening must be passed. This is the point of no return. Since heart-hardening is humanly irretrievable, only a ‘turning’ on the part of God can help (Ps. 80:14…; 90:13).” [Motyer, p. 517]

(II)  The Lament (64:1-3)

“God’s ancient people were in great trouble, and the prophet saw no way out of their perplexity, but God can make a way of escape where there is not one, he can rend even heaven itself, if need be, in order to deliver his saints. Therefore, the prophet, or the people pray, ‘Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens,’ — ‘Come down thyself, great God, in all the majesty of thy glory; burst through the firmament, and appear in divine splendor!’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 598]

(III) The Explanation (64:4-7)

“In the preceding stanza it all seemed so easy for a God as mighty as the Lord to ‘show his face’ and put all things to rights. But, asks this central stanza of the poem, why should such a God as He intervene for such a people as we?… Just as God has gone on ‘forever’, so has our sin!… The unique Lord (4a-c) has made known the conditions of blessing (4d, 5ab). Far from meeting these conditions, we have flouted them persistently (5d-f).” [Motyer, p. 519]

“The expectation was that if the Lord showed his face (1b, 2d, 3b) the world and the nations would tremble. The reality is that it is we who are shriveling (6c) and wasting away (7d) because the Lord has hidden his face (7c). But this comes in the course of a deep acknowledgement of sin as the only response to the pervious verses (4-5). Isaiah gives an analysis of sin.

“1. Unclean… This is the leper’s cry (Lv 13:45) of personal unfitness for the fellowship of God and the worshipping community.

“2. Filthy rags/’a garment of menstruation’… Bodily discharges that were linked with procreation were considered a defilement because they were so vitally associated with fallen human life. Even what we might consider to be in our favor, our righteous acts, flow from a fallen nature and partake of its fallenness.

“3. The ‘fading leaf’ image (cf. 1:30; 24:4; 28:1; 34:4; 40:7). This is a picture of decay ending in death…. It is our sins…that sweep us away like the wind carries off dead leaves…”

“4. Disinterest in the Lord…. Life without a living relationship with God is not even half-awake….

“5. Divine alienation (you have hidden your face).” [Motyer, p. 520]

“Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam.” [William Beveridge in The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations, p. 261]

“So far from being able to answer for my sins, I cannot even answer for my righteousness!” [Bernard of Clairvaux in Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p. 306]

“…There is something to be forgiven in the best deed of the best man on the best day of his life.” [W. E. Sangster, You Can Be a Saint, (London: Epworth Press, 1957), p. 10]

“If our righteousness are filthy, what must our sins look like?” [Warren Wiersbe, Be Rich, (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1976), p. 48]

“Not Thy wrath, but our sin, is the fire which has consumed us.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 361]

(IV) The Plea (64:8-9)

“There is another side to the changelessness of God. On the one hand, he is changeless in his requirements (4-5), on the other, he is equally changeless in grace and mercy. Once he has constituted himself the Father (63:16) of his people that too is unalterable. So the present stanza moves from the grim admissions of verses 6-7 to plead your are our Father (8a) and we are all your people (9d), making these the basis of prayer that anger may cease (9a), iniquity be forgotten (9b) and favorable attention return (9c).” [Motyer, p. 520-521]

“The child would not be there but for the father, nor the pot but for the potter, nor the artifact but for the craftsman. It is in this sense that the three figures are used. It is not to blame the father for what his children have done, or the potter for the marred pot etc. But to assert a relationship resting on divine love (Father), sovereignty (potter) and care (work of your hand).” [Motyer, p. 521]

(V)  The Expectation (64:10-12)

“The people are now right with God; the wonder of repentance is that it works. Will not the Lord now leap into action to deal with his remaining foes and to create a new situation transcending the ruins of the past?” [Motyer, p. 522]

“God’s wrath has no continuance in it towards his own people; he soon makes it to pass away from them. His anger may endure for a night; but his mercy cometh in the morning. His own word is, ‘For a small moment have I forsaken thee but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.’ The Lord has a rod in his hand, but the scourging of his own children does not last long. It is a rod, mark you, not an axe that brings death. But his mercy, his goodness, the purposes of his grace are perpetual: ‘In those is continuance, and we shall be saved.’” [Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XL, (1894), p. 599]

