Thus saith Jehovah The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool what is the house that ye will build unto me? and what is the place of my rest?
The last chapter of Isaiah opens with a question, and God aims it at people busy building. Before He says a word about their offerings, He measures their building plans against the size of the One they mean to house.
Both images carry a fixed meaning through Scripture. A footstool marks where a king rests his feet, and it marks what lies under his power.
A footstool usually goes with a throne. The earth is the footstool of God's throne in the heavens (Isaiah 66:1; Matthew 5:35). It is a symbol of "the place of rest". David had it on his heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the "footstool" of God. There God could find rest among His people, and there His people were to worship Him (1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalm 99:5). It is also a symbol of "subjection to power": the Lord Jesus must reign until all His enemies are made His footstool.
The question about a house is not about size or cost. God points to His own hand as the maker of everything a builder could use.
Heaven is His throne, earth is His footstool. What can man do worthily for Him to rest in? He needs nothing of human resources. His own hand has made all these things, and next to them man's greatest efforts are tiny indeed. Isaiah spoke these words in full view of the magnificent temple Solomon built.
Read on its own, the verse could sound as if God never wanted a house at all. Commentators say otherwise.
God did not refuse the house. King David longed to build it for His glory, and God let his son Solomon build it. Nor will God go without a sanctuary in the middle of Israel in the glorious land. Through Ezekiel He has described it in detail, with the feasts, sacrifices, priests and furnishings (Ezekiel 40 – 48).
Centuries later Stephen used this verse against people who prized the temple.
Stephen's words cut right to the heart of the matter: "the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands." He also quotes their own Scriptures to show it. Is God to be contained in a small part of what His own hands have created? Israel had already rejected and crucified the One who held undeniable rights over the temple. How can they speak so piously about the house while rejecting its true owner?
Some writers read the verse as forward-looking as well as historical. They hear in it a hint that Israel will build a house again — and that God will refuse it.
I have said that the sacrifice and offering would be restored. Prophecy notes this, although God will completely reject their re-establishment. Isaiah 66 says, "All these things my hand has made" — a hint that the temple will be restored. But then it says, "this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (that is, the remnant).
Kelly draws the same line, and names what makes such a building worthless: sin is not settled by stonework.
They will trust in the house they are at last allowed to build in Jerusalem. So they must prove again that an unbelieving, idolatrous heart desecrates a temple. That is not how sin is settled between God and the sinner. Earthly splendour in such circumstances is only gilding over wickedness. The heart must be purified by faith in order to worship acceptably.
God asks the question so that He can answer it. Once we admit how great He is, attention moves off the building and onto the person standing in front of it.
Isaiah 66 opens on a very lofty note. The earth is only the footstool of Jehovah's feet, for the heavens are His throne. Once we see this, we know that no house built for Him on earth is anything but a small matter. What is a great matter is the right spiritual state and attitude in man. By nature man is sinful and estranged from God.
- Throne — God sits in heaven, and the earth is only the stool at His feet. The picture measures His authority, not His address.
- Footstool — One image, two meanings: the place where God rests among His people, and the place where Christ will put every enemy under His feet.
- House — God accepted Solomon's temple, and He described a future sanctuary through Ezekiel. The rebuke falls on trusting the building, not on building it.
- Owner — Stephen turned this verse into a charge: they praised the house and rejected the One who owns it.
- Heart — Once you face how great God is, no building impresses Him. He looks instead for the person who is humble, contrite, and trembling at His word.
Even all these things hath my hand made, and all these things have been, saith Jehovah. But to this man will I look to the afflicted and contrite in spirit, and who trembleth at my word.
God answers a people busy building for Him by telling them where His throne is. Then He names the one person on earth He will look at — and it is not the temple builder.
Since the whole creation came from His hand, nothing inside it can be a gift that impresses Him.
It was not Stephen nor Luke, but Isaiah who declared that the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands. And he said it while the "exceedingly magnificent" temple Solomon built stood in full view. Heaven is His throne, earth is His footstool. What can man do that is worthy for Him to rest in? He needs nothing from human resources. His own hand has made all these things, and next to them man's greatest efforts are tiny.
Having ruled out the building, God names what He does regard. Note that where older translations read "poor and of a contrite spirit," the ESV reads "humble and contrite in spirit."
The Lord looks to the heart and not to formal worship and sacrifice, and the same holds in the testimony of the Lord Jesus. It is "the poor in spirit" (Isaiah 66:2) — the same words spoken of Moses in Numbers 11, and Christ's first blessing in Matthew 5.
