Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne. Isaiah 66:1, 2 The eternal blessedness of the true Israel Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. he apostates : — This chapter continues the antithesis that runs through chap. 65., carrying it onward to its eschatological issues. The connection of ideas is frequently extremely difficult to trace, and no two cities are agreed as to where the different sections begin and end. ( Prof. J. Skinner, D. D. ) Temple building F. Delitzsch, D. D. Hitzig thinks (and with him Knobel, Hendewerk) that the author here begins quite abruptly to oppose the purpose of building a temple to Jehovah; the builders are those who meditated remaining behind in Chaldea, and wished also to have a temple, as the Jews in Egypt, at a later time, built one in Leontopolis. ( F. Delitzsch, D. D. ) The offerings of the impenitent offensive to God F. Delitzsch, D. D. The address, directed to the entire body ready to return, says without distinction that Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth, needs no house made by men's hands; then in the entire body distinguishes between the penitent and those alienated from God, rejects all worship and offering at the hand of the latter, and threatens them with just retribution. ( F. Delitzsch, D. D. ) The inward and spiritual preferred by God to the outward and material Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. [These great words] are a declaration, spoken probably in view of the approaching restoration of the temple (which, in itself, the prophet entirely approves, Isaiah 44:28 , and expects, Isaiah 56:7 ; Isaiah 55:7 ; Isaiah 62:9 ), reminding the Jews of the truth which a visible temple might readily lead them to forget, that no earthly habitation could be really adequate to Jehovah's majesty, and that Jehovah's regard was not to be won by the magnificence of a material temple, but by humility and the devotion of the heart. How needful the warning was history shows. Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 7:1-15 ) argues at length against those who pointed, with a proud sense of assurance, to the massive pile of buildings that crowned the height of Zion, heedless of the moral duties which loyalty to the King, whose residence it was, implied. And at a yet more critical moment in their history, attachment to the temple, as such, was one of the causes which incapacitated the Jews from appropriating the more spiritual teaching of Christ: the charge brought against Stephen ( Acts 6:13, 14 )is that he ceased not "to speak words against this holy place and the law;" and, the argument of Stephen's defence ( Acts 7 .) is just to show that in the past God's favour had not been limited to the period during which the temple of Zion existed. Here, then, the prophet seizes the occasion to insist upon the necessity of a spiritual service, passing on (vers. 3-5) to denounce, in particular, certain superstitious usages which had apparently, at the time, infected the worship of Jehovah. ( Prof. S. R. Driver, D. D. ) The inwardness of religion The Thinker. 1. The tendency to make religion consist in external actions, apart from the inward dispositions which should accompany them, is very common. The reason for this is discovered from the fact that outward actions are easier than inward. It is easier, for instance, to become outwardly poor than to become poor in spirit; easier to adore with the body than to worship with the soul. The tendency is observable in all dispensations. For instance, whatever other differences there may have been between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, we are expressly told that it was "by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice ' ( Hebrews 11:4 ). The outward act was linked with the right inward disposition. So, again, in the time of the Levitical Law, the tendency often manifested itself to put ceremonial above moral obligations ( Psalm 1 .). And Isaiah, in his first chapter (vers. 11-18), shows how an outward service, without the putting away of evil, is an abomination to God. In the same way our Lord condemned the Pharisees ( Matthew 15:8 ). 2. This closing prophecy of Isaiah seems to contain a warning against formalism. It is not that the outward is unimportant, for this would be to run from one extreme to the other, but that the outward will not avail. The return of Israel from captivity will be followed by the building of a new temple, as the event has shown; and the warning of the text is twofold — one, to remind the Israelites that Jehovah had no need of a temple; the other, to impress them with a truth they were very apt to forget, that religion must be a matter of the heart. I. A REVELATION OF GOD. "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool." 1. These words, or the substance of them, are again and again repeated in Holy Scripture ( 1 Kings 8:27 ; Matthew 5:34 ; Acts 7:49 ). Repetitions in the Bible show the importance of a truth, or our difficulty in remembering it. 2. What is the truth? That God is incomprehensible. He is everywhere and cannot be localized ( Jeremiah 23:24 ). There is nowhere where Cod's power and essence and presence do not reach. He knows no limit of space or time, of knowledge or love. II. THE REFERENCE TO THE EXTERNAL TEMPLE. "Where is the house that ye build unto Me?" 1. These words are not intended to deter Israel from building a material temple when they had returned to their own land. The prophet would be contradicting himself ( Isaiah 56:5-7 ; Isaiah 60:7 ); and he would be running counter to the solemn injunctions of other prophets, such as Haggai and Zechariah, who were in part raised up by God to further the work of building the temple. What the words are intended to rebuke is the falseness of the ideas that God requires a temple, and that His presence can be restricted to its walls. God does not need a temple, but we do. In heaven there will be no necessity for any temple ( Revelation 21:22 ), where the glory of God and of the Lamb floods with its radiance the whole place. 2. Here the church, with its sacred objects and associations, appeals to us and excites our devotion; here in the sacred place there is a distinct promise to prayer; here God acts upon us, and we upon God, through prescribed ordinances; here He promises to be present in some especial manner; here we act upon one another, and kindle fervour, and therefore must not forsake "the assembling of ourselves together" in the house of God ( Hebrews 10:25 ). III. BUT THE TEXT ALLUDES TO THE INTERNAL TEMPLE — THE DISPOSITIONS OF THE SOUL OF THE WORSHIPPER, WHICH ATTRACT THE FAVOUR OF GOD. "To this man will I look,... who is poor,... contrite, and who trembleth at My word." 1. Poor, not merely outwardly, but poor in spirit ( Psalm 138:6 ). The man who at all realizes the Divine majesty will have a sense of his own nothingness. 2. Of a contrite spirit. A perception" of the Divine holiness brings self-humiliation by force of contrast ( Job 42:6 ). 3. "Trembleth at My word. Fear is ever an element of the spirit of worship. A sense of the Divine justice and judgments fills the soul with awe in approaching God. The Word or revelation of God is received, not in the spirit of criticism, but with reverence and godly fear. IV. LESSONS. 1. The remembrance of the all-pervading presence of God should be a deterrent from evil, and an incentive to good. 2. The obligation of regularity in attendance at Divine worship ought to be insisted upon, both as a recognition of God and our relations with Him, and for the sake of the subjective effects on human character. 3. But outward worship is of no avail without inward. There are tests, in the text, of the presence of the spirit of worship — lowliness, contrition, and awe, as products of the realization of God's presence and perfections. ( The Thinker. ) God's elevation and condescension I. S. Spencer, D. D. 1. The subject of remark — God Himself. "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, the earth is My footstool." The attention is turned simply to God — His grandeur, His magnificence, His immensity, His omnipresence. He abides in heaven, He puts the earth under His feet. 2. The manner in which the remark about God is conducted, is that of a kind of contrast betwixt Him and men. "Where is the house that ye build unto Me, and where is the place of My rest?" God is unlike man. He challenges any comparison. "The heaven, even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him. Ancient kings aimed often to Impress their subjects with an idea of their magnificence, and surrounded themselves with a solemn and salutary awe, by rearing palaces of the most imposing splendour and magnificence. They wished to overawe the multitude. On this ground, God Himself, seems to have ordered the unequalled grandeur of the ancient temple. But in doing it, He took care that its dazzling beauty and stateliness should only be an aid, a stepping-stone, to assist the imagination in its upward reach towards the grandeur of God. In the prayer of the dedication, Solomon's devotion soars infinitely above the temple. Here, the majesty of God, and the littleness of man, stand side by side. After mentioning the earth and the heaven, God says, "All these things hath My hand made." 3. But yet, lest dread should too much terrify the worshipper, or a high and just idea of God's infinite majesty lead the humble into the error of supposing that such an august Being would not regard such an insignificant creature as man, he adds, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." A turn of thought well worthy of our admiration. A contrite sinner has nothing to fear from God. His very majesty need not terrify him. Indeed, His majesty constitutes the very ground for his encouragement. It can condescend. Just as much does the King of kings and Lord of lords glorify Himself, when He consoles, by the whisperings of His Spirit, the poorest and most unworthy sinner that ever felt the pangs of a bruised heart, as when He thunders in the heavens as the most High, and gives His voice, hail-stones and coals of fire. With this idea, sinners should-approach Him and meditate His grandeur. ( I. S. Spencer, D. D. ) The magnificence of God I. S. Spencer, D. D. I. THE STYLE OF THE TEXT. God speaks of Himself. "The heaven is My throne, the earth is My footstool." This style of religious address is especially common in the Scriptures ( Psalm 137 .; Job 11:7, 8 ; Job 26:6-14 ; Isaiah 40:1 .). These passages all speak of God in a style which we cannot attempt to analyze. Their aim appears to be twofold. 1. To lead us to make the idea of God Himself the leading idea in religion. 2. To have this idea, which we are to entertain about God, an idea of the utmost grandeur, of the most amazing magnificence, and solemn sublimity. II. THE DESIGN IN VIEW CANNOT EASILY BE MISTAKEN. They would give us just ideas of God. The impression they aim to make is simply this, that God is incomparably and inconceivably above us — an infinite and awful mystery! III. THE NECESSITY OF THIS MAY EXIST OH DIFFERENT GROUNDS. 1. Our littleness. In the nature of the case, there can be no comparison betwixt man and God. All is contrast — an infinite contrast. 2. Our sinfulness. Sin never exists aside from the mind's losing a just impression of the Deity; and wherever it exists, there is a tendency to cleave to low and unworthy ideas of Him. 3. Our materiality, the connection of our minds with material and gross bodies. This connection renders it difficult for us to soar beyond matter. We are in danger of introducing the imperfections of our existence into our religion, even into our ideas of God. Consequently, when God speaks to us of Himself, He speaks in a manner designed to guard us from error. He says to us, "The heaven is ,My throne, and the earth is My footstool. Where is the house ye build unto Me? We are limited to the world. We cannot get foothold anywhere else. We are circumscribed within very narrow limits. But God asks, "Where is the place of My rest?" He would elevate our conceptions of Him beyond matter, out of the reach of its bounds. 4. The nature of God. Man is only a creature. He owes his existence to a cause without him. That cause still rules him. That cause allows him to know but little, and often drops the veil of an impenetrable darkness before his eyes just at the point, the very point, where he is most desirous to look further, and it drops the veil there, in order to do him the twofold office of convincing him of the grandeur of God and his own littleness, and of compelling him, under the influence of those convictions, to turn back to a light which concerns him more than the darkness beyond the veil can, to a light where are wrapped up the duties and interests of his immortal soul. God would repress his curiosity, and make him use his conscience. Therefore, He makes darkness preach to him. IV. APPLICATION. 1. Let us be admonished to approach the study of religion with a solemnity of mind which belongs to it. It is the study of God. The voice comes from the burning bush, "Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground.' How unlike all other subjects is religion! How differently we should approach it! 2. This mode in which God teaches us — this grandeur and magnificence which belong to Him — ought to remove a very common difficulty from our minds, and prepare us to receive in faith, those deep and dark doctrines, whose mystery is so apt to stagger us. What can we expect? 3. Since God is so vast a being, how deep should be our humility! 4. How deep should be our homage.! 5. The greatness of God should gauge the depth of our repentance. Our sin is against Him. 6. The greatness of God should invite our faith. " If God be for us, who can be against us?" 7. The magnificence of God should be a motive to our service. He is able to turn our smallest services to an infinite account. 8. The greatness of God ought to encourage the timid. Because He is great, His regard reaches to every one of your annoyances. Your enemies cannot hurt you. 9. The grandeur of God ought to rebuke our reliance upon creatures. ( I. S. Spencer, D. D. ) What God does not, and what He does, regard A. Roberts, M. A. I. WHAT THE LORD DOES NOT REGARD. He speaks quite slightingly of this great building. But is it not said elsewhere that "the Lord loved the courts of Zion"? Did He not expressly tell King Solomon when his temple was completed, "Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be on it perpetually"? He did; but in what sense are we to understand those words? Not that He delighted in the grandeur of the house, but in as much of spiritual worship as was rendered there. The temple itself was no otherwise well pleasing to Him than as it was raised in obedience to His orders, and as it served, in its fashion and its furniture, for "an example and a shadow of heavenly things;" but the Lord "loved the gates of Zion" because the prayers of Zion were presented there. He points out to us two things — His throne, and His footstool! and then He leaves it to ourselves to say whether any building man can raise to Him can be considerable in His eyes. II. Hear from the Lord's own lips THE DESCRIPTION OF THE MAN WHO DRAWS HIS EYE. "To this man," etc. 1. The sort of character described.(1) He is "poor" — humble towards God. He is humble, too, towards his fellow-creatures; carrying himself meekly towards all men, and "in lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than himself." He is "slow to wrath" — patient under provocation — anxious not to be "overcome of evil" but rather to "overcome evil with good."(2) Another quality which marks the man to whom the Lord looks is contrition.(3) He "trembleth at My word." But what kind of trembling is meant? Felix trembled at God's word; and many a wicked man from his days to the present has trembled at it also. And yet it has been but a momentary pang — a sudden fright that has come over them, but which they have soon laughed off again. Now it is certainly not this sort of trembling which the Lord regards. The man who "trembleth" at God's word is one who entertains a deep and abiding reverence for every word which hath proceeded from God's lips. 2. What does the Lord mean when He saith, "To this man will I look? He evidently means, "To this man will I look with an eye of notice and regard." The Lord's favourable look, be it remembered, is quite another thing from man's; there is help, and comfort, and support conveyed by it ( Isaiah 57:15 ). The Lord but looked on Gideon, and Gideon, weak before, was wonderfully strengthened ( Judges 6:14 ). ( A. Roberts, M. A. ) God's greater glory A. J. Parry. Here are described two phases of the Divine greatness, one material, and the other moral; the superiority of the latter being clearly implied. I. THE MATERIAL GREATNESS OF GOD. "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool." Here God represents Himself as a mighty potentate, leaving us to infer the measure of His kingly glory and the extent of His dominion from these two things — His throne and His footstool. Thus the glory of the whole is indicated by the glory of the part. 1. The throne. We must note carefully the full extent and purport of the figure, "The heaven is My throne. It is not that the heaven is the place of His throne, but that the heaven is itself the throne. The conception, bold as it is, strikingly agrees with another figure used by inspiration to set forth the transcendent majesty of God, "Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee." The figure is a bold one. The human imagination, daring as its flights often are, could never have conceived it. It is purely a Divine conception, and the text is careful to say so, "Thus saith the Lord." 2. His footstool. "The earth. ' We know very little of the heaven. We know a great deal about the earth. Men have taken its dimensions, explored its resources, and discovered its glories. Yet this magnificent object is but His footstool. The footstool is the humblest article of furniture in the household; so needless is it deemed that thousands of houses dispense with it altogether. Others easily convert the thing nearest to hand into a footstool, as occasion may require. Nevertheless, some have expended no little skill and expense upon the construction even of footstools. There is preserved as a relic in Windsor Castle such an article, once belonging to the renowned Hindoo prince, Tippoo Sahib. It is in the form of a bear's head, carved in ivory, with a tongue of gold, teeth of crystal, and its eyes a pair of rubies. This article is adjudged worth £10,000. It is after all but a footstool. If Tippoo Sahib's footstool were so magnificent, what must have been the splendour of his throne! Yet, were all the thrones of the world collected together into one vast pile, they would form but a heap of rubbish as compared with God's footstool. II. THE TEXT PRESENTS US WITH ANOTHER PHASE OF HIS GLORY — THE MORAL, WHICH IS ALSO HIS GREATER GLORY. "But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." What a contrast we have presented to us here. God, the Mighty Potentate, from the height of His heavenly throne, looking down with yearning, compassionate regard upon such objects as are here described, the very dust of His footstool. There is a moral grandeur in this far transcending the power of language to describe. In order to appreciate fully the beauty and glory of this act, we must notice particularly the characters which are its special objects. They are described as those who are "poor" and are "of a contrite spirit," and that "tremble at His word." These several expressions do not describe one and the same condition. They indicate three distinct and progressive stages of spiritual experience. 1. Destitution. "Poor." It is not physical poverty that is meant, for the wealthiest, those who abound most in worldly possessions, are equally with the most destitute in the condition here indicated by the term "poor. It describes a spiritual condition — the spiritual poverty into which all men are reduced through sin — the wretched, the miserable, the oppressed of sin and guilt — the poor in the sense of being without hope, destitute of true peace and happiness. 2. The second stage indicated is one of conviction — the misery becoming a felt fact. " And of a contrite spirit." In these words we have indicated that condition of the mind when the all-crushing fact of its poverty and wretchedness has come home with overwhelming conviction. 3. The third stage is one of hope. "Trembleth at My word." God, out of the infinite depth of His compassion, hath spoken to this poor, wretched, sin-convicted creature, and the word spoken is a word of hope. The "trembling" at the word does not mean regarding it with fear, terror, or dismay, but solemnly, feelingly, and trustingly. It is the trembling of gratitude and of an awakened hope — an exquisite thrill of gratitude piercing the whole soul, causing it to vibrate with responsive joy to the message of hope. This wonderful condescension of God in relation to sinful men is His greater glory, it redounds to His honour far more than His conversion of the heavens into His throne and of the earth into His footstool. ( A. J. Parry. ) Worship and ritual Allan Rees. The desire for Divine communion has ever been strong in man. This desire was originated by God Himself. If not from God, whence could it come? We have no right to suppose it to be self-originated. That finite man should conceive an infinite Deity is an incredible supposition, for, to use the words of Pascal, "the infinite God is infinitely inconceivable." The manner in which God has thus revealed Himself in response to the passionate desire which He originated in man is a study fraught with a singular interest. He made Himself known to our first parents in Eden's garden, and in our first Scriptures we have several examples recorded of revelations made by Him after the banishment to the fathers of our race. By tradition these revelations were spread throughout the earth, and so we find the earliest religious faiths of our world abounding in sublime truths. But He specially revealed Himself to a chosen people. Israel lived under the very shadow of Jehovah, for God dwelt in that temple ann specially manifested His presence in it. But that presence did not restrain the people from rebellion. When not open followers of the idolatries of the surrounding nations, they left worship for ritual and forsook God for observances, and so made that temple to be at once their glory and their shame. It was at such time as this that the words of our text were uttered. Thus are we taught that Divine worship is not material, but spiritual, and that the habitation of God is not the building, but the soul. I. THE NATURE OF THE BEING WHOM WE WORSHIP. Our text brings before as His omnipresence. He is in heaven, and He is on earth. We have a revelation also of the Divine omnipotence. Not only is He in heaven, not' only is He on earth, but He has a throne. Of course the one includes the other. If He be the omnipresent One, He is also the omnipotent One. That which is Infinite must be Absolute. We, however, distinguish, so as to obtain clearer conceptions. We are in danger of supposing that amidst all. this vastness we can be but of little consequence. But mind is greater than matter, and such ideas immediately vanish when we remember that the vastest material substance can never outweigh a holy thought, a feeling of devotion, a thrill of love. The man who can tell the motions of the stars is greater than the stars. And thus looking at the question, what shall we say of that man in whom God dwells? He who lives in a palace is greater than the palace, no matter how gorgeous it may be; and in the presence of a holy man the whole material creation is dwarfed into nothingness. II. THE NATURE OF THAT WORSHIP WHICH THIS GREAT GOD REQUIRES. It must be something more than outward. Of all ceremonialism the Jewish was the most gorgeous. It was also of Divine appointing. The temple was built according to Divine plan and under Divine direction. The services were divinely commanded. The priests belonged to a Divinely set apart; tribe. Tokens of the Divine presence were given. But although this ceremonial was thus gorgeous, and of Divine appointment, yet God rejected it so soon as it lost its spiritual significance. All true religion begins in poverty of spirit. There must be a sense of natural defect and a consciousness of our own inability either to atone for the past or to deliver in the future. And with this poverty of spirit there must be contriteness. The heart needs to be broken before it can be bound up. ( Allan Rees. ) A transcendent existence and a transcendent doctrine Homilist. I. AN EXISTENCE THAT STANDS IN CONTRAST WITH ALL THAT IS CREATED. 