1. The Blessing of a New Creation (65:1-25)

“The prayer of the remembrancer ended, in principle, with the Lord’s penitent people living among ruins, waiting for a remedial act of God. That this is not the Lord’s ultimate intention for his people is the subject of chapters 65-66…. The Lord’s people (his true, believing ones, often in these chapters called his ‘servants’) are set alongside other who are either compromisers or outright pagans. But it will not always be so, for the Lord will bring his servants into a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Zion, while a dreadful judgment awaits the rest. Undeniable grimness sits alongside unimaginable glories; both alike are the word of the Lord. We have before us as plain a forecast of the implications of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as chapters 1-37 offered of his birth and chapters 40-44 of his cross.” [Motyer, p. 522]

“The great divide. Far from ending in a general radiance, these chapters unsparingly sharpen the contrast of light and darkness and strip away all cover of privilege. It is an end as searching as that of Revelation and the parables of judgment, pursuing to the last the implications of Isaiah’s inaugural vision (ch. 6).” [Kidner, p. 669]

“The Lord is ready to respond in a most self-giving way… But the people are still too engrossed in sin…. They are like Gentiles. They respond with a self-made holiness. The Lord will respond in turn in judgment. Even as the Lord has promised not to be silent until he has accomplished the redemption of his people, so he will not be silent until the enemies of his kingdom have been put down.” [VanGemeren, p. 513]

1. The Lord’s initiative (65:1)

“The Lord has taken the initiative in relation to people who neither asked for him nor sought him, presenting himself to those not previously related to him…. When the Lord ‘let myself be sought…let myself be found’…things came to a successful conclusion, i.e. those to whom he presented himself responded by seeking and finding…. A reference here to the Gentiles fits the pattern of the whole…. 66:18-21 matches the present verse in speaking of ‘nations’ ‘who have not seen my glory’ and ‘have not heard the report of me’. This approach to the nations is all of God, both in its inception (they did not ask for me) and in its outcome (‘I let myself be found’)…. We can seek only because he has first sought (cf. Jn. 15:16). The movement to I said indicates that the Lord reaches out to people through his word. The heart of the message is his self-revelation: Here I am, here I am/’Behold me, behold me!’” [Motyer, p. 523]

“Heaven’s gates are wide enough to admit of many sinners, but too narrow to admit of any sin.” [Howell in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 362]

1. The Lord’s requital (65:2-7)

“The major use of the phrase ‘to spread out…the hands’ is to adopt an attitude of prayer (1:15; 1 Ki. 8:22, 38; Ps. 143:6).  Its use as a general gesture of appeal is limited to Lamentations 1:17. What a reversal, then, of the rightful relationship! The Lord with his hands spread out! Such is his longing to move his people to the desired response…. Their resistance was proof even against incessant (all day long) pleading.” [Motyer, p. 524]

“With the forbidden rites cf. 57:3-10. The earlier deviations were predominantly licentious; the present ones are provocative, brushing aside God’s altars (3b, 7b; cf. Dt. 12:2-7), dabbling in necromancy (4a; cf. Dt. 18:11), defiantly eating forbidden flesh (4b; cf. 66:17; Dt. 14:3, 8) and claiming a magical ‘holiness’ from these perversions, potent like a spell (5a is [lit.] ‘for I am holy to you’). For the crowning insult see v 11.” [Kidner, p. 669]

“In consequence, they developed their own notions of holiness, in particular a holiness of elitism that stood aloof from fellowship and created divisions, a first-class and second-class citizenship of special experiences or claims such as find no place in the Bible. Such pretensions are smoke in my nostrils because they reflect a holiness which sits loose to the Lord’s directives regarding worship (3cd), resorts to other sources of revelation than his word (4ab), neglects the obedience factor in the practicalities of holy living (4cd) and proves divisive in fellowship (5ab).” [Motyer, p. 525]

“A deep insight is here given us into the nature of the mysterious fascination which heathenism exercised on the Jewish people. The Law humbled them at every turn. With mementoes of their own sin and of God’s unapproachable holiness. Paganism freed them from this, and allowed them (in the midst of moral pollution) to cherish lofty pretensions to sanctity. The man who had been offering incense on the mountaintop despised the penitent who went to the temple to present a ‘broken and contrite heart.’ If Pharisaism led to a like result, it was because it, too, had emptied the Law of spiritual import, and turned its provisions into intellectual idols.” [W. Kay in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 362]

iii. The Lord’s remnant (65:8-10)

