Isaiah 65 - Bible Study in 5 Minutes

Isaiah 65 Short Summary:

The first half of Isaiah 65 is an expression of frustration by God that the majority of Judah did not love Him. He welcomed them with outstretched arms, but they chose their idols and the practices of paganism instead. The second half of the chapter is a promise to God’s people of a new heaven and a new earth. God would create these as a place of blessing and safety for His people.

Isaiah 65 Bible Study

TIMELINE:

• The prophetic ministry of Isaiah spanned the reigns of King Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

• Isaiah’s ministry is thought to span from 739-681 BC.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Isaiah – The son of Amoz (1:1). God commissioned Isaiah as His prophet to Judah.

• God – God was going to create a new heaven and a new earth for His people. It would be a place of security, joy, and worship.

DEFINITIONS:

• Pig’s Flesh (65:4) – Under the dietary laws that God gave to the people of Judah, eating pig meat was forbidden, so the fact that they were eating it was a mark of their rebellion.

• Sharon (65:10) - The Plain of Sharon was a flat piece of land near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Mt. Carmel.

• Fortune and Destiny (65:11) – In the ESV, these words are capitalized because they likely refer to Babylonian gods, perhaps to Bel and Meni.  

OUTLINE:

• GOD’S INVITATION REJECTED BY JUDAH (65:1-16):

  • God stood before Judah with outstretched hands ready to embrace them, but they wanted nothing to do with Him.

  • Instead of embracing Him, they provoked Him without shame or reservation.

  • They embraced idol worship, openly practiced pagan rituals, ate pigs’ flesh (forbidden for the Jews), and walked around in pride declaring themselves holier than everyone else.

  • God tolerated them for many years, but they were ripe for judgement.

  • In His anger, God said that they had become smoke in His nostrils, “a fire that burns all the day” (65:5).

  • God was preparing to repay them for their sins. He said, “I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their lap both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together” (65:6-7).

  • God’s judgement and anger against Judah would not be comprehensive. God promised to spare His servants, His chosen, those who honored Him.

  • He would give them His mountain as an inheritance and settle them in peace.

  • God’s servants would be in peace while His enemies would be put to the sword. God’s servants would feast while the wicked went hungry. God’s servants would sing in joy while the wicked cried out from a broken spirit.

• THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH (65:17-25):

  • God said, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.”

  • He promised to create Jerusalem into a place of joy where death and tragedy would no longer plague His people.

  • He said, “No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, or the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed” (65:20).

  • God’s people and their descendants would live in the land and never have it taken from them.

  • “’The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,’ says the Lord” (65:25).

BIBLE COMPREHENSION:

• There is a big debate about the fulfillment of these prophesies, whether the new heavens and new earth refers exclusively to Jesus’ return and the restoration of all things at the end of time, or if it also refers to the restoration of Judah and the earth through the Gospel, which would have begun at Jesus’ first appearance on earth.

• Remember, several prophesies in Isaiah appear to have dual fulfillments, so its possible the language could apply to both.

• We know with certainty that this prophecy can be applied to the second advent of Christ (His future return) because Peter applied these words to that event in 2 Peter 3:10-13.

• 2 Pet 3:10-13 - But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. 

• Note also, Revelation 21:1. The Apostle John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God’.”