1. Here is an omnipresent Existence. One whose throne is heaven, whose footstool is earth, and to whom all places are alike. One who fills heaven and earth, not merely with His influence, but with His actual presence, as much at all times in one point of space as in another. The incommensurable One, not only everywhere, as the pantheists teach, as a substance, but everywhere as a Personality, free, conscious, active. All created existences are limited by the laws of space, and those that occupy the largest space are mere specks in immensity. Concerning the stupendous fact of God's Omnipresence, observe —(1) This fact is agreeable to reason. The denial of it would involve a contradiction. It enters into our very conception of God. A limited God would in truth be no God.(2) This fact is essential to worship. It is essential to the spirit of worship. Worship implies mystery. It is essential to constancy of worship. True worship is not an occasional or specific service confined to times and places, it is an abiding attitude of the soul. "God is a Spirit," etc.(3) This fact is promotive of holiness. Let men realize the constant presence of God, and how strongly will they feel restraint from sin and stimulation to virtue and holiness.(4) This fact is assurative of retribution. Who can hide himself from the Lord?(5) This fact is illustrative of heaven. There is nothing local or formal in the worship of heaven. " I saw no temple in heaven, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. He is felt to be everywhere, and He is worshipped everywhere. 2. Here is a creative Existence. "For all those things hath Mine hand made," etc. Because He made all, He owns all. Creatorship implies Eternity, Sovereignty, Almightiness, and Proprietorship. II. A DOCTRINE THAT TRANSCENDS HUMAN DISCOVERY. "To this man will I look," etc. The doctrine is this, — that this Infinite Being, who is everywhere, who created the universe and owns it, feels a profound interest in the individual man whose soul is in a humble, contrite, and reverent state. Could reason ever have discovered such a truth as this? Never. Although this doctrine transcends reason it does not contradict it. ( Homilist. ) Living temples for the living God I. GOD'S REJECTION OF ALL MATERIAL TEMPLES. There was a time when it could be said that there was a house of God on earth. That was a time of symbols, when as yet the Church of God was in her childhood. She was being taught her A B C, reading her picture-book, for she could not as yet read the Word of God, as it were in letters. She had need to have pictures put before her, patterns of the heavenly things. Even then, the enlightened amongst the Jews knew well that God did not dwell between curtains, and that it was not possible that He could be encompassed in the most holy place within the veil It was only a symbol of His presence. But the time of symbols is now passed altogether. In that moment when the Saviour bowed His head, and said "It is finished! " the veil of the temple was rent in twain, so that the mysteries were laid open. So, one reason why God saith He dwelleth not in temples made with hands, is, because He would have us know that the symbolical worship is ended and the reign of the spiritual worship inaugurated at this day ( John 4:21, 23 ). But our text gives, from God's own mouth, reasons why there can be no house at the present time in which God can dwell; and, indeed, there never was any house of the kind in reality — only in symbol For, say now, where is the place to build God a house? In heaven? It is only His throne, not His house! On earth? What, on His footstool? Will ye put it where He shall put His foot upon it and crush it? Fly through infinite space, and ye shall not find in any place that God is not there. Time cannot contain Him, though it range along its millenniums! Space cannot hold Him, for He that made all things greater than all the things that He has made. Yea, all the things that are do not encompass Him. But then, the Lord seems to put it, — What kind of a house (supposing we had. a site on which to erect it) would we build God? Sons of men. of what material would ye make a dwelling-place for the Eternal and the Pure? Would ye build of alabaster? The heavens are not clean in His sight, and He charged His angels with folly! Would ye build of gold? Behold, the streets of His metropolitan city are paved therewith, not indeed the dusky gold of earth, but transparent gold, like unto clear glass. And what were gold to Deity? Find diamonds, as massive as the stones whereof Solomon built his house on Zion, and then lay on rubies and jaspers - pile up a house, all of which shall be most precious. What were that to Him? God is a Spirit. He disdaineth your materialism. And yet men think, forsooth, when they have put up their Gothic or their Grecian structures, "This is God's house." And then the Lord shows that the earth and the heavens themselves, which may be compared to a temple, are the works of His hand. How often I have felt as if I were compassed with the solemn grandeur of a temple, in the midst of the pine forest, or on the heathery hill, or out at night with the bright stars looking down through the deep heavens, or listening to the thunder, peal on peal, or gazing at the lightning as it lit up the sky! Then one feels as if he were in the temple of God! Afar out on the blue sea, where the ship is rocking up and clown on the waves foam — then it seems as if you were somewhere near to God — amidst the sublimities of nature. But what then? All these objects of nature He has made, and they are not a house for Him. II. GOD'S CHOICE OF SPIRITUAL TEMPLES. "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." III. THOSE THAT ARE OF THIS CHARACTER SECURE A GREAT BLESSING. God says He will "look" to them. That means several things. 1. Consideration. 2. Approbation. 3. Acceptance. 4. Affection. 5. Benediction. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The greatness and condescension of God That is an excellent answer which was given by a poor man to a sceptic who attempted to ridicule his faith. The scoffer said, "Pray, sir, is your God a great God or a little God? The poor man replied, "Sir, my God is so great that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; and yet He condescends to be so little, that He dwells in broken and contrite hearts. Oh, the greatness of God, and the condescension of God! ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) To this man will I look. Isaiah 66:2 God's regard for the humble H. Davis. I. THE CHARACTER MENTIONED. II. JEHOVAH'S ATTENTION TO SUCH AN ONE. ( H. Davis. ) Religious affections attended with humility Homiletic Review. Those that are destitute of true humility have no true religion. It is the object of the Gospel to produce this effect in the heart. I. LEGAL HUMILITY. This attends the natural workings of the conscience, and the perception of God's greatness, power and terrible majesty. It has in it no virtue; but yet it may be useful as a means to produce what is gracious. II. EVANGELICAL HUMILITY. This arises from a "sense of the transcendent beauty of Divine things in their moral quality, and a sense that a Christian has of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness and odiousness, with an answerable frame of mind. 1. It is the chief part in the doctrine of the Christian duty of self-denial. 2. Many hypocrites profess great humility and are loud in declaring their vileness. Yet, if a minister were to use, as Edwards suggests, the same language to them in private, and should signify that he feared they were very low and weak Christians, they would feel themselves highly injured, and ever after cherish a deep-rooted prejudice against that minister. 3. It is flee fro

Benson Commentary Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? Isaiah 66:1-2 . Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne — That is, the throne of my glory and government; the place where I most manifest my power, and show myself in my majesty. Hence we are taught to pray, Our Father which art in heaven. And the earth is my footstool — Or, a place on which I set my feet, ( Matthew 5:35 ,) overruling all the affairs of it according to my will. Where is the house that ye build me? — Can there be a house built that will contain me, who encompass and fill heaven and earth? and where is the place of my rest? — Where is the place wherein I can be said to rest in a proper sense? The ark was indeed called God’s footstool, and the place of his rest, in a figurative sense, because there God manifested himself, though in degrees much beneath the manifestations of himself in heaven: but properly God hath no certain place of rest, and especially no temple built by man can be a place of rest for him. For what satisfaction can the Eternal Mind take in a house made with men’s hands? What occasion has he, as we have, for a house to repose himself in, who fainteth not, neither is weary; who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Or, if he had occasion, he would not tell us, Psalm 50:12 . For all those things hath his hands made — Heaven and all its courts, earth and all its borders, and all the hosts of both. And all these have been — Have had their beginning by the power of God, who was infinitely happy from eternity before they existed, and therefore cannot be benefited by them. Or, as the clause may be rendered, all these things are: they still continue upheld by the same power that made them; so that our goodness extendeth not to him. Vitringa is justly of opinion that “this discourse is directed to the hypocrites, who, despising the gospel of the Son of God, after they had made the temple a den of thieves, were yet zealous to repair and adorn it. They did not consider that a new economy being established, no earthly and material temple could be acceptable to Him whose throne was in heaven, and who everywhere found the place of his rest in the humble and contrite heart.” “The Jews,” says Bishop Lowth, “valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict observance of all the externals of their religion. And at the very time when the judgments denounced in Isaiah 66:6 ; Isaiah 66:12 of the preceding chapter were hanging over their heads, they were rebuilding, by Herod’s munificence, the temple in a most magnificent manner. God, therefore, admonishes them, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that a mere external worship, how diligently soever attended, when accompanied with wicked and idolatrous practices in the worshippers, would never be accepted by him. This their hypocrisy is set forth in strong colours, which brings the prophet again to the subject of the former chapter; and he pursues it in a different manner, with more express declarations of the new economy, and of the flourishing state of the church under it; the increase of