The word "poor" here needs a definition.
There was always a remnant preserved for God, and even in those times there were some He could look to. Let us notice their features: "him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word." Being "poor" here does not refer to financial circumstances. It refers to humility of spirit. It speaks of deep need along with sorrow at the surrounding conditions.
The last mark in the verse is easy to misread. Trembling here is not fright before a harsh God.
Let us not miss the word "trembles." It is not the dread of a slave. It is a sense of the greatness of the One who speaks to us, and of the seriousness of disobeying His voice.
One writer turns this into a test we can apply to ourselves.
On the other hand, it is the holy Word of God that speaks with authority to our hearts and consciences. Are we "trembling" at His Word, and trying to order our lives by it? Or do we try to adjust God's Word to our behaviour once we have already drifted from it to some degree?
Commentators also read the chapter as pointing forward. A temple will rise again in Jerusalem, built by people who have not settled the real issue with God.
Among the Jews at the end of the age, the same state of things will come back. It will draw out this rebuke from their own prophet again. They will trust in the house they are at last allowed to build in Jerusalem. So they must prove all over again that an unbelieving, idolatrous heart desecrates a temple. Sin cannot be settled between God and the sinner this way. Earthly splendour in such circumstances is only gilding over wrongdoing. It is real hypocrisy. In unbelief they may try to restore "all these things that have been." But God has a dispute with the people over idolatry and over the rejected Messiah, and that sin is not yet judged. His chosen ones own their sins and look for the new order He will create in honour of the Messiah. The heart must be purified by faith before worship can be acceptable.
Commentators connect this verse with Job, where the same principle runs to its end.
Job's prayer was effective because he was now right with God, and not only right with his friends. We have the plain statement, "The Lord also accepted Job." The man who condemned and rejected himself stands accepted before God. This has always been God's way. We find testimonies to it in other Old Testament scriptures — for instance, Isaiah 57:15 and Isaiah 66:2. But we have to move on to the New Testament to find the basis on which the acceptance rests. The character of the acceptance that is ours today is found in these words: "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6).
- Throne — Heaven is His seat and earth His footstool; His hand made everything you could ever build with.
- Look — Because no building can hold Him, He turns His gaze to a person instead: the heart, not the ceremony.
- Poor — Not lack of money, but deep need and humility, with sorrow over the state of things around us.
- Tremble — Not dread of punishment, but a sense of who is speaking. The test: do we bend our lives to the Word, or bend the Word to our lives?
- Accepted — The one who condemns himself is the one God receives. The New Testament names the ground: accepted in the Beloved.
He that slaughtereth an ox, smiteth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, breaketh a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, [it is as] swine's blood; he that presenteth a memorial of incense, [is as] he that blesseth an idol. As they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations,
A rebuilt temple, a busy altar, and a God who refuses every offering — Isaiah 66 opens with worship that looks correct but counts as crime. So what makes an offering acceptable, when the same act can be obedience or murder?
Commentators read the chapter as looking ahead to a temple standing again in Jerusalem, built by human hands alone. That setting explains why God refuses the sacrifices offered in it.
Isaiah 66 speaks of the judgment that introduces it, and so gives us more historical details. The temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem (v. 6), but Jehovah does not own it, because man alone has a hand in building it. He does not acknowledge the sacrifices offered in it either. He looks to the meek and contrite spirit.
The building itself cannot fix what is wrong inside the builders.
They trust in the house they are at last allowed to build in Jerusalem. So they must prove again that an unbelieving, idolatrous heart desecrates a temple. This is not the way to settle sin between God and the sinner. Earthly splendour in such circumstances is only gilding over iniquity. It is real hypocrisy... Faith must purify the heart before worship can be acceptable.
The shock of the verse is that God Himself once commanded every act it names. Killing an ox, offering a lamb, burning incense — none of these were pagan inventions.
This is a solemn word. Killing an ox for a sin-offering or a burnt offering was once a religious act, acceptable to God. But when God does not delight in it, and man chooses to do it anyway, the moral guilt is such that it counts as murder before God! God Himself gave exact directions for mixing the incense, and without it Aaron could not appear before the Lord — he would die. Yet for a man to burn that incense is as if he blessed an idol!
There is an order in the way God judges an offering.
