NOTES for Isa 65:1-25
The proclamation offered in today's reading seems to sum up everything Babylonian Isaiah says about the Kingdom. On the one hand, the image of the new, messianic Jerusalem rises before us again (vv. 17–25). But here, in addition to the image of the city itself, there also appears a vision of a new heaven and a new earth (v. 17), completing the picture of a transformed world renewed by God. Now the issue is no longer only Jerusalem or even Israel, but the whole universe, and so the messianic Kingdom becomes a reality on a universal scale. Babylonian Isaiah speaks of a change in the laws of nature using the same metaphor as his predecessor, Isaiah of Jerusalem: the picture of a wolf and lamb lying together. He supplements it with a lion peacefully chewing straw and a snake with no thought of harming a human being (v. 25; Isa 11:6–8).
But not everyone will enter this messianic Kingdom. It is no accident that God says through His prophet that He “revealed Himself to those who did not ask for Him” and that He was “found by those who did not seek Him” (v. 1). In the history of God's people, God often knocked at the houses and hearts of those in no hurry to open (vv. 2–5). If the people nevertheless escaped historical destruction, it was only for the sake of those who remained faithful to God and the covenant amid general apostasy (vv. 8–10). They are the remnant from which, after all the trials, a new people now grows. The rest are left to their fate (vv. 11–15).
At first glance, God appears utterly merciless in this instance. But it is important to remember that the natural historical life of the Jewish people ended after the Babylonian conquest. By every historical law, Judea and its people should have shared the fate of the many other small states and peoples that vanished after the Babylonian invasion and dissolved in the gigantic melting pot that the Babylonian Empire became for them. If this did not happen, it was only because the faithful remnant, who did not abandon the God of their fathers, managed to preserve their faithfulness throughout decades spent far from their native land and ancestral altars.
For their sake, God intervenes in events, performs a miracle, and gives His remnant a second historical life. Every person who belonged to God's people during that catastrophe faced a choice: enter the remnant or vanish with the people, assimilating and dissolving into Babylon, which was an immense metropolis by the standards of the time. God can do nothing for those who leave: they themselves chose their fate. For His remnant He does everything possible, giving it not only new life but also the Kingdom.