John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 63:18

"Thy holy people possessed [it] but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary." — Isaiah 63:18 (ASV)

For a little time. It is remarkable that the people should call it “a little time;” for fourteen hundred years had elapsed since the people began to possess that land. But we must take into account the promise in which He said that the seed of Abraham should have it as an everlasting inheritance; therefore, that was a short time when compared with eternity (Genesis 17:8; Genesis 48:4). Believers, therefore, present to God the shortness of that time; not that they accuse Him of insincerity, but that He may remember the promise and covenant, and may have more regard for His own goodness than for the chastisements they justly deserved. Thus the ancient Church complains that

her strength was weakened in the journey, that her days were shortened, and prays that she may not be cut off in the middle of her course (Psalms 102:23, 24).

That is, because the fullness of age depended on the coming of Christ.

Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary. This was a much graver complaint, that wicked men had profaned the land which the Lord had consecrated to Himself. Undoubtedly this was far more distressing to the people than the rest of their calamities, and justly; for we ought not to care so much about ourselves as about religion and the worship of God. And this is also the purpose of redemption, that there may be a people that praises the name of the Lord and worships Him in a right manner.