Jehovah has respect to the person before his offering. If it is a wicked person, how could his sacrifice be anything but an abomination? So in Isaiah 66:1-4 we read of the Jews in the last days who have turned away from God. They may trust in the temple they build, where once the Lord of glory filled it. They may sacrifice a lamb, offer a grain offering, and present a memorial of incense. But He who looks for the afflicted and contrite who tremble at His word sees them as no better than a dog's neck, or pig's blood, or blessing an idol. Worse still is bringing a sacrifice with a wicked aim, as superstition does.
Translators have divided over this verse. Some print the words "is like" in italics, because the translators supplied them. Take them out, and the verse says something different.
Houbigant, Bishop Lowth, Horsley, De Wette and others leave out the words of comparison that the Authorised Version adds in italics. In their judgement those added words spoil the true sense. Their translation makes the verse point to ritual observance joined with open wickedness and the abominations of the nations. Otherwise the statement is that their ungodliness turned their acts of worship into so many horrors.
The second half of the verse names the root: they chose their own ways. Verse 4 gives God's answer, a punishment shaped to fit the crime. The words quoted below come from an older English translation of that verse.
The judgment of God on this guilty nation takes the form of a delusion. There had been wars, plagues and famines, but now something that dulls their feelings. Under the earlier troubles they might have wept and cried to the Lord, as they often did in the times of the Judges. But now God will simply delude them. Apart from the eternal judgment, what is more terrible than "I also will choose their delusions"? And this comes because when God called, no one answered.
Writers press the verse beyond Israel.
This was God's estimate of His own ordinances of worldly worship, when the people He gave them to used them corruptly and wilfully. So what must be the guilt of bringing in an order of things that God has clearly set aside?... Everywhere people approve and set up forms and rituals of worship that suit only a worldly sanctuary and a worldly people.
- Chosen — they chose their own ways, and every failure in this verse grows out of that choice.
- Built — God does not own a temple raised by human effort alone. Splendour only gilds over the sin underneath.
- Reversed — acts God once commanded count as murder and idolatry when man chooses them and God takes no delight in them.
- Weighed — God weighs the person before the offering. A wicked worshipper brings nothing but an abomination.
- Answered — God answers their chosen way with a chosen judgment: delusion. Writers press the same warning on any worship God has set aside.
I also will choose their calamities, and will bring their fears upon them; because I called, and none answered, I spoke, and they did not hear, but did that which was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delight not.
These words close the book of Isaiah, spoken to a nation busy with worship God will not accept. They raise a hard question: what does God do when He calls and no one answers?
Verse 4 follows a picture of sacrifices offered by people whose hearts are elsewhere. Commentators tie this to a time when the temple stands again in Jerusalem but God has no part in it.
Trusting in the house that they are at last allowed to build in Jerusalem, they must prove again that an unbelieving, idolatrous heart desecrates a temple. Sin cannot be settled between God and the sinner in this way. Earthly splendour in such circumstances is only gilding over sin. It is real hypocrisy.
The verse turns on a repeated word: they chose, and God also chooses. Where the ESV says God will choose "harsh treatment," older translations read "their calamities" or "their delusions," and the writers below use that older wording. What He picks is not first a sword or a famine, but something that works on the mind.
The judgment of God on this guilty nation takes the form of a delusion. There had been wars, plagues, and famines, but now comes something that dulls their feelings. They might have wept and cried to the Lord under the earlier troubles, as they often did in the days of the Judges; but now they will simply be deceived. What judgment is more terrible, apart from the eternal one, than "I also will choose their delusions"? And it comes because when God called, no one answered.
The second half of the verse gives the reason, and it is not ignorance. One writer traces the refusal to the point where God spoke by His Son.
As for the nation as a whole, the Lord completely rejects their self-righteous offerings. "He who kills an ox is like one who kills a man." That is His estimate of them and of their worship. They have chosen their own ways, and He also will choose their delusions. When God spoke to them by His Son, they refused to hear.
Does God blind people at random? The examples one writer gathers all point the same way.
This has been so, and will be so again, under this judicial blindness of mind. Worldly men act against the clearest and most obvious means of their own interest. Religious men wander from the simplest instructions of the truth. We should not be surprised at anything. But this blindness is never sent on a man until he has justly exposed himself to judgment. Every case shows this. Pharaoh, for instance, had in deepest ingratitude forgotten Joseph. The Amorites of Canaan had filled up the measure of their sins. The old Gentiles had brought this reprobate mind on themselves (Rom. 1:28). And in time God will send the strong delusion over Christendom, only because "they did not love the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness."
The writers do not leave this verse in the past. What God did to a nation that would not hear, He will do again — and the repeat is worse, because now the message is mercy alone.
