Isaiah 65 explained: Judgment and a New World Promised

God holding out his hands (vv. 1-2)

God says he was ready to be found even by people who were not looking, holding out his hands all day like someone welcoming a guest, yet his people kept going their own way. The apostle Paul quotes these lines, and Christians read verse 1 as God reaching non-Jewish nations, though many scholars think it first described Israel itself.

Practices God calls an insult (vv. 3-7)

Sacrifices in sacred gardens, brick altars instead of the uncut stone the law required, nights among tombs probably to contact the dead, and eating pork all broke Israel's law and were likely tied to other gods, yet the people doing them told others to keep away because they were holier. God says he will repay all of it into the fold of their robes, which people used as a pocket, meaning in full and right back to them.

Grapes worth saving (vv. 8-10)

When good juice is still found in a bunch of grapes, people say not to destroy it, and in the same way God will spare a faithful group instead of wiping out everyone. Sharon, a coastal plain, and the Valley of Achor, whose name means "trouble" after an old disaster there, will become peaceful pasture for them.

Two groups, two futures (vv. 11-16)

Fortune and Destiny were gods of luck, honored with laid tables and mixed wine, and God plays grimly on Destiny's name by destining their worshipers for the sword. The faithful will eat, drink and sing while the others go hungry and their name becomes a curse word, a harsh contrast the text does not soften.

New heavens and new earth (vv. 17-19)

God promises to create new heavens and a new earth, a fresh start so complete that past pain will not even come to mind. Jerusalem becomes God's own delight, a city where weeping is no longer heard.

Ordinary life made whole (vv. 20-25)

Babies no longer die, dying at a hundred seems young, people live in the houses they build and eat the harvests they plant instead of others getting them, and God answers before they finish asking. Wolf and lamb eat together and only the snake still eats dust, an echo of the curse in the Garden of Eden, as harm ends on God's holy mountain.

Key verse: Isaiah 65:17

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether the new heavens and earth describe a literal future world, an earthly golden age before a final renewal (since death still appears in verse 20), or a poetic picture of a renewal God has already begun.

Something to think about

Of the losses this chapter imagines ending, like early death, grief, or work that benefits someone else, which feels most urgent to you, and why?