which he shows is to be sudden and astonishing.” But to this man will I look — But though I regard not the magnificence and splendour of a temple built with human hands, nor any ornaments that are or can be bestowed upon it, nor the pomp and show of the ceremonies and services performed in it, or connected with it; and though I reign on a throne in majesty in the highest heavens, and fill both heaven and earth with my glory, yet will I look with a favourable eye to him that hath a broken and contrite spirit — Whose heart is subdued to the will of God, and who is poor and low in his own eyes; and that trembleth at my word — Who trembles when he hears my threatening words, and receives every revelation of my will with reverence. Such a one is a living temple of God, ( Isaiah 57:15 ,) and of infinitely more value in his sight than the most sumptuous edifice that can be raised by the art or power of man, though it should be adorned in the most costly manner with gold and silver, and precious stones. Isaiah 66:2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. Isaiah 66:3 He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. Isaiah 66:3 . He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man — Without this humble and devout temper of mind, killing an ox for a burnt-offering is no more acceptable to God than if a man offered his son in sacrifice to Moloch. “God here shows that the external ritual worship, offered to him by hypocrites and wicked persons, void of faith and virtue, was no more estimable in his sight than the material temple above spoken of; but that he was as much offended by the ritual worship of the impure, as by the most grievous crimes perpetrated against the immediate commands of the law, and particularly under the new economy, after the promulgation of the law of liberty, and the perfect and true sacrifice offered by Christ to expiate the sins of the world. The declaration is most important, but will not be understood unless by those who are well acquainted with the interior part of religion.” See Vitringa. Solomon, it may be observed, gives ( Proverbs 15:8 ) a short but full commentary on the whole verse: The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. He that sacrificeth a lamb as if he cut off a dog’s neck — Namely, in order to sacrifice it. This animal was held in the greatest abhorrence by the Jews, insomuch that the very price of a dog was forbidden to be brought into the house of the Lord, Deuteronomy 23:18 . The comparison shows God’s detestation of ceremonial performances from persons destitute of true piety. He that offereth, &c., as if he offered swine’s blood — Which, being one of the principal sacrifices which the heathen offered to their idols, was in a particular manner abominable to God. He that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol — As if he honoured an idol with gifts and presents. From hence it is plain that the prophet is not here reflecting upon idolatrous worship, but formal worship; for to say, He that burneth incense to an idol is as he that blesseth an idol, would be only to say, He that blesseth an idol, blesseth an idol; that is, it would be saying nothing. But he is reflecting upon those who, in a formal way, and not in spirit and in truth, worshipped the true God, and by acts which he had appointed. God, by the prophet, declares that these men’s services were no more acceptable to him than murder, idolatry, or the most horrid profanation of his name. Yea, they have chosen their own ways — They live as they list; they persist in their wicked practices, and yet expect to recommend themselves to my favour by their ceremonial observances. And their soul delighteth in their abominations — Taking pleasure in their sins, and showing their contempt of my authority and enmity to my holiness, as much as their fathers did when they were mad upon their idols. Isaiah 66:4 I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not. Isaiah 66:4 . I also will choose their delusions — I will punish them in their own way, and set those over them as teachers who shall govern them by their traditions instead of my word. Or, I will suffer false Christs and false prophets to deceive them, Matthew 24:24 ; John 5:43 . And I will bring their fears upon them — This was exactly fulfilled when, as they crucified Christ for fear of the Romans, ( John 11:48 ,) that very sin was punished with their utter destruction by the Romans. Because when I called — Because when, by my servants, I called you to repentance, to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance, and to believe in my Son, your true Messiah; none did answer — Very few yielded obedience. He evidently speaks of the calls to repentance, and the invitations to believe in Christ, given them by John the Baptist, Jesus himself, and his apostles and evangelists. When I spake they did not hear — God accounts that those do not hear who do not obey his will. Isaiah 66:5 Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. Isaiah 66:5 . Hear, &c. — The prophet here, forbearing to proceed in denouncing judgments against the hypocrites and formalists among the Jews, now turns his discourse to such as feared God, whose religion is described by their trembling at his word, as in Isaiah 66:2 . Such apostrophes, or diversions of his speech to other persons, we had Isaiah 50:10 ; Isaiah 51:1 ; Isaiah 51:7 . The same addresses, it must be observed, belong not to saints and presumptuous sinners. It is highly probable, as Vitringa supposes, that the apostles and other disciples and followers of Christ, who embraced the gospel, who were the seed of the first church, and were to constitute that spiritual temple which God had determined to build and inhabit upon the abolition of the material temple, are here addressed and comforted by God, on account of the contempt, hatred, and excommunication of them by their brethren among the Jews and Pharisees. See John 16:2 . Your brethren — By nation, or by an external profession of religion; though false brethren, that cast you out — That cast you out of their synagogues, cast you out of their city, and some of you out of the world; for my name’s sake — For your adherence to my law; said, Let the Lord be glorified — Thinking they did God good service, John 16:2 . Or, we may understand it as spoken in defiance of God; as if he had said, You say God will be glorified in your deliverance. Let him be glorified then. Let him make speed and hasten his work, Isaiah 5:19 . Thus they derided Christ, Let him deliver him since he delighted in him. But he shall appear to your joy, &c. — There will come a time, which is at no great distance, when God will come forth, and let them know his judgment concerning their unjust and violent proceedings. Then you shall have joy, and they shall be ashamed, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 . This was fulfilled when, upon the signal given of Jerusalem’s approaching destruction, the hearts of the Jews failed them for fear: but the disciples of Christ, whom they hated and persecuted, lifted up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption drew nigh, Luke 21:26 . Isaiah 66:6 A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies. Isaiah 66:6 . A voice of noise from the city, &c. — This is an expression of a prophetical ecstasy, in which the prophet hears the noise of the ruin of the city and temple sounding in his ears. This voice of noise comes not from the city only, but from the temple, wherein these formalists had so much gloried, and reposed so much confidence. There is a noise of soldiers slaying, and of the poor people shrieking or crying out. A voice of the Lord — Not in thunder, which is sometimes called the Lord’s voice, but that rendereth recompense to his enemies — Thus he expresses the destruction of the Jews by the Roman armies, as a thing at that time doing. Some think this prophecy was fulfilled, partly at least, in the prodigies which, according to Josephus, in his history of the Jewish wars, (lib. 7. cap. 12,) preceded the destruction of Jerusalem: that the eastern gate of the temple, which was of solid brass and very heavy, and was scarcely shut in an evening by twenty men, and was fastened by strong bars and bolts, was seen, at the sixth hour of the night, opened of its own accord, and could hardly be shut again: that before the setting of the sun, there were seen over all the country chariots and armies fighting in the clouds, and besieging cities: that at the feast of pentecost, as the priests were going into the inner temple by night, as usual, to attend their service, they heard first a motion and noise, and then a voice, as of a multitude, saying, Let us depart hence; and, what he reckons as the most terrible of all, that one Jesus, the son of Ananus, an ordinary country fellow, four years before the war began, and when the city was in peace and plenty, came to the feast of tabernacles, and ran crying up and down the streets day and night, A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the temple, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice against all the people. The magistrates endeavoured by stripes and torture to restrain him; but he still cried with a mournful voice, Wo, wo to Jerusalem! This he continued to do for seven years and five months together, and especially at the great festivals; and he neither grew hoarse nor was tired, but went about the walls and cried with a loud voice, Wo, wo to the city, and to the people, and to the temple! and, as he added at last, Wo, wo also to myself! it happened that a stone from some sling or engine immediately struck him dead. It may be proper to remark here, that there is not a more creditable historian than Josephus, who relates these things, and who appeals to the testimony of those who saw and heard them. But, as Bishop Newton observes, it may add some weight to his relation, that Tacitus, the Roman historian, a heathen, also gives us a summary account of the same occurrence. He says, “There happened several prodigies. Armies were seen to engage in different parts of the sky — glittering arms appeared — the temple shone by the sudden fire of the clouds — the doors of the temple were suddenly thrown wide open — a voice, more than human, was heard, that the gods were departing, and, at the same time, a great motion as if departing.” See Tacitus’s Hist., book 5. page 217, in Lipsius’s edition. Isaiah 66:7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Isaiah 66:7-8 . Here begins a new paragraph of the prophet’s discourse, containing a description of the sudden and great increase of the Christian Church, upon God’s rejecting the Jews, and destroying their temple and worship: “the very destruction of the Jewish polity making way for the reception and spread of the gospel, inasmuch as it abated that opposition which the Jewish zealots all along made to its progress; and the abolishing the Jewish worship contributed very much to the abrogating the law of Moses, and burying it with silence and decency.” See Romans 11:11 , and Lowth. This paragraph, however, is not unconnected with what precedes. “It is,” as Vitringa observes, “another consolatory argument, directed to those who reverenced the word of Jehovah, and formed the true Zion, taken from the rapid and wonderful increase of the church among the Gentiles, superior to all human thought, all expectation. For when in the former section Isaiah had done two things; first, had predicted the calling of the Gentiles, (chap. 65:1,) and then the punishment of the ungodly, and such as rejected the gospel; in this section, after he had repeated the indignation conceived by God against the hypocrites and those who did not obey the gospel, he in the same manner comforts the pious Jews, from the unexpected event of the most wished-for success of the calling of the Gentiles, who, joined with them in one body, should form one church, and inherit the earth.” Before she travailed she brought forth — The church is represented here as a travailing woman, the mother of all true believers: see Isaiah 54:1 ; Galatians 4:26 . The whole verse is expressive of a great and sudden salvation which God would work for his church, like the delivery of a woman, and that before her travail, and without pain, of a man-child. It undoubtedly refers to the introduction of the gospel, and its rapid and unexpected progress. Who hath heard such a thing? — The prophet here calls either to the whole world, or to such as feared God among the Jews, to admire his stupendous work of providence and grace, in the sudden erection and wonderful enlargement of the gospel church. Who hath seen such things? — Who hath witnessed such an extraordinary event? