Biblion Bible Commentary
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New Heavens and a New Earth
Isaiah 65:17-25
17 “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind. · WEB
A new creation described in terms of houses, vineyards and children, and God answering before the prayer is finished.
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind Isaiah 65:17.
The verb is the one used in the first sentence of Genesis, which in Scripture never has a human subject. Peter takes up the phrase 2 Peter 3:13 and so does the last vision of Revelation Revelation 21:1.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; and the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will be heard in her no more Isaiah 65:19.
The rejoicing is God's, in them.
No more will there be an infant who only lives a few days, nor an old man who has not filled his days Isaiah 65:20.
The first thing named about the new creation is infant mortality ending, which in the ancient world took a third of all children. What is promised is not first a transformed cosmos but a country where babies live.
They will build houses and inhabit them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and another inhabit. They will not plant and another eat Isaiah 65:21–22.
Stated positively and then negatively, because the negative is the one that had been the experience. An invaded country's characteristic grief is that somebody else lives in the house and drinks the wine, and the curse of Deuteronomy said exactly this would happen Deuteronomy 28:30.
For the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen will long enjoy the work of their hands.
A tree outlives the person who planted it. The comparison is about duration and about the pleasure of seeing something you made still standing.
They will not labor in vain nor give birth for calamity Isaiah 65:23.
The two great futilities — work that comes to nothing and children who do not survive — are both named, and the second is the sharper. Bearing a child for calamity is what a woman does in a country about to be invaded.
It will happen that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear Isaiah 65:24.
The answer to the whole complaint of the book. The prayer that God was not listening Isaiah 64:12 is met with a promise that the answer will arrive before the request is finished.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like the ox... They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain Isaiah 65:25.
The vision of chapter eleven Isaiah 11:6–9, repeated near the end of the book with one addition: dust will be the serpent's food, which is the sentence of Genesis 3:14 left standing while everything else is reversed.
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