John Calvin 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. The Prophet means that the Jews gain nothing by offering various and plausible pretenses and by searching for excuses, because God does not care for the cunning or fine speeches of men. Indeed, it is not proper to measure God by our own capacity, and we ought not to depend on human judgment; instead, it is our duty to judge God's works by his word.

“I will choose” means, “I will scatter the clouds which they endeavor to spread over themselves, so that their delusions will be made manifest and visible to all; for now they appear to be hidden, but one day they will be dragged out to public view.”

The meaning may be summed up this way: “Because the Jews have indulged so freely in sinning that everything they chose was preferred by them to the commandments of God, so also, in his turn, God will lay open their delusions at his pleasure.”

And will bring upon them their terror. With the word “terror,” he repeats the same thing, according to the custom of Hebrew writers: “I will cause them to know that they have fallen into a mistake, and that the terrors which they indulged will fall on their own heads.”

Thus, their excuses or hypocritical pretenses will be of no avail in confusing truth and falsehood or veiling superstitions, because the Lord will clearly distinguish between them.

Because I called. The Prophet again condemns the Jews for obstinacy, because they did not allow the Lord to correct them. This is the only remaining remedy for correcting our vices: to hear the Lord speaking when he endeavors to bring us back into the right way. But when we sear and harden our hearts, it is the worst of all evils.

Therefore, whenever men prefer their own inventions to the ordinances and commandments of God, they openly despise God, to whose will they should have yielded.

This is especially the case when such obstinate hardness of heart is added that it shuts the door against holy warnings. It is useless for them to claim that they cannot displease God by doing what they undertake for the purpose of worshipping him; for the Lord rejects and abhors all that men choose and follow by neglecting the word.

Before mine eyes. He repeats what he had previously said: that the Jews sinned in the sight of God, as if they had resolved to provoke him to anger. Finally, he adds their manner of doing so: that with perverse desire, they sought what God had forbidden. And not without good reason does he so frequently censure the wicked insolence of men in defrauding God of his right by contemptuously treating what he approves.