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day, or shall a nation, &c. — “The suddenness of this event is as surprising as if the fruits of the earth, which are brought to perfection by slow degrees, should blossom and ripen all in one day. And the fruitfulness of this spiritual increase is as wonderful as if a whole nation were born at once, or by one woman.” For as soon as Zion travailed — As soon as the fulness of time came for erecting the gospel church; she brought forth her children — In great multitudes, without pain or difficulty, no inauspicious circumstance occurring to prevent their birth: see Acts 2:41 ; and Acts 4:4 . Isaiah 66:8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Isaiah 66:9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb ? saith thy God. Isaiah 66:9 . Shall I bring to the birth — Shall I disappoint and render abortive a design of which I myself was the author, when every thing is ripe for execution, and the effect just ready to be produced? Shall I begin a work and not perfect it? Shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb — That there should not be a continual succession of converts in all ages? Zion shall not bring forth once only, but she shall continue to be fruitful: her womb shall not be shut: she shall every day bring forth more and more children, and my presence shall be with my church to the end of the world. Thus the prophet still carries on the comparison between the natural and the spiritual birth. Isaiah 66:10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: Isaiah 66:10-11 . Rejoice ye with Jerusalem — Let all that wish her well congratulate her for the favours God hath conferred upon her, and particularly let the Gentiles rejoice with the Jewish Church, for her advancement shall redound to their benefit. Thus Moses, ( Deuteronomy 32:43 ,) referring probably to the very events here predicted by Isaiah, Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land and to his people. Be glad with her, all ye that love her — All that love God love the church of God, lay its interests very near their hearts, and heartily espouse its cause. And they that have a sincere affection for it have a cordial sympathy with it in all the cares and sorrows of its militant state. They mourn for Zion in her afflictions and troubles: her grievances excite their sorrows; and if she be in distress, their harps are hung on the willows. But here Jerusalem is represented as having great cause for rejoicing; the days of her mourning are at an end, and she is comforted according to the time in which she hath seen adversity. And of course all her friends, who sympathized with her in her sorrows, are here invited to join with her in her joys, because they are to participate in those blessings from which her joys are derived. That ye may suck — Or, because ye shall suck: and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations — The word of God, the covenant of grace, especially the promises of that covenant, gospel ordinances, and all the opportunities of attending on God, and conversing with him, are breasts of the church’s consolations. In these her comforts are laid up, and thence they are drawn by faith and prayer. From these breasts, therefore, we must suck by an application of the promises of God to ourselves, and a diligent attendance on his ordinances; and with the consolations which are drawn thence we must be satisfied, and not be unsatisfied though we have a very small share of earthly comforts. That ye may be delighted with the abundance of her glory — It is the glory of the church that she hath the Lord for her God; that to her pertains the adoption and the service of God; and with the abundance of this glory we must be delighted. We must take more pleasure in our relation to God, and communion with him, than in all the delights of the sons and daughters of men. Whatever is the glory of the church must be our glory and joy, particularly her purity, unity, and increase. Isaiah 66:11 That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. Isaiah 66:12 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. Isaiah 66:12-13 . For, behold, I will extend — Or am extending, peace to her — That is, all good; like a river — That runs in a constant stream, still increasing till it is swallowed up in the ocean. The gospel brings with it, wherever it is received in its power, peace, which proceeds forward like a river, supplying the souls of believers with all good, and making them fruitful as a river doth the lands through which it passes: such peace as the springs of this world’s comforts cannot send forth, and the dams of the world’s troubles cannot stop or drive back; such a river of peace as will carry us to the ocean of boundless and endless bliss. And the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream — Gentile converts shall come pouring into the church, and shall swell the river of her peace and prosperity; for they shall bring their glory with them; their wealth and honour, their power and interest shall all be devoted to the Lord and employed for the good of the church. Then shall ye suck — Ye Jews also. When you see such crowding for a share in those comforts, you shall be the more solicitous, and the more earnest and diligent to secure your share; not through a fear lest you should have the less, because others come in such multitudes to partake of them, for Christ has enough for all, and enough for each; but their zeal shall provoke you to a holy jealousy. Ye shall be borne upon her sides — Compare chap. 60:4, where see the note. Those that are joined to the church should be treated thus affectionately. The great Shepherd gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom; and so must the under shepherds, that young converts may not be discouraged. As one whom his mother comforteth, &c. — That is, in the most tender and compassionate way. So will I comfort you — I will not only use rational arguments to comfort you, such as a prudent father uses toward his child in distress, but I will manifest toward you such tender affections and compassions, as a loving mother feels toward her afflicted infant. And ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem — In the favours bestowed on the church, which you shall partake of; and in the thanksgivings offered by the church, which you shall concur with. Isaiah 66:13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:14 And when ye see this , your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. Isaiah 66:14 . And when ye see this — To what a happy state the church is restored; your heart shall rejoice — The peace of the church, and the extension of the kingdom of Christ, are always causes of real joy to such as fear God. And your bones shall flourish like an herb — The bones that were dried and withered, the marrow of them being quite exhausted, shall recover a youthful strength and vigour, and shall flourish like an herb in the spring, whose verdure and beauty in the winter were concealed in the root hid in the earth. In other words, you Jews shall recover your ancient strength and glory, and be renewed in as wonderful a manner as if dry, withered bones should recover their youth and moisture: or, as if the dead bones in a charnel-house should be united with sinews, clothed again with flesh and skin, and should have life and vigour infused into them. Then shall be effected that resurrection of the dry bones spoken of by Ezekiel 37:1 , &c., for that vision relates to the restoration of the Jewish nation, after it had lain for many ages in a dead, hopeless condition. In like manner St. Paul calls the receiving of the Jews into the church, life from the dead, Romans 11:15 . And the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants — The power, protection, and influence of God shall be made manifest for, and upon, all such as truly serve and obey him. And his indignation toward his enemies — But the wicked shall experience a quite contrary dispensation, Psalm 1:4 . As God’s hand shall be upon and toward such as fear him, to cover, bless, and influence them, so his indignation shall in that day be showed toward those of your nation who have manifested themselves to be his enemies. Isaiah 66:15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. Isaiah 66:15-16 . For, behold, &c. — Here the prophet comes more particularly to show the nature of that indignation which should be exercised toward God’s enemies. The passage, it must be observed, is metaphorical, “exhibiting God as about to take vengeance on the enemies of his church, under the figure of a commander and warrior, as well as of a judge, armed at all points, severely to punish those who have provoked his indignation: see Isaiah 63:1 , &c. Revelation 18:8 ; and Revelation 14:20 . Some suppose that this passage refers to the general judgment; but it is rather, according to the whole tenor of this prophecy, to be referred to the judgments of God upon the rebellious Jews, and upon the antichristian enemies of the church.” The Lord will come with fire — With terrible judgments: an allusion possibly to the fire with which enemies use to consume places brought under their power. And with his chariots — Like the general of a victorious army. With a whirlwind — With a sudden sweeping calamity, that, like a whirlwind, shall destroy all before it. To render his anger with fury — That is, with fervour; for fury, properly taken, is not in God, Isaiah 27:4 . But God, at certain times, executes judgment more severely than at others. And his rebukes — By rebukes he means punishments, for it is said God will execute them with flames of fire — They had contemned the rebukes of the law, now God will rebuke them with fire and sword. For by fire, &c., will the Lord plead with all flesh — God at first pleads with sinners by word, but if he cannot so prevail, he will plead with them in a way by which he will overcome; by fire, pestilence, and blood. Thus he threatens to do with all flesh, that is, with all sinners continuing in sin, and especially with the impenitent and unbelieving Jews, who, being favoured with the oracles and ordinances of God, held the truth in unrighteousness, and abused their extraordinary privileges to their greater condemnation: see Romans 2:8-9 . And the slain of the Lord shall be many — Those whom God should cause to be slain. This was awfully fulfilled in the destruction brought on the Jews by the Romans for crucifying the Messiah; no fewer than eleven hundred thousand, according to Josephus, perishing in the siege of Jerusalem, and at least three hundred thousand more during the war; not to mention the vast numbers that perished in caves, woods, wildernesses, common sewers, of whom no account could be taken; and the great slaughter made of them afterward in the wars waged against them by Adrian, when fifty of their strongest fortresses were razed, and nine hundred and eighty-five of their noblest towns were sacked, and consumed by fire. See note on Deuteronomy 28:62 . Isaiah 66:16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many. Isaiah 