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Isaiah 66 · a question people ask

"What kind of house will you build to me?" (66:1). Is the LORD turning away from the temple?

In the text

The verse asks, "What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest?" (66:1), and the next verse goes on, "For my hand has made all these things" (66:2). The same chapter still speaks of the temple and the LORD's house: "a voice from the temple" (66:6) (tap temple), and "as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel into the LORD’s house" (66:20). At the house's dedication Solomon said, "But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27). The chapter sets 66:1's question and the house of 66:6 and 66:20 in one chapter, and doesn't say how they fit together; these notes don't either. The go-deeper sets out where Stephen quotes 66:1-2.

The verses

“The LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build to me? Where will I rest? For my hand has made all these things, and so all these things came to be,” says the LORD: “but I will look to this man, even to he who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.”
Isaiah 66:1-2 · World English Bible
“A voice of tumult from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that repays his enemies what they deserve.”
Isaiah 66:6 · World English Bible
“They shall bring all your brothers out of all the nations for an offering to the LORD, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on camels, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel into the LORD’s house.”
Isaiah 66:20 · World English Bible
“But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!”
1 Kings 8:27 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 66

Isaiah 66: Heaven is my throne

In Isaiah 66 the one whose throne is heaven says whom he looks to: "he who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word" (66:2), where contrite is a Hebrew word used elsewhere only of a man "lame in his feet" (2 Samuel 9:3). And the book's last comfort is the LORD's own: "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you" (66:13).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions