Isaiah 66

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 66

Here we come to the last page of the great book, and it closes exactly where it has been reaching all along. The LORD, whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth, asks what house could ever contain Him, and then tells us the one place He is glad to dwell: with the humble and contrite in spirit who tremble at His word. From there the chapter opens like a sunrise. God rebukes hollow religion and the rebels who choose their own ways, then turns and comforts His people with a tenderness almost too gentle to bear, promising to console Jerusalem as a mother comforts her child, to extend peace to her like a river, and to gather every nation and tongue to come and see His glory. He sends survivors out as missionaries to lands that have never heard His fame, brings home the scattered from all the earth, and promises that in the new heavens and the new earth He will make, His people’s name will endure forever, while all mankind comes to bow before Him. And because Isaiah has never once flinched from telling the truth, the book ends with a final sober look at the fate of those who rebel against God, so that we would choose, with both eyes open, the God who esteems the lowly and comforts His own.

As you read, hold this: The book ends where it aimed: the humble and contrite whom God esteems, comforted like a child at its mother’s breast, and all nations gathered to worship the Holy One forever in the enduring new creation.

Isaiah 66:1–2 (BSB)

¹ This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me? Or where will My place of repose be? ² Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the LORD. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.

What a way to open the final movement of the book. The LORD sweeps His hand across the whole created order and reminds us how immeasurably great He is: heaven itself is only His throne, the earth merely the stool beneath His feet, and every atom of it made by that same hand. No temple, however golden, could ever house such a God, as though He needed a roof over His head or a place to rest. And then, having lifted our eyes to that dizzying height, He tells us the one thing on all the earth that draws His gaze and wins His regard. Not the grand building, not the impressive offering, but a person: the one who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles (חָרֵד) chared, pronounced khaw-RADE. Strong's H2730, trembling, quaking, one who shakes in awe or fear. This is a striking word to find on the lips of the God whom the whole earth cannot contain. It carries the sense of trembling, quaking, one who shakes with awe, and it is the very quality the LORD says He esteems: the soul that trembles at His word. It is not the trembling of terror that wants to flee, but the deep reverent shaking of a heart that takes God utterly seriously, that hears His word and does not shrug it off but bows beneath it. Isaiah opened by showing us a people who heard God’s word and would not listen, and here at the close God tells us what He was always looking for: not the proud who build Him houses, but the ones who quake with holy reverence when He speaks. This is the humble and contrite spirit that the high and lofty One is pleased to call home. Tremble at His word, and you become the dwelling place of the God who made the stars. at His word. Slow down and let the wonder of that settle on you. The God who fills heaven and earth stoops to esteem the lowly and the broken-hearted. The Most High makes His home not in marble but in the trembling, reverent soul. That is where the whole book has been pointing, and here it says it plainly.

Isaiah 66:3–4 (BSB)

³ Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who slays a man; whoever sacrifices a lamb is like one who breaks a dog’s neck; whoever presents a grain offering is like one who offers pig’s blood; whoever offers frankincense is like one who blesses an idol. Indeed, they have chosen their own ways and delighted in their abominations. ⁴ So I will choose their punishment and I will bring terror upon them, because I called and no one answered, I spoke and no one listened. But they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”

Against that portrait of the humble worshiper God sets its opposite, and He speaks with holy severity. These are people who still bring the sacrifices, still burn the incense, still perform every outward act of religion, and yet their hearts have chosen their own ways and delighted in their abominations. So the LORD makes a shocking equation: the ox they slaughter for Him is no more acceptable than a murder, their lamb no better than a broken dog’s neck, their offering as loathsome as pig’s blood. Understand what He is teaching. It is not that sacrifice is wrong, for God Himself commanded it. It is that religion offered by a rebellious heart is worse than no religion at all, a mockery that turns the holy things into abominations. And the reason cuts to the bone: I called and no one answered, I spoke and no one listened. The whole tragedy of a hardened people is gathered into that one sad line. God kept speaking, and they kept turning away, and in the end He gives them the terror they chose. It is sober, and we must not soften it, for it shows us how much the trembling, listening heart of verse two really matters.

