Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 66:4

"I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did that which was evil in mine eyes, and chose that wherein I delighted not." — Isaiah 66:4 (ASV)

I also will choose their delusions - Margin, ‘Devices.’ The Hebrew word rendered here ‘delusions’ and ‘devices’ (תעלוּלים ta‛ălûlı̂ym) properly denotes petulance, sauciness; and then vexation, adverse destiny, from עלל ‛ âlal, to do, to accomplish, to do evil, to maltreat. It is not used in the sense of delusions, or devices; and evidently here means the same as calamity or punishment. Compare the Hebrew in Lamentations 1:22.

Lowth and Noyes render it, Calamities; though Jerome and the Septuagint understand it in the sense of illusions or delusions, the former rendering it ‘Illusiones,’ and the latter ἐμπαίγματα empaigmata—‘delusions.’ The parallelism requires us to understand it as calamity, or something corresponding to ‘fear,’ or that which was dreaded; and the sense undoubtedly is, that God would choose out for them the kind of punishment which would be expressive of his judgment of the evil of their conduct.

And will bring their fears upon them - That is, the punishment which they have so much dreaded, or which they had so much reason to apprehend.

Because when I called - (See the notes at Isaiah 65:12).

But they did evil before my eyes - (See the notes at Isaiah 65:3).