Book of Isaiah Chapter 65 Summary

Not Destiny's Child

  • God responds to the questions and worries from the last chapter, saying that he wanted the people who weren't searching for him to find him—they just wouldn't look.
  • It's not that he hid himself from the people. His hands were outstretched the whole time. They just wouldn't accept him. They kept offering illicit sacrifices, eating pork and doing other things that provoke God's outrage.
  • God says that he's going to repay everyone for these sins but—as with a grape cluster that has good and bad grapes in it—he's not going to destroy them all.
  • The descendants of Jacob will inherit the promised land again. Still, if people forget God, and start to worship Destiny and Fortune, they'll get slaughtered.
  • Whereas God's servants will be amply rewarded and delighted, the Fortune-worshippers get nil (zip, zero, nada), just shame, thirst, hunger, and discovering that their name has now become a curse before finally being put to death.
  • God will end up being the only deity invoked for blessings anywhere on earth.

The Ultimate Re-Do

  • God is going to create an entirely new heaven and earth. Everything that existed before will no longer be remembered by anyone.
  • He will re-create Jerusalem as a place where joy and delight are the rule, both for God and for the people living in the city. Weeping and despair come to an end. No infants will die shortly after birth, and even one hundred year old people will be considered youths.
  • People will live in the houses and fields they themselves have created. No one else will come and take them away.
  • All carnivorous diets will end. Wolves and lambs, and lions and oxen, will eat together. But the serpent will be utterly defeated, only able to eat dust.
  • All violence will end on the holy mountain of God.