Isaiah 66:5–6 (BSB)

⁵ You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD: “Your brothers who hate you and exclude you because of My name have said, ‘Let the LORD be glorified that we may see your joy!’ But they will be put to shame.” ⁶ Hear the uproar from the city; listen to the voice from the temple! It is the voice of the LORD, repaying His enemies what they deserve!

Now the LORD turns and speaks directly to the ones He esteems, the trembling and reverent, and He speaks to comfort them. For it is often just such people who are mocked and pushed out, even by their own brothers, hated and excluded for the sake of God’s name. Their persecutors sneer with a cruel piety, daring God to show up and vindicate them: let the LORD be glorified, then, so we can see this joy you keep talking about. It is the taunt of every age against those who quietly trust God. And the LORD’s answer to His faithful ones is a promise: those mockers will be put to shame. Then Isaiah bids us listen, for there is an uproar rising from the city and a voice sounding from the temple, and it is the voice of the LORD Himself, come at last to repay His enemies what they deserve. The God who seemed silent while His people were scorned has not forgotten. He hears, He sees, and in His own time He answers.

Isaiah 66:7–9 (BSB)

⁷ “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before she was in pain, she delivered a boy. ⁸ Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children. ⁹ Shall I bring a baby to the point of birth and not deliver it?” says the LORD. “Or will I who deliver close the womb?” says your God.

Here the LORD paints a picture of His salvation as a birth so swift and sure it astonishes the watching world. Zion, who seemed barren and bereaved, suddenly and without the long agony of labor brings forth a whole people, a nation born in a single day. Who has ever heard of such a thing? It is meant to make us marvel, for it is exactly the way God works, bringing life where there was no hope of it and doing in an instant what no human strength could accomplish. And then He seals the wonder with a tender rhetorical question that every anxious heart should treasure. Would I, He asks, bring a child right to the moment of birth and then refuse to deliver it? Would the God who opens the womb be the one to close it? Of course not. What God begins, God finishes. He does not raise our hope to the very brink and then abandon us. The salvation He has promised throughout this book, He will most certainly bring to the light of day.

Isaiah 66:10–11 (BSB)

¹⁰ Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her. Rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her, ¹¹ so that you may nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you may drink deeply and delight yourselves in her glorious abundance.

Now the summons goes out, and it is a summons to joy. All who love Jerusalem, all who once wept over her ruin, are called to rejoice with her now, and the LORD gives them a homely and beautiful image for the comfort awaiting them. The city that was desolate becomes like a nursing mother whose children may come and be satisfied at her breast, drinking deeply of her abundance until every hunger is stilled. It is the picture of a people who have known grief being welcomed at last into a plenty that overflows. Notice how tenderly God speaks to those who have mourned. He does not scold them for their tears; He invites them to trade their mourning for a satisfaction as deep and natural as a child feeding contentedly in its mother’s arms. The God of all comfort means to fill His people to the full.

Isaiah 66:12–13 (BSB)

¹² For this is what the LORD says: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flowing stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm, and bounced upon her knees. ¹³ As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you, and you will be consoled over Jerusalem.”

And then comes one of the most tender sentences in all of Scripture, and I would have you linger over it. The LORD promises to send peace to His people like a river, wide and unhurried and never running dry, and to carry them the way a mother carries her little one, on her arm and bounced upon her knees. Then He says it as plainly as it can be said: as a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you. Consider Who is speaking. This is the God of thrones and armies, the Holy One high and lifted up whose glory fills the earth, and He reaches for the gentlest picture a human heart knows, a mother bending over her frightened child until the crying stops. There is no comfort on earth quite like it, and God says His comfort is like that, only truer and deeper and without end. If you have ever wondered whether the Almighty is tender, whether His heart is soft toward those who are His, let this verse answer you. He comforts as a mother comforts, and He will not stop until His people are consoled.

Isaiah 66:14–17 (BSB)

¹⁴ When you see, you will rejoice, and you will flourish like grass; then the hand of the LORD will be revealed to His servants, but His wrath will be shown to His enemies. ¹⁵ For behold, the LORD will come with fire—His chariots are like a whirlwind—to execute His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire. ¹⁶ For by fire and by His sword, the LORD will execute judgment on all flesh, and many will be slain by the LORD. ¹⁷ “Those who consecrate and purify themselves to enter the groves—to follow one in the center of those who eat the flesh of swine and vermin and rats—will perish together,” declares the LORD.