66:17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD. Isaiah 66:17 . They that sanctify themselves, &c. — “Behold,” says Vitringa, “the reason of the great severity above mentioned, namely, a base and abominable departure from God, represented under a certain kind of idolatry and detestable superstition, of all others the most odious and contrary to the institutions of the ancient religion.” It is evident the passage is to be understood figuratively, like those in Isaiah 66:3 , and in Isaiah 65:3-4 ; Isaiah 65:11 , on which see the notes. And purify themselves in the gardens — There were several sorts of lustrations, or purifications, used among the heathen, from whence the Jews learned their idolatrous customs, some of which were performed by washings, for which purpose they had fountains in their sacred groves and gardens. Behind one tree — The word tree is not in the Hebrew. The words are ??? ??? , achar achad, which may signify, after the manner of achad. Or, as Bishop Lowth renders it, after the rites of achad; observing, “the Syrians worshipped a god called Adad, whom they held to be the highest and greatest of the gods, and to be the same with Jupiter and the sun: and the name Adad, says Macrobius, signifies one, as likewise does the word achad, in Isaiah. Many learned men, therefore, have supposed, and with some probability, that the prophet means the same pretended deity. But whatever the particular mode of idolatry might be, the general sense of the verse is perfectly clear.” It is plainly a reproof of the wicked Jews for the many idolatries and superstitions of which they were guilty, and which are here set forth in figurative language, borrowed from the abominable practices to which many of the Jews were addicted in Isaiah’s time; who privately, in enclosed gardens which were not exposed to view, performed the heathen lustrations, sacrificed in the heathen manner, and to their gods, and eat meats which were prohibited by the law as unclean, although in public they pretended to be true Jews, or strict observers of the law. Eating swine’s flesh — Forbidden, Leviticus 11:7 ; Deuteronomy 14:8 . And the abomination — Other abominable meats forbidden to the Jews; and the mouse — The word which we translate mouse being nowhere found but Leviticus 11:29 ; 1 Samuel 6:4-5 ; 1 Samuel 6:11 ; 1 Samuel 6:18 , and here, some think it is not that creature which we call a mouse, but rather signifies some serpent. Be this as it may, the sense evidently is, that God would not only destroy the open and gross idolaters and superstitious persons, but all those who made no conscience of yielding obedience to the law of God in such things as seemed to them of a trivial nature, and in which they easily might have yielded obedience. The Lord here assures them that they should all perish together. Observe, reader, in the day of final judgment, the idolatrous pagan or Papist, and the ungodly Protestant, shall fare alike. For no man can reasonably imagine that either baptism, or a profession of Christianity, can save a man from God’s wrath without holiness, any more than circumcision, and the being reputed a member in the Jewish Church. Isaiah 66:18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. Isaiah 66:18-20 . For I know their works and their thoughts — Of idolatry, superstition, and other wickedness. The word know not being in the Hebrew, some apply the ellipsis thus: I have observed their works, &c. Others consider the clause as a questi

Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? CHAPTER XXV A LAST INTERCESSION AND THE JUDGMENT Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 WE might well have thought, that with the section we have been considering the prophecy of Israel’s Redemption had reached its summit and its end. The glory of Zion in sight, the full programme of prophecy owned, the arrival of the Divine Saviour hailed in the urgency of His feeling for His people, in the sufficiency of His might to save them, -what more, we ask, can the prophecy have to give us? Why does it not end upon these high notes? The answer is, the salvation is indeed consummate, but the people are not ready for it. On an earlier occasion, let us remember, when our prophet called the nation to their Service of God, he called at first the whole nation, but had then immediately to make a distinction. Seen in the light of their destiny, the mass of Israel proved to be unworthy; tried by its strain, part immediately fell away. But what happened upon that call to Service happens again upon this disclosure of Salvation. The prophet realises that it is only a part of Israel who are worthy of it. He feels again the weight, which has been the hindrance of his hope all through, -the weight of the mass of the nation, sunk in idolatry and wickedness, incapable of appreciating the promises. He will make one more effort to save them-to save them all. He does this in an intercessory prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , in which he states the most hopeless aspects of his people’s case, identifies himself with their sin, and yet pleads by the ancient power of God that we all may be saved. He gets his answer in chapter 65, in which God sharply divides Israel into two classes, the faithful and the idolaters, and affirms that, while the nation shall be saved for the sake of the faithful remnant, Jehovah’s faithful servants and the unfaithful can never share the same experience or the same fate. And then the book closes with a discourse in chapter 66, in which this division between the two classes in Israel is pursued to a last terrible emphasis and contrast upon the narrow stage of Jerusalem itself. We are left, not with the realisation of the prophet’s prayer for the salvation of all the nations, but with a last judgment separating its godly and ungodly portions. Thus there are three connected divisions in Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 66:1-24 . First, the prophet’s Intercessory Prayer, Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ; second, the Answer of Jehovah, chapter 65; and third, the Final Discourse and Judgment, chapter 66. I. THE PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE ( Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 ) There is a good deal of discussion as to both the date and the authorship of this piece, was to whether it comes from the early or the late Exile, and as to whether it comes from our prophet or from another. It must have been written after the destruction and before the rebuilding of the Temple; this is put past all doubt by these verses: "Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down Thy sanctuary." "Thy holy cities are become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. The house of our holiness and of our ornament, wherein our fathers praised Thee, is become for a burning of fire, and all our delights are for ruin." This language has been held to imply that the disaster to Jerusalem was recent, as if the city’s conflagration still flared on the national imagination, which in later years of the Exile was impressed rather by the long cold ruins of the Holy Place, the haunt of wild beasts. But not only is this point inconclusive, but the impression that it leaves is entirely dispelled by other verses, which speak of the Divine anger as having been of long continuance, and as if it had only hardened the people in sin; compare Isaiah 63:17 ; Isaiah 64:6-7 . There is nothing in the prayer to show that the author lived in exile, and accordingly the proposal has been made to date the piece from among the first attempts at rebuilding after the Return. To the present expositor this seems to be certainly wrong. The man who wrote Isaiah 63:11-15 had surely the Return still before him; he would not have written in the way he has done of the Exodus from Egypt unless he had been feeling the need of another exhibition of Divine Power of the same kind. The prayer, therefore, must come from pretty much the same date as the rest of our prophecy, -after the Exile had long continued, but while the Return had not yet taken place. Nor is there any reason against attributing it to the same writer. It is true the style differs from the rest of his work, but this may be accounted for, as in the case of chapter 53, by the change of subject. Most critics, who hold that we still follow the same author, take for granted that some time has elapsed since the prophet’s triumphant strains in chapter 60-62. This is probable; but there is nothing to make it certain. What is certain is the change of mood and conscience. The prophet, who in chapter 60 had been caught away into the glorious future of the people, is here as utterly absorbed in their barren and doubtful present. Although the salvation is certain, as he has seen it, the people are not ready. The fact he has already felt so keenly about them, -see Isaiah 42:24-25 , -that their long discipline in exile has done the mass of them no good, but evil, comes forcibly back upon him. { Isaiah 64:5 b ff.} "Thou wast angry, and we sinned" only the more: "in such a state we have been long, and shall we be saved!" The banished people are thoroughly unclean and rotten, fading as a leaf, the sport of the wind. But the prophet identifies himself with them. He speaks of their sin as ours, of their misery as ours. He takes of them the very saddest view possible, he feels them all as sheer dead weight: "there is none that calleth on Thy name, that stirreth himself up to take hold on Thee: for Thou hast hid Thy face from us, and delivered us into the power of our iniquities." But the prophet thus loads himself with the people in order to secure, if he can. their redemption as a whole. Twice he says in the name of them all, "Doubtless Thou art our Father." His great heart will not have one of them left out; "we all," he says, "are the work of Thy hand, we are all Thy people." But this intention of the prayer will amply account for any change of style we may perceive in the language. No one will deny that it is quite possible for the same man now to fling himself forward into the glorious vision of his people’s future salvation, and again to identify himself with the most hopeless aspects of their present distress and sin; and no one will deny that the same man will certainly write in two different styles with regard to each of these different feelings. Besides which, we have seen in the passage the recurrence of some of our prophecy’s most characteristic thoughts. We feel, therefore, no reason for counting the passage to be by another hand than that which has mainly written "Second Isaiah." It may be at once admitted that he has incorporated in it earlier phrases, reminiscences, and echoes of language about the fall of Jerusalem in use when the Lamentations were written. But this was a natural thing for him to do in a prayer in which he represented the whole people and took upon himself the full burden of their woes. If such be the intention of Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 , then in them we have one of the noblest passages of our prophet’s great work. How like he is to the Servant he pictured for us! How his great heart fulfils the loftiest ideal of Service: not only to be the prophet and the judge of his people, but to make himself one with them in all their sin and sorrow, to carry them all in his heart. Truly, as his last words said of the Servant, he himself "bears the sin of many, and interposes for the transgressors." Before we see the answer he gets, let us make clear some obscure things and appreciate some beautiful ones in his prayer. It opens with a recital of Jehovah’s ancient lovingkindness and mercies to Israel. This is what perhaps gives it connection with the previous section. In chapter 62 the prophet, though sure of the coming glory, wrote before it had come, and "urged" upon "the Lord’s remembrancers to keep no silence, and give Him no