Judgment and Salvation
Isaiah 65:1-16
Understanding Series
by John Goldingay

Yahweh’s Closing Critique and Vision: In these last two chapters of the book, once more we cannot discern an order or structure. The succession of phrases that look like introductions to prophecies (65:8, 13, 25; 66:1, 5, 12, 22) and the movement between verse and prose suggest that here it is not because a prophet let a stream of consciousness have its way. It is, rather, because a number of separate prophecies have been accumulated at the end of the book. These different prophecies have overlapping themes, and this has presumably contributed to the arrangement. The prophecies also have a number of points of contact with 56:1–59:8, and this may have contributed to their placement here in the chiasm that comprises chapters 56–66 as a whole. Further, the way they rework images such as heave…

Baker Publishing Group, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series, by John Goldingay