The same coming of the LORD that brings comfort to His servants brings judgment to His enemies, for God is one, and His love and His justice are not two Gods but one. To His own, the revealing of His hand means flourishing like green grass after rain and hearts that rejoice at the sight. But to those who have set themselves against Him, that same coming is fire and whirlwind and sword. We should not rush past these hard verses, nor should we gloat over them, for they are sober and true. God will execute judgment on all flesh, and the false worshipers of verse seventeen, who go through their solemn rituals in the pagan groves and defile themselves with what God forbade, will perish together with their idols. The lesson is the same one Isaiah has pressed from the beginning: the God who comforts like a mother is also the God whose holiness is a consuming fire, and the difference between the two destinies is not chance but the trembling, listening heart, or the lack of it. His justice is real, and it is a mercy that He warns us of it plainly.

Isaiah 66:18–21 (BSB)

¹⁸ “And I, knowing their deeds and thoughts, am coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see My glory. ¹⁹ I will establish a sign among them, and I will send survivors from among them to the nations—to Tarshish, Put, and the archers of Lud; to Tubal, Javan, and the islands far away who have not heard of My fame or seen My glory. So they will proclaim My glory among the nations. ²⁰ And they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the LORD on horses and chariots and wagons, on mules and camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the LORD, “just as the Israelites bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.” ²¹ “And I will select some of them as priests and Levites,” says the LORD.

And now the great heart of God for the whole world comes bursting into view. He is coming, He says, to gather all nations and tongues, that they may come and see His glory. Think of how far this reaches beyond the little land of Judah. God will set a sign among the gathered peoples and then send survivors out as His messengers, all the way to Tarshish in the west and Put and Lud in Africa, to Tubal and Javan and the distant islands, to peoples who have never once heard His fame. So they will proclaim My glory among the nations, He says, and here on the last page of the prophet is the missionary commission itself, the going-out of the good news to every corner of the earth. And the fruit of that mission comes streaming home: brothers gathered from all the nations, brought like a precious offering to the LORD’s holy mountain, and God even choosing priests and Levites from among these once-foreign peoples. The wall between Israel and the nations comes down. All who come to see His glory are welcomed in, and given a place near to God. This is the gospel’s own horizon, promised centuries before it dawned.

Isaiah 66:22–23 (BSB)

²² “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me,” declares the LORD, “so your descendants and your name will endure. ²³ From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come to worship before Me,” says the LORD.

Here the book climbs to its highest and most enduring promise. The LORD is going to make new heavens and a new earth, a creation that will stand unshaken before Him forever, and He binds the future of His people to that everlasting world: just as the new creation will endure, so your name and your descendants will endure. Nothing that God gives His own will ever be lost. And then the vision widens until it takes in the whole human race. From one New Moon to the next, from Sabbath to Sabbath, without pause and without end, all mankind will come to worship before Him. This is where the whole story has been driving from the beginning, back to the very first chapters where the earth lay full of rebellion. In the end the Holy One of Israel, whose glory fills the earth, will be worshiped by all peoples forever in a world that can never again be spoiled. Every knee that ever refused Him, every nation that ever served an idol, gathered at last in unending worship of the one true God. Let the wonder of it lift your heart, for this is the future He has promised, and He does not lie.

Isaiah 66:24 (BSB)

²⁴ “As they go forth, they will see the corpses of the men who have rebelled against Me; for their worm will never die, their fire will never be quenched, and they will be a horror to all mankind.”

And Isaiah, faithful to the end, will not let the book close on comfort alone without one last honest word about the other road. As the worshipers go out from before the LORD, they will look upon the ruin of those who set themselves against Him, a rebellion whose fire is never quenched and whose end is a lasting horror. We must handle this soberly, for the Lord Jesus Himself took up the very words of this verse to warn us of a judgment that is real and final. It is placed here on purpose, at the very close, so that no reader could ever say he was not told. The whole book has held out two roads with unflinching clarity: seek the LORD and live, forsake Him and fall. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and the warning is itself a mercy, one more call from the God who kept crying out to a people who would not listen. Do not read this verse and shudder only; read it and turn, while the invitation still stands, to the God who esteems the humble and comforts His own as a mother comforts her child.