silence till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." This work of remembrancing, the prophet himself takes up in Isaiah 63:7 : "The lovingkindnesses of Jehovah I will record," literally, "cause to be remembered, the praises of Jehovah, according to all that Jehovah hath bestowed upon us." And then he beautifully puts all the beginnings of God’s dealings with His people in His trusting of them: "For He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, the Angel of His Face saved them." This must be understood, not as an angel of the Presence, who went out from the Presence to save the people, but, as it is in other Scriptures, God’s own Presence, God Himself; and so interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the rest of the verse, which is one of the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God. "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and bare them, and carried them all the days of old." Then he tells us how they disappointed and betrayed this trust, ever since the Exodus, the days of old. "But they rebelled and grieved the Spirit of His holiness: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, He Himself fought against them." This refers to their history down to, and especially during, the Exile: compare Isaiah 42:24-25 . Then in their affliction they "remembered the days of old"-the English version obscures the sequence here by translating he remembered- and then follows the glorious account of the Exodus. In Isaiah 63:13 the wilderness is, of course, prairie, flat pasture-land; they were led as smoothly as "a horse in a meadow, that they stumbled not. As cattle that come down into the valley"-cattle coming down from the hillside to pasture and rest on the green, watered plains-"the Spirit of Jehovah caused them to rest: so didst Thou lead Thy people to make Thyself a glorious name." And then having offered such precedents, the prophet’s prayer breaks forth to a God, whom His people fed no longer at their head, but far withdrawn into heaven: "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and Thy glory: where is Thy zeal and Thy mighty deeds? the surge of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me." Then he pleads God’s fatherhood to the nation, and the rest of the prayer alternates between the hopeless misery and undeserving sin of the people, and, notwithstanding, the power of God to save as He did in times of old; the willingness of God to meet with those who wait for Him and remember Him; and, once more, His fatherhood, and His power over them, as the power of the potter over the clay. Two points stand out from the rest. The Divine Trust, from which all God’s dealing with His people is said to have started, and the Divine Fatherhood, which the prophet pleads. "He said, Surely they are My people, children that will not deal falsely: so He was their Saviour." The "surely" is not the fiat of sovereignty or foreknowledge: it is the hope and confidence of love. It did not prevail; it was disappointed. This is, of course, a profound acknowledgment of man’s free will. It is implied that men’s conduct must remain an uncertain thing, and that in calling men God cannot adventure upon greater certainty than is implied in the trust of affection. If one asks, What, then, about God’s foreknowledge, who alone knoweth the end of a thing from the beginning, and His sovereign grace, who chooseth whom He will? are you not logically bound to these?-then it can only be asked in return, Is it not better to be without logic for a little, if at the expense of it we obtain so true, so deep a glimpse into God’s heart as this simple verse affords us? Which is better for us to know-that God is Wisdom which knows all, or Love that dares and ventures all? Surely, that God is Love which dares and ventures all with the worst, with the most hopeless of us. This is what makes this single verse of Scripture more powerful to move the heart than all creeds and catechisms. For where these speak of sovereign will, and often mock our affections with the bare and heavy (if legitimate) sceptre they sway, this calls forth our love, honour, and obedience by the heart it betrays in God. Of what unsuspicious trust, of what chivalrous adventure of love, of what fatherly confidence, does it speak! What a religion is this of ours in the power of which a man may every morning rise and feel himself thrilled by the thought that God trusts him enough to work with His will for the day; in the power of which a man may look round and see the sordid, hopeless human life about him glorified by the truth that for the salvation of such God did adventure Himself in a love that laid itself down in death. The attraction and power of such a religion can never die. Requiring no painful thought to argue it into reality, it leaps to light before the natural affection of man’s heart; it takes his instincts immediately captive; it gives him a conscience, an honour, and an obligation. No wonder that our prophet, having such a belief, should once more identify himself with the people, and adventure himself with the weight of their sin before God. The other point of the prayer is the Fatherhood of God, concerning which all that is needful to say here is that the prophet, true to the rest of Old Testament teaching on the subject, applies it only to God’s relation to the nation as a whole. In the Old Testament no one is called the son of God except Israel as a people, or some individual representative and head of Israel. And even of such the term was seldom employed. This was not because the Hebrew was without temptation to imagine his physical descent from the gods, for neighbouring nations indulged in such dreams for themselves and their heroes; nor because he was without appreciation of the intellectual kinship between the human and the Divine, for he knew that in the beginning God had said, "Let us make man in our own image." But the same feeling prevailed with him in regard to this idea, as we have seen prevailed in regard to the kindred idea of God as the husband of His people. The prophets were anxious to emphasise that it was a moral relation, -a moral relation, and one initiated from God’s side by certain historical acts of His free, selecting, redeeming, and adopting love. Israel was not God’s son till God had evidently called and redeemed him. Look at how our prophet uses the word Father, and to what he makes it equivalent. The first time it is equivalent to Redeemer: "Thou, O Lord, art our Father; our Redeemer from old is Thy name". { Isaiah 63:16 b} The second time it is illustrated by the work of the potter: "But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are all the work of Thy hand". { Isaiah 64:8 } Could it be made plainer in what sense the Bible defines this relation between God and man? It is not a physical, nor is it an intellectual relation. The assurance and the virtue of it do not come to men with their blood or with the birth of their intellect, but in the course of moral experience, with the sense that God claims them from sin and from the world for Himself; with the gift of a calling and a destiny; with the formation of character, the perfecting of obedience, the growth in His knowledge and His grace. And because it is a moral relation time is needed to realise it, and only after long patience and effort may it be unhesitatingly claimed. And that is why Israel was so long in claiming it, and why the clearest, most undoubting cries to God the Father, which rise from the Greek in the earliest period of his history, reach our ears from Jewish lips only near the end of their long progress, only (as we see from our prayer) in a time of trial and affliction. We have a New Testament echo of this Old Testament belief in the Fatherhood of God, as a moral and not a national relation, in Paul’s writings, who in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians { 2 Corinthians 6:17-18 } urges thus: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." On these grounds, then, -that God in His great love had already adventured Himself with this whole people, and already by historical acts of election and redemption proved Himself the Father of the nation as a whole, -does our prophet plead with Him to save them all again. The answer to this pleading he gets in chapter 65. II. GOD’S ANSWER TO THE PROPHET’S INTERCESSION (Chapter 65) God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession is twofold. First, He says that He has already all this time been trying them with love, meeting them with salvation; but they have not turned to Him. The prophet has asked, "Where is Thy zeal? the yearning of Thy bowels and Thy compassions are restrained towards me. Thou hast hid Thy face far from us. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Jehovah? Wilt Thou hold Thy peace and afflict us very sore?" And now, "in the beginning of chapter 65, Jehovah answers, not with that confusion of tenses and irrelevancy of words with which the English version makes Him speak; but suitably, relevantly, and convincingly." "I have been to be inquired of those who asked not for Me. I have been to be found of them that sought Me not. I have been saying, I am here, I am here, to a nation that did not call on My name. I have stretched out My hands all the day to a people turning away, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; a people that have been provoking Me to My face continually,"-and then He details their idolatry. This, then, is the answer of the Lord to the prophet’s appeal. "In this I have not all power. It is wrong to talk of Me as the potter and of man as the clay, as if all the active share in salvation lay with Me. Man is free, - free to withhold himself from My urgent affection; free to turn from My outstretched hands; free to choose before Me the abomination of idolatry. And this the mass of Israel have done, clinging, fanatical and self-satisfied, to their unclean and morbid imaginations of the Divine, all the time that My great prophecy by you has been appealing to them." This is a sufficient answer to the prophet’s prayer. Love is not omnipotent; if men disregard so open an appeal of the Love of God, they are hopeless; nothing else can save them. The sin against such love is like the sin against the Holy Ghost, of which our Lord speaks so hopelessly. Even God cannot help the despisers and abusers of Grace. The rest of God’s answer to His prophet’s intercession emphasises that the nation shall be saved for the sake of a faithful remnant in it ( Isaiah 65:8-10 ). But the idolaters shall perish ( Isaiah 65:11-12 ). They cannot possibly expect the same fare, the same experience, the same fate, as God’s faithful servants ( Isaiah 65:13-15 ). But those who are true and faithful Israelites, surviving and experiencing the promised salvation, shall find that God is true, and shall acknowledge Him as "the God of Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten" (those felt so keenly in the prophet’s prayer in chapter 64) "and because they are hid from Mine eyes." The rest of the answer describes a state of serenity and happiness wherein there shall be no premature death, nor loss of property, nor vain labour, nor miscarriage, nor disappointment of prayer nor delay in its answer, nor strife between man and the beasts, nor any hurt or harm in Jehovah’s Holy Mountain. Truly a prospect worthy of being named as the prophet names it, "a new heaven and a new earth!" Chapter 65 is thus closely connected, both by circumstance and logic, with the long prayer which precedes it. The tendency of recent criticism has been to deny this connection, especially on the line of circumstance. Chapter 65 does not, it is argued, reflect the Babylonish captivity as Isaiah 63:7 through Isaiah 64:1-12 so clearly does; but, on the contrary, "while some passages presuppose the Exile as past, others refer to circumstances characteristic