“God’s reason for so severely dealing with Israel is not changeableness in Him (cf. their plea ‘in those is continuance,’ ch. lxiv.5) but sin in them (vv. 2-7). Yet the whole nation shall not be destroyed, but only the wicked; a remnant shall be saved (vv. 8-10, 11-16). There shall be finally universal blessedness to Israel, such as they had prayed for (vv. 17-25).” [Fausset, p. 760]

“All merit the winepress but some are saved from it.” [Motyer, p. 526]

“The kingdom of heaven is large enough when you get into it, but the gate is so low that you cannot come in save on your knees.” [T. DeWitt Talmage in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 363]

1. The Lord’s foes (65:11-12)

“Compromise is not possible. To follow the cults is to forsake the Lord; to be busy on those mountains (7) is to forget his holy mountain…. They found no difficulty being religious (7c), in fact they would climb any mountain except the one where they might meet the holy God.” [Motyer, p. 527]

“The description admirably suits worldly and infidel characters, who not only have no regard for, but laugh at religion; have no god but riches, and regard human affairs as governed by chance.” [Henderson in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 363]

1. The Lord’s plans (65:13-25)

“Joys for the Lord’s servants in the new creation: the new Jerusalem and its people…” [Motyer, p. 528]

“It will be a life totally provided for (13), totally happy (19cd), totally secure (22-23) and totally at peace (24-25).” [Motyer, p. 530]

“New heavens and earth….the healing of old ills (17b); joy (18-29); life (20…); security (21-23a); fellowship with God (23b-24) and concord among his creatures (25).” [Kidner, p. 669]

“This has been called the Magna Charta of humanity. It is a picture of the new Divine order…. The evil must be cast out; and the Bible way of doing this is drastic…. There is nothing for it but re-creation.” [The Speaker’s Bible V, p. 217]

“The creation of the new heavens and the new earth began with the Gospel, and is consummated at the Second Advent.” [Vitringa in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 364]

“Things we have no real capacity to understand can be expressed only through things we know and experience. So it is that in this present order of things death cuts life off before it has well begun or before it has fully matured. But it will not be so then. No infant will fail to enjoy life nor an elderly person come short of total fulfillment…. This does not imply that death will still be present (contradicting 25:7-8) but rather affirms that over the whole of life, as we should now say from infancy to old age, the power of death will be destroyed…. Of course, there will be no sinners in the new Jerusalem (6-7, 12, 15c)…. Thus verse 20 expresses a double thought: death will have no more power and sin no more presence.”” [Motyer, p. 530]

1. The Warning of a Coming Eternity (66:1-24)

“The eternal blessedness of the True Israel; the doom of the apostates.” [Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 366]

“Having dwelt on the coming glory, Isaiah begins to retrace his steps… Broadly…65:1-12 asserted facts: there are those who will inherit the glory and there are those who might have done but will not. The…sequence now commencing is explicit about ‘making your calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10)…. This stress on making one’s own citizenship of the new Jerusalem a certainty is matched by the responsibility of bringing others in…” [Motyer, p. 531]

1. The Great God (66:1-9)

(A)  Who He is (66:1-2a)

“These two verses contain one of the most explicit declarations of the spirituality of religion to be found in the O. T., anticipating the principle enunciated by our Lord in John iv.14” [Cambridge Bible in Gray & Adams Bible Commentary III, p. 366]

God “has a heaven and earth of his own making, and a temple of man’s making; but he overlooks them…that he may look with favor to him that is poor in spirit, humble and serious,…self-denying, whose heart is truly contrite for sin…, and who trembles at God’s word…with an habitual awe of God’s majesty and purity…” [Matthew Henry’s Commentary IV, p. 307]

(B)  Who He approves (66:3-6)

“Dread suggests that they flew to their questionable religious practices as a protective technique…. But far from escaping, divine justice will bring on them what the sought to avoid ― as it always does when security is sought other than in the Lord (Gn. 11:4, 8).” [Motyer, p. 534-535]

(C)  What He promises (66:7-9)