A more fearful delusion, followed by a heavier judgment, will come on Christendom, and for the same reason: because they will not hear. In the past God called by judgment and by mercy. Now He calls by mercy alone; the message sent is God's love and free salvation. Still men will not hear, "for this reason God will send them a strong delusion, so that they believe a lie" (2 Thess. 2:11). With Israel the wording is more negative (though just as fatal): their heart is made fat, so they do not turn and be healed. With Christendom it is more positive: not only an inability to see the truth, but the actual acceptance of a lie.
This judgment does not fall on everyone in the nation. God has already named the person He does look at.
He looks to the meek and contrite spirit. Some mocked at the hopes of these people, saying, "Let the Lord display His glory." But He will appear to their shame, and for the blessing of those who waited for Him.
- They chose — the nation picked its own ways and chose what God takes no delight in. The rest of the verse answers that first choice.
- He chose — God matches His reply to the crime: not war or famine, but delusion, a judgment that dulls feeling instead of driving people to prayer.
- Because they would not hear — He called and He spoke, and no one answered. They would not hear even when God spoke by His Son.
- Never premature — this blindness never falls until a person has justly exposed himself to judgment. It comes last, not first.
- Still ahead — the same judgment waits for a world that hears only mercy and still will not listen. The meek and contrite are the ones God looks at and blesses.
Hear the word of Jehovah, ye that tremble at his word Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let Jehovah be glorified, and let us see your joy! but they shall be ashamed.
God turns from the worshippers whose temple and sacrifices He refuses to own. He now speaks to a small group who tremble at His word. Their own brothers hate them and have thrown them out, and they claim to do it for God's glory. So who will decide between them?
One mark identifies these people: how they treat what God has said. Kelly gives the reason such reverence is right.
Well, the Word of God commends those who tremble at it (Isaiah 66:2, 5). They dare not lessen their reverence for it, because for them at least it holds Christ. So damaging its full inspiration is nothing more nor less than taking Him "away."
Darby describes the scene around this verse. A temple stands in Jerusalem, but God will have nothing to do with it.
The temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem (v. 6), but the Lord does not own it, because man alone built it. He does not acknowledge the sacrifices offered in it either. He looks to the meek and contrite spirit. Some mocked the hopes of these people and said in ridicule, "Let the Lord display His glory." But He will appear to their confusion, and for the blessing of those who waited for Him.
Writers call this group the remnant — the faithful minority in the nation. A foreign power oppresses them, but the sharper wound comes from their own family, dressed in religion.
From verse 5, it is clear that the remnant will not only suffer at the hands of the Gentile oppressor, but also from the hatred of their brothers by natural descent... Then, as before, religion will be the pretext: those who are of the flesh will persecute those who are of the Spirit. It is the Lord's appearing that ends the sorrows of "the remnant," brings confusion on the adversaries, and brings in the time of Jerusalem's full glory.
The words sound devout. Gaebelein hears a sneer at people who still expect God to step in.
The godly remnant, the praying remnant, is seen once more. They tremble at the Word of the Lord. The unbelievers in their own nation hate them. They are mocked because they expect the Lord's intervention from above. "Let the Lord be glorified" — they say in ridicule (verse 5).
Hole finds the same treatment again and again after Isaiah's day, always claimed in God's name.
They had been hated and cast out by the men of that day, and this they claimed to do in the name of the Lord and for His glory. We recognise at once that this is nothing unusual. Something similar has happened again and again. It was so when our Lord was on earth and in the days of the apostles. It has been so all too often in the sad history of Christendom. Think of the burning of "heretics" in Spain or in Britain. In Spain such an act was called by a phrase that in English means "an act of faith" — faith, as they thought, to the glory of God.
The religious leaders threw the healed blind man out in John 9. Then Jesus came and found him. Westcott ties that moment to this verse.
There could not have been a more fitting moment for the blessed Lord to appear on the scene. In private He revealed His own personal glory to the lonely outcast (chapter 9:35-38). So He vindicated the man's position against his opponents (compare Isaiah 66:5). And He showed the immense gain that came to one who stood outside of any, or every, religious system, in the company of the Son of God.
No argument settles this. The Lord settles it when He appears — and the mockers' own words come true against them.
So the Lord will decide, no longer by testimony to the heart, but by open judgment... The Lord will be glorified to the joy of those who trembled at His word before He appears. He will be glorified to the lasting shame of those who did not know Him and doubted that He cared for those who confessed Him here on earth and were despised for it.