of Jewish life in Canaan." But this view is only possible through straining some features of the chapter adaptable either to Palestine or Babylon, and overlooking others which are obviously Babylonian. "Sacrificing in gardens and burning incense on tiles" were practices pursued in Jerusalem before the Exile, but the latter was introduced there from Babylon, and the former was universal in heathendom. The practices in Isaiah 65:5 are never attributed to the people before the Exile, were all possible in Babylonia, and some we know to have been actual there. The other charge of idolatry in Isaiah 65:11 "suits Babylonia," Cheyne admits, "as well as (probably) Palestine." But what seems decisive for the exilic origin of chapter 65 is that the possession of Judah and Zion by the seed of Jacob is still implied as future ( Isaiah 65:9 ). Moreover the holy land is alluded to by the name common among the exiles in flat Mesopotamia, My mountains, and in contrast with the idolatry of which the present generation is guilty the idolatry of their fathers is characterised as having been "upon the mountains and upon the hills," and again the people is charged with "forgetting My holy mountain," a phrase reminiscent of Psalm 137:4 , and more appropriate to a time of exile, than when the people were gathered about Zion. All these resemblances in circumstances corroborate the strong logical connection which we have found between chapter 64 and chapter 65, and leave us no reason for taking the latter away from the main author of "Second Isaiah," though he may have worked up into it recollections and remains of an older time. III. THE LAST JUDGMENT (Chapter 66) Whether with the final chapter of our prophecy we at last get footing in the Holy Land is doubtful. It was said that, "in Isaiah 66:1-4 the Temple is still unbuilt, but the building would seem to be already begun." This latter clause should be modified to, "the building would seem to be in immediate prospect." The rest of the chapter, Isaiah 66:6-24 , has features that speak more definitely for the period after the Return; but even they are not conclusive, and their effect is counterbalanced by some other verses. Isaiah 66:6 may imply that the Temple is rebuilt, and Isaiah 66:20 that the sacrifices are resumed; but, on the other hand, these verses may be, like parts of chapter 60, statements of the prophet’s vivid vision of the future. Isaiah 66:7-8 seem to describe a repeopling of Jerusalem that has already taken place; but Isaiah 66:9 says, that while the "bringing to the birth" has already happened, which is, as we must suppose, the deliverance from Babylon, -or is it the actual arrival at Jerusalem?-the "bringing forth from the womb," that is, the complete restoration of the people, has still to take place. Isaiah 66:13 is certainly addressed to those who are not yet in Jerusalem. These few points reveal how difficult, nay, how impossible, it is to decide the question of date, as between the days immediately before the Return and the days immediately after. To the present expositor the balance of evidence seems to be with the later date. But the difference is very small. We are at least sure-and it is really all that we require to know-that the rebuilding of Jerusalem is very near, nearer than it has been felt in any previous chapter. The Temple is, so to speak, within sight, and the prophet is able to talk of the regular round of sacrifices and sacred festivals almost as if they had been resumed. To the people, then, either in the near prospect of Return, or immediately after some of them had arrived in Jerusalem, the prophet addresses a number of oracles, in which he pursues the division that chapter 65 had emphasised between the two parties in Israel. These oracles are so, intricate that we are compelled to take up the chapter verse by verse. The first of them begins by correcting certain false feelings in Israel, excited by former promises of the rebuilding and the glory of the Temple. "Thus saith Jehovah, The heavens are My throne, and earth is My footstool: what is this for a house that ye will build (or, are building) Me, and what is this for a place for My rest? Yea, all these things" (that is, all the visible works of God in heaven and earth) "My hand hath made, and so came to pass all these things, saith Jehovah. But unto this will I look, unto the humble and contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word." These verses do not run counter to, or even go beyond, anything that our prophet has already said. They do not condemn the building of the Temple: this was not possible for a prophecy which contains chapter 60. They condemn only the kind of temple which those whom they address had in view, -a shrine to which the presence of Jehovah was limited, and on the raising and maintenance of which the religion and righteousness of the people should depend. While the former Temple was standing, the mass of the people had thus misconceived it, imagining that it was enough for national religion to have such a structure standing and honoured in their midst. And now, before it is built again, the exiles are cherishing about it the same formal and materialistic thoughts. Therefore the prophet rebukes them, as his predecessors had rebuked their fathers, and reminds them of a truth he has already uttered, that though the Temple is raised, according to God’s own promise and direction, it wilt not be to its structure, as they conceive of it, that He will have respect, but to the existence among them of humble and sincere personal piety. The Temple is to be raised: "the place of His feet God will make glorious," and men shall gather round it from the whole earth, for instruction, for comfort, and for rejoicing. But. let them not think it to be indispensable either to God or to man, -not to God, who has heaven for His throne and earth for His footstool; nor to man, for God looks direct to man, if only man be humble, penitent, and sensitive to His word. These verses, then, do not go beyond the Old Testament limit; they leave the Temple standing, but they say so much about God’s other sanctuary man, that when His use for the Temple shall be past, His Servant Stephen { Acts 7:49 } shall be able to employ these words to prove why it should disappear. The next verse is extremely difficult. Here it is literally: "A slaughterer of the ox, a slayer of a man; a sacrificer of the lamb, a breaker of a dog’s neck; an offerer of meat-offering, swine’s blood; the maker of a memorial offering of incense, one that blesseth an idol, or vanity." Four legal sacrificial acts are here coupled with four unlawful sacrifices to idols. Does this mean that in the eye of God, impatient even of the ritual He has consecrated, when performed by men who do not tremble at His word, each of these lawful sacrifices is as worthless and odious as the idolatrous practice associated with it, -the slaughter of the ox as the offering of a human sacrifice, and so forth? Or does the verse mean that there are persons in Israel who combine, like the Corinthians blamed by Paul, { 1 Corinthians 10:1-33 } both the true and the idolatrous ritual, both the table of the Lord and the table of devils? Our answer will depend on whether we take the four parallels with Isaiah 66:2 , which precedes them, or with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 , to which they belong, and Isaiah 66:4 . If we take them with Isaiah 66:2 , then we must adopt the first, the alternative meaning; if with Isaiah 66:4 , then the second of these meanings is the right one. Now there is no grammatical connection, nor any transparent logical one, between Isaiah 66:2 and Isaiah 66:3 , but there is a grammatical connection with the rest of Isaiah 66:3 . Immediately after the pairs of lawful and unlawful sacrificial acts, Isaiah 66:3 continues, "yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations." That surely signifies that the unlawful sacrifices in Isaiah 66:3 are things already committed and delighted in, and the meaning of putting them in parallel to the lawful sacrifices of Jehovah’s religion is either that Israelites have committed them instead of the lawful sacrifices, or along with these. In this case, Isaiah 66:3-4 form a separate discourse by themselves, with no relation to the equally distinct oracle in Isaiah 66:1 and Isaiah 66:2 . The subject of Isaiah 66:3-4 is, therefore, the idolatrous Israelites. They are delivered unto Satan, their choice; they shall have no part in the coming Salvation: In Isaiah 66:5 the faithful in Israel, who have obeyed God’s word by the prophet, are comforted under the mocking of their brethren, who shall certainly be put to shame. Already the prophet hears the preparation of the judgment against them ( Isaiah 66:6 ). It comes forth from the city where they had mockingly cried for God’s glory to appear. The mocked city avenges itself on them. "Hark, a roar from the City! Hark, from the Temple! Hark, Jehovah accomplishing vengeance on His enemies!" A new section begins with Isaiah 66:7 , and celebrates to Isaiah 66:9 the sudden re-population of the City by her children, either as already a fact, or, more probably, as a near certainty. Then comes a call to the children, restored, or about to be restored, to congratulate their mother and "to enjoy her. The prophet rewakens the figure, that is ever nearest his heart, of motherhood, -children suckled, borne, and cradled in the lap of their mother fill all his view; nay, finer still, the grown man coming back with wounds and weariness upon him to be comforted of his mother." As a man whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and rejoice shall your heart, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass." But this great light shines not to flood all Israel in One, but to cleave the nation in two, like a sword of judgment. "The hand of Jehovah shall be known towards His servants, but He will have indignation against His enemies" (enemies, that is, within Israel. Then comes the fiery judgment) "For by fire will Jehovah plead, and by His sword with, all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many. Why there should be slain of Jehovah within Israel is then explained. Within Israel there are idolaters: "they that consecrate themselves and practise purification for the gardens, after one in the middle; eaters of swine’s flesh, and the Abomination, and the Mouse. They shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah, for I" (know, or will punish,) "their works and their thoughts." In this eighteenth verse the punctuation is uncertain, and probably the text is corrupt. The first part of the verse should evidently go, as above, with Isaiah 66:17 . Then begins a new subject. "It is coming to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they shall come and shall see My glory; and I will set among them a sign" (a marvellous and mighty act, probably of judgment, for he immediately speaks of their survivors) "and I will send the escaped of them to the nations Tarshish, and Lud, drawers of the bow, to Tubal and Javan" (that is, to far Spain, and the distances of Africa, towards the Black Sea and to "Greece, a full round of the compass) the isles far off that have not heard report of Me, nor have seen My glory; and they shall recount My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brethren from among all the nations an offering to Jehovah, on horses and in chariots and in litters, and on mules and on dromedaries, up on the Mount of My Holiness, Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, just as when the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah. And also from them will I take to be priests, to be Levites, saith Jehovah. For like as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making shall be standing before Me, saith Jehovah, so shall stand your seed and your name." But again the prophecy swerves from the universal