Isaiah 66 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Addressed to roughly 520 to 480 BC, around the rebuilding of the second temple and the arguments it produced
Location
Jerusalem and its temple mount, with a closing view outward to distant coastlands and trading nations
Audience
Judean Jews of the restoration, especially those invested in the rebuilt temple and those excluded by its leadership
Situation
The book closes with God asking what house anyone could build for him, since heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool, and saying he looks instead to the humble and trembling. Jerusalem is then pictured as a mother giving birth suddenly, God comes in fire to judge, and survivors are sent out to declare his glory among the nations.
Key Background
The opening challenge to temple building comes at the moment the second temple was actually going up, so it reads as a warning against treating the new building as leverage over God rather than as opposition to the project itself. The sacrifices listed as offensive - an ox, a lamb, a grain offering, incense - are the legitimate temple offerings, and the point is that correct ritual performed by people who also practice the forbidden rites counts as the equivalent of murder or idolatry. The final image of bodies of the rebellious lying outside the city where the worm and the fire never stop draws on the Hinnom valley just south of Jerusalem, a ravine associated with child sacrifice in earlier centuries and later used as a place of refuse and burning, which is where the later vocabulary for hell comes from.
This is what Yahweh says: "The sky is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house could you possibly build for me? What place could serve as my resting place?"
"My own hand made all of these things, and that is how they all came to be," declares Yahweh. "But this is the one I look toward: the one who is and in spirit, who at my word."
"The one who slaughters an ox — it's the same as a person. The one who sacrifices a lamb — it's like breaking a dog's neck. The one who brings a grain offering — it's like offering blood. The one who burns incense as a memorial — it's like praising an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their
"So I will choose their punishments and bring on them what they dread. Because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke, no one listened. They did what was offensive in my sight and chose what I take no pleasure in."
Listen to the word of Yahweh, you who at his word: "Your own people who hate you, who you out because of my name, said, 'Let Yahweh show his so we can see your joy!' — but they are the ones who will be put to shame."
A sound of from the city! A voice from the temple! The voice of Yahweh, paying his enemies in full!
Before was in labor, gave birth. Before her pain came, delivered a son. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen anything like this?
Can a country be born in a single day? Can a nation be brought to life all at once? But as soon as went into labor, she gave birth to her children.
"Would I bring to the point of birth and not says Yahweh. "Would I who cause the birth then the says your God.
with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice with her deeply, all you who have over her —
so that you may and be filled from her comforting breast, so that you may drink deeply and be drenched with delight from her
Because this is what Yahweh says: "Watch — I am extending to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream. You will nurse, be carried on her hip, and bounced on her knees."
"Like a mother her child, I will comfort you myself, and you will be comforted in Jerusalem."
You will see this and your heart will rejoice, and your will like new grass. Yahweh's hand will be known to those who serve him, but his to his enemies.
Because look — Yahweh is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind, to unleash his anger like a blaze and his rebuke like flames of
Because by fire and by his sword Yahweh will on all people, and those slain by Yahweh will be many.
"Those who and make clean to enter the following the one in the center, eating the flesh of pigs, and other disgusting things: they will all come to an end together," declares Yahweh.
"And I — because I know their actions and their thoughts — am coming to gather all and together, and they will come and see my
"I will set a among them, and I will send survivors from them to the nations — to Put, and Lud (who draw the bow), to Tubal and Greece, to the distant that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. And they will declare my glory among the nations."
"And they will bring all your people from all the nations as an to Yahweh, on horses, in chariots, in wagons, on mules, and on camels, to the that to me, Jerusalem," says Yahweh, "just as the Israelites bring their grain in a clean vessel to the house of Yahweh."
"And I will even take some of them as and Levites," says Yahweh.
"For just as the and the earth that I am making will before me," declares Yahweh, "so your descendants and your name will
"And it will happen that from one to the next, and from one to the next, all people will come to down before me," declares Yahweh.
"And they will go out and look at the dead bodies of those who against me. Their will not die, and their will not go out, and they will be a horror to all people."