Isaiah 66:1

Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne,.... The third heaven, the heaven of heavens, where angels and glorified saints are, and some in bodies, as Enoch and Elijah, and where now Christ is in

Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

ISAIAH CHAPTER 66 God is served with the Spirit, and not by ceremonies, , the wonderful birth and benefits of the gospel church, . Severe judgments against the wicked, . The Gentiles shall be a holy church, . The eternal punishment of the wicked, . The heaven is my throne; the heaven, that is, the highest heavens, are the place where I most manifest my power and glory, and show myself in my majesty. 103:19 . Hence we are taught to pray, Our Father which art in heaven. And the earth is my footstool, or a place wherein I set my feet, . Where is the house that ye build unto me? can there be a house builded that will contain me, who can encompass the heavens and the earth with a house? Where is the place of my rest? or, where is the place wherein I can be said to rest in a proper sense? The ark is indeed God’ s footstool, and the place of his rest, in a figurative sense, because there God manifested himself, though in degrees much beneath the manifestations of himself in heaven; but properly, God hath no certain place of rest.

Isaiah 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest?Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lard.] The same he saith in effect here in this last chapter that he had done in the first, rejecting the Jews’ vain confidence in their temple and sacrifices, and showing that he was neither confined to their temple nor contented with their sacrifices, so long as the hidden man of the heart and the spiritual worship was wanting - so long as they neglected his laws and served their own lusts. Heaven is my throne.] Coelum est solium meum; there do I manifest the most glorious and visible signs of my presence; there I am in a special manner worshipped according to mine excellent greatness; and there my courtiers have a more ardent zeal for me than those flatterers had for Darius. The earth is my footstool.] So it should be ours, since God hath in Christ "put all things under our feet." The earth hath its name in Hebrew from treading upon; and terra a terendo, these earthly things should be trampled on as base and bootless. Where is the house that ye build unto me?] q.d., A house indeed I commanded to be built for me, but not to hold me, or there to keep me cooped up as in a cell, that, you should therehence conclude, The temple, God’ s house, shall never perish; therefore neither shall we. You must know that I am intra, et extra, et supra, et circa, et infra omnia, within and without, and above and about, and beneath all things. “ Enter praesenter Deus hic et ubique potenter. ” This the heathens knew. Empedocles said that God was a circle, the centre whereof is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. This the Turks acknowledge, by building their mosques or temples open at the top, to show that God is nowhere circumscriptively and definitively, but repletively everywhere. He is higher than heaven, saith Bernard, deeper than hell, larger than earth, broader than the sea: he is nowhere, and yet everywhere, yet he is everywhere all-present. The heavens have a large place, but they have one part here and another there; but the Lord is totally present wheresoever present, not commensurable by any place whatsoever.

LXVI. (1) 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, Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 60:7, and the writings of Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, all pre-supposing 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 dwelleth, 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.)

CHAPTER LXVI This chapter treats of the same subject with the foregoing. God, by his prophet, tells the Jews, who valued themselves much on their temple and pompous worship, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and that no outward rites of worship, while the worshippers are idolatrous and impure, can please him who looketh at the heart, 1-3. This leads to a threatening of vengeance for their guilt, alluding to their making void the law of God by their abominable traditions, their rejection of Christ, persecution of his followers, and consequent destruction by the Romans. But as the Jewish ritual and people shadow forth the system of Christianity and its professors; so, in the prophetical writings, the idolatries of the Jews are frequently put for the idolatries afterwards practiced by those bearing the Christian name. Consequently, if we would have the plenitude of meaning in this section of prophecy, which the very content requires, we must look through the type into the antitype, viz., the very gross idolatries practised by the members of Antichrist, the pompous heap of human intentions and traditions with which they have encumbered the Christian system, their most dreadful persecution of Christ's spiritual and true worshippers, and the awful judgments which shall overtake them in the great and terrible day of the Lord, 4-6. The mighty and sudden increase of the Church of Jesus Christ at the period of Antichrist's fall represented by the very strong figure of Sion being delivered of a man-child before the time of her travail, the meaning of which symbol the prophet immediately subjoins in a series of interrogations for the sake of greater force and emphasis, 7-9. Wonderful prosperity and unspeakable blessedness of the world when the posterity of Jacob, with the fulness of the Gentiles, shall be assembled to Messiah's standard, 10-14. All the wicked of the earth shall be gathered together to the battle of that great day of God Almighty, and the slain of Jehovah shall be many, 15-18. Manner of the future restoration of the Israelites from their several dispersions throughout the habitable globe, 19-21. Perpetuity of this new economy of grace to the house of Israel, 22. Righteousness shall be universally diffused in the earth; and the memory of those who have transgressed against the Lord shall be had in continual abhorrence, 23, 24. Thus this great prophet, after tracing the principal events of time, seems at length to have terminated his views in eternity, where all revolutions cease, where the blessedness of the righteous shall be unchangeable as the new heavens, and the misery of the wicked as the fire that shall not be quenched. NOTES ON CHAP. LXVI This chapter is a continuation of the subject of the foregoing. The Jews valued themselves much upon their temple, and the pompous system of services performed in it, which they supposed were to be of perpetual duration; and they assumed great confidence and merit to themselves for their strict observance of all the externals of their religion.

1, 2. Jehovah, who fills and has created heaven and earth, “dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Comp. the citation in Acts 7:48 ff., also 1 Kings 8:27; Jeremiah 23:24. The heaven is my throne] Psalms 11:4; Psalms 103:19. the earth is my footstool] Hence the Temple itself (or the ark) is spoken of as Jehovah’s footstool; Lamentations 2:1; Psalms 99:5; Psalms 132:7; 1 Chronicles 28:2. where is the house &c.] Render: what manner of house will ye build unto me? and what manner of place is my resting place (Psalms 132:8; Psalms 132:14)?

The heaven is my throne - (See the notes at Isaiah 57:15). Here he is represented as having his seat or throne there. He speaks as a king.

1. Heaven is my throne… earth is my footstool — This is a restatement of doctrines made familiar at the dedication of the first temple, (see 1 Chronicles 6,) and often elsewhere repeated, as well as