Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Isaiah · About this commentary
To This Man Will I Look
Isaiah 66:1-14
1 Yahweh says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest? · WEB
A God who cannot be housed says whom he looks at, and comforts his people the way a mother does.
Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest? Isaiah 66:1.
Stephen quotes this at the end of his defense, to a council that had accused him of speaking against the temple Acts 7:49. The question is not hostile to the building; it is about proportion.
But I will look to this man, even to he who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word Isaiah 66:2.
The answer to where will I rest, and it is a person rather than a place. Three marks: poor, crushed in spirit, and shaking at what God says. It is the fifty-seventh chapter's second address Isaiah 57:15 stated as a preference.
He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog's neck Isaiah 66:3.
Four comparisons, each pairing a legitimate offering with something abhorrent. The sacrifices are not being abolished; they are being equated with atrocities because of who is bringing them — they have chosen their own ways.
Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for my name's sake, have said, "Let Yahweh be glorified, that we may see your joy;" but it is those who shall be disappointed Isaiah 66:5.
The persecution described is from inside the community, and the taunt is pious. They are quoting Scripture at the people they have expelled.
Before she travailed, she gave birth. Before her pain came, she delivered a son. Who has heard of such a thing?... Shall a nation be born at once? Isaiah 66:7–8.
A birth with no labor. The book has used the image of futile labor twice Isaiah 26:18 Isaiah 37:3 for a nation in agony producing nothing; here the agony is skipped and the child arrives.
Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to be delivered? Isaiah 66:9.
The argument is that God does not abandon a process at the last stage.
As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. You will be comforted in Jerusalem Isaiah 66:13.
The last of this book's maternal images, and the most direct. The word comfort opened the second half of the book Isaiah 40:1 and it is defined here at the end, by the one comparison every reader has either experienced or missed.
You will see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones will flourish like the tender grass Isaiah 66:14.
Bones flourishing like new grass — the driest thing in a body compared to the greenest thing in a field.
settled What this mark means