Hole works from an older wording of the verse: "He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed." The ESV has "but it is they who shall be put to shame." His point is the timing:
The Lord's answer to all this is not immediate but inevitable... He SHALL — the thing is settled and certain, but it is future.
- Word — God addresses people who revere what He has said. They will not lower that regard, because Scripture holds Christ for them.
- Cast out — their own brothers hate them and hide it under religion. The flesh has always persecuted the Spirit in God's name.
- Mocked — the mockers say "Let the Lord be glorified" in ridicule. They jeer at people who still expect God to act.
- Vindicated — the pattern repeats through history, but God does not abandon the outcast. Christ revealed Himself to the man thrown out in John 9.
- Appearing — the answer is certain, but it is future. He brings joy to those who trembled at His word, and shame to those who doubted His care for them.
A voice of tumult from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of Jehovah that rendereth recompence to his enemies!
Isaiah's last chapter opens with God refusing a house that human hands are building for Him. Then a sound breaks out of that same city and that same temple, and this verse asks whose voice it is and what it does to those who hear it.
Commentators read verse 6 as a temple standing in Jerusalem that God refuses to call His own, even while His voice sounds from it.
Isaiah 66 speaks of the judgment that introduces it, and so gives us more historical details. The temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem (v. 6), but Jehovah does not own it. Man alone had a hand in building it, and He does not accept the sacrifices offered in it. He looks to the meek and contrite spirit.
The same reading appears in a reference work, which adds that such a building cannot last.
Scripture speaks in many places of the return of the Jews to their own land, but in unbelief as to the Lord Jesus being their Messiah. It seems they will build a temple. Do not confuse it with the temple Ezekiel describes, though the Jews may try to build it that way. God cannot bless them until they acknowledge His anointed One, and so this temple will be destroyed.
Verse 5 has just described the faithful few, hated and cast out by their own people.
When this remnant are in deep distress, a sound suddenly breaks out: "The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the LORD, rendering recompense to his enemies!" (v. 6). The Man Child stands in the city. The Messiah of Israel is there. This means the birth of a new nation, a nation lifted up in Him above all nations. Right now it is small, made up of the faithful, God-fearing few.
The place this voice comes from matters. It is the temple that Israel's destroyer had mocked and marked with his own banners.
So it will be again. At the end of the troubled days, those who plead with Jehovah will pray without stopping, right up to the moment His voice sounds from the temple. That temple had been the scorn of the destroyer, and for a moment it must carry his abominable banners. From it will come the Lord's command to destroy His enemies. Then those who refused to consider Jehovah's works and the work of His hands for their own salvation will find, by a terrifying sign, that the power to destroy and the power to redeem belong to Him alone.
Another writer connects that same voice with the Lord going out to fight for His people.
Isaiah may be pointing to the same event when he speaks of a voice from the city and from the temple, the voice of the Lord repaying His enemies. This is how Jehovah will repay them. Then the nations of the world will have to learn what Pharaoh learned at the Red Sea — the unstoppable might of the One they dared to line up against in battle.
Some read the verse as fulfilled when Rome destroyed Jerusalem. Commentators here say the events do not match.
But it will not be like that for the Jew in the days to come. A voice sounds from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of Jehovah repaying His enemies. The Roman destruction of Jerusalem was no real fulfilment of this. It will be fulfilled exactly as many prophecies state. Then comes the new birth, the gathering in of Zion's children. They will no longer be Abraham's descendants in name only, but his children in reality. Nothing of the kind followed when Nebuchadnezzar captured the city, and nothing of the kind happened when Titus took Jerusalem.
The sound of recompense runs straight into the birth described in the next verses.
Then a voice sounds from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of Jehovah repaying His enemies! There will be no more delay. The same day brings a land to birth and a nation born at once — the godly Jewish remnant, whom their own brothers hated and cast out for His name. That same day will see Jehovah come with fire, His chariots like a whirlwind. The restoration of His people happens at the same time as His judgment of the nations.
- The voice — one sound from city and temple settles everything: it repays enemies and delivers sufferers in the same instant.
- Its address — it comes from a house men built and God refused to own. He can speak in judgment from the very place that dishonoured Him.
- Its timing — it breaks in while the faithful few are mocked and cast out. Their lowest hour is the hour of His answer.
- Its reach — the nations learn what Pharaoh learned at the Red Sea: power to destroy and to redeem belongs to God alone.
- Its result — the same day that judges the nations gives Zion her children. Commentators say no past siege of Jerusalem has done that.