Introduction to Isaiah 65

Structure and Formatting

This chapter presents two oracles. In the first one (verses 1–16), Yahweh, speaking through the prophet, responds to the appeals for help in the psalm of supplication. While the psalm implores God to “consider your people, all of us,” Yahweh responds in this oracle that many in the community are actually not his people, not in the sense of worshipping and serving him loyally and exclusively. Instead, they are “walking in a way not good” and worshipping idols, trying to communicate with the dead, and ceremonially eating unclean things in pursuit of magical powers. Yahweh says that he began reaching out to the people long before they asked for help, but because of their continual rebellion, he has not rescued them yet. The defiant members need to be purged from the community so that he can deliver the faithful remnant.The promises to the remnant in this oracle recall the oracles in the previous section of Part Eight. There Jerusalem was told it would be given new names and no longer be called a “desolation” (62:4). While the psalm of supplication laments that Jerusalem is still a desolation (64:11), this oracle promises that the Lord will give his faithful servants another name (65:15).The language and imagery of this oracle also recall the closing oracle of Part Seven:• That oracle urged the exiles, “Seek Yahweh while he may be found” (55:6) Here Yahweh promises blessings “for my people who seek me” (65:10).• The earlier oracle invites hungry and thirsty hearers to eat and drink without price (55:1). This oracle, drawing on the same imagery, warns that only God’s faithful servants will eat and drink, while those who continue to rebel will go hungry and thirsty (65:13).• The members of the faithful remnant are described repeatedly as God’s servants (verses 8, 9, 13, and 14), echoing the term that’s used evocatively throughout Part Seven.• The language and imagery reach even farther back into the book, The grape cluster (v. 8), for example, recalls Isaiah’s song of the vineyard (5:1–7). While words and symbols are echoed throughout the book, the allusions become more dense and conspicuous as the book draws to a close.The other oracle in this chapter (verses 17–25) echoes earlier oracles in the book even more vividly. In this oracle, Jerusalem is not just rebuilt and restored, it is re-created afresh, along with the entire heavens and earth. The blessedness of its citizens is described in language that evokes the central promise of the positive oracle in chapter 62, in which Yahweh promised that his people would always enjoy the fruits of their own labor (62:9).But even more strikingly, this oracle quotes directly from Isaiah’s vision of how the Messiah will establish justice and righteousness throughout the world, so that in the natural world even predators like wolves and lions will live peacefully with animals that are usually their prey (11:6). Here the prophet, through the Spirit who rests upon him and through the words he evokes, is enabled to see beyond God’s immediate purposes for his community and glimpse the time when, to fulfill his ultimate purposes, God will renew the entire creation. All sorrows will end, and people will live in the presence of God, at peace with the world around them.