Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 66

The heaven is my throne... —We are left to conjecture the historical starting-point of this utterance of a Divine truth. Was the prophet condemning in advance the restoration of the temple on the return from Babylon, or, as some critics have supposed, the intention of some of the exiles to build a temple in the land of their captivity, as others did afterwards at Leontopolis in Egypt? Was he anticipating the vision of the Apocalypse, that in the new Jerusalem there was to be “no temple” (Revelation 21:22)? Neither of these views is satisfactory, as Isaiah 56:7, Isaiah 60:7, and the writings of Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah all presuppose the existence of a new temple.

It seems better to see in the words the utterance, in its strongest form, of the truth that God dwells not in temples made with hands, that utterance being compatible, as in the case of Solomon himself (2 Chronicles 6:18), of our Lord (John 2:16–17; John 4:21–23), of St. Stephen, who quoted this passage (Acts 7:48–50), with the profoundest reverence for the visible sanctuary. Cheyne quotes a striking parallel from an Egyptian hymn to the Nile of the fourteenth century B.C., in which we find the writer saying of God, “His abode is not known ... there is no building that can contain Him.” (Records of the Past, iv. 109.)

All those things ... — The sequence of thought is as follows: God, the Maker of the universe, can need nothing that belongs to it. The most stately temple is to Him as the infinitely little. What He does delight in is something generically different, the spiritual life that corresponds to His own, the “contrite heart,” which is the true correlative of His own holiness. He who offers that is a true worshipper, with or without the ritual of worship; in its absence, all worship is an abomination to the Eternal. Here, the first and second sections of Isaiah are essentially one in teaching. (Isaiah 57:15.)

He that killeth an ox ... —The truth of the previous verse is emphasized by iteration, each clause presenting a distinct illustration of it. Isaiah 65:3–11 had pointed to tendencies, not yet extinct, which led to open apostasy. Now the prophet declares that there may be as real an apostasy beneath an orthodox creed and an irreproachable ritual. Each act of the hypocrite’s worship is as an idolatrous abomination.

I also will choose their delusions ... —The Hebrew noun conveys the thought of the turnings and windings of fortune—what has been called the irony of history. These are the instruments with which God, as it were, mocks and holds in derision those who mock Him by their hypocrisy. Their choice did not delight Him; what He chooses will be far from delightful for them. (Proverbs 1:24–26.)

Hear the word of the Lord ... —The prophet turns from the hypocrites to the persecuted remnant. The self-righteous, self-exalting Pharisee repudiates, and, as it were, excommunicates, the true worshippers, and taunts them with their devotion to a God who does not help them. In words which find an echo in Matthew 27:42, they said, Let Jehovah glorify Himself, that we may look on your joy. The prophet adds the doom that shall fall upon the mockers: They, and not those whom they deride, shall be put to shame.