“Sudden destruction, instantaneous glory…” [Motyer, p. 535]

1. The Glorious Promises (66:10-14)

“The exuberant family scene of these verses, concluding the poems on Zion as wife and mother (see on 49:14-23), is not centered on Zion’s children (cf. Gal. 4:26). Note that the mother-city is really the secondary, not the primary, source of their wealth and comfort; all is from the Lord, even love like a mother’s (13), although he uses the redeemed community to dispense his gifts. The last two lines of this verse give the ‘whence’ and ‘where’ of this help: I…’In Jerusalem’ (cf. RSV). Direct fellowship with God, and full involvement in his church, are held together here. In Jn. 16;22 Jesus gave v 14a a strongly personal reference.” [Kidner, p. 670]

iii. The Dreadful Judgment (66:15-17)

“As God’s people are encouraged that the Lord is going to be with his children, he also assures the enemies that his vengeance will come upon them…. Those who have made their own rules of sanctification and defilement will be consumed together with the wicked.” [VanGemeren, p. 514]

1. The Worldwide People (66:18-24)

“In New Testament perspective, this final section spans the first and second comings of the Lord Jesus Christ: his purpose for the world (18), his means of carrying it out (19-21), the sign set among the nations, the remnant sent to evangelize them (19) and the gathering of his people to ‘Jerusalem’ (20) with Gentiles in full membership (21). Jerusalem is not the literal city but the city of Galatians 4:25-26; Hebrews 12:22; Revelation 21.” [Motyer, p. 540]

“Knowing as we do that this passage refers to the interim between the comings of the Lord Jesus, the ‘sign’ can only be his cross.” [Motyer, p. 541]

“Cf. Dn. 12:2; Mk. 9:48. In the synagogue v 23 is read again after v 24 to soften the ending of the prophecy. But it is a true ending.” [Kidner, p. 670]

“Remarkably, there is a cemetery beside the city. Always as they come to worship, the redeemed deliberately make themselves face (go out and look), vividly, horribly, the fate from which they have been spared…. The scene is too awful in its ceaseless corruption (their worm will not die) and unending holy wrath (nor will their fire be quenched). The cause of it all is that the rebelled against me… Isaiah ends where he began (1:2; cf. 1:28; 53:12; 59:13). They did not tremble at the word of the Lord (66:2, 5; cf. 65:12; 66:4) and so they came to this endless state…. Is it fanciful to imagine that as they debated their choice they heard a voice which said, ‘Did God really say…?’ (Gn. 3:1)…. On the lips of Jesus these verses will become the vehicle of the doctrine of eternal loss (Mk. 9:43-48).” [Motyer, p. 543-544]

“It is a terrible ending to such a prophecy as ours. But is any other possible?… Nothing else can result, if the men on whose ears the great prophecy had fallen, with all its music and all its gospel, and who had been partakers of the Lord’s Deliverance, did yet continue to prefer their idols, their swine’s flesh, their mouse, their broth of abominable things, their sitting in graves, to so evident a God and to so great a grace.

It is a terrible ending, but it is the same as upon the same floor Christ set to His teaching, — the gospel net cast wide, but only to draw in both good and bad upon a beach of judgment; the wedding feast thrown open and men compelled to come in, but among them a heart whom grace so great could not awe even to decency; Christ’s gospel preached, His Example evident, and Himself owned as Lord, and nevertheless some whom neither the hearing nor the seeing nor the owning with their lips did lift to unselfishness or stir to pity. Therefore He who had cried, ‘Come all unto Me,’ was compelled to close by saying to many, ‘Depart.’

“It is a terrible ending, but one only too conceivable. For though God is love, man is free, — free to turn from that love; free to be as though he had never felt it; free to put away from himself the highest, clearest, most urgent grace that God can show. But to do this is the judgment.

“‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’ The Lord did not answer the question but by bidding the questioner take heed to himself: ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate.’” [George Adam Smith, p. 846]

“Almighty and most merciful God, who hast sent this book to be the revelation of Thy great love to man, and of Thy power and will to save him, grant that our study of it may not have been in vain by the callousness or carelessness of our hearts, but that by it we may be confirmed in penitence, lifted to hope, made strong for service, and above all filled with the true knowledge of Thee and of Thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.”

[George Adam Smith, p. 846]