Isaiah 65:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 65:9
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person feminine singular
servants
וַעֲבָדַ֖יva.'a.va.Dai
H5650
a servant · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
dwell
יִשְׁכְּנוּyish.ke.nu-
H7931
to reside or permanently stay (literally or figurativel… · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Amos 9:11-15 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I…
Isaiah 27:6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
Romans 11:5-7 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Isaiah 10:20-22 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay u…
Isaiah 11:11-16 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which sh…
Isaiah 32:18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places;
Isaiah 45:19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteous…
Isaiah 65:15 And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 65:8-10
This is expounded by St. Paul, Rom 11:1-5, where, when, upon occasion of the rejection of the Jews, it is asked, Hath God then cast away his people? he answers, No; for at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. This prophecy has reference to that distinguished remnant. When that hypocritical nation is to be destroyed God will separate and secure to himself some from among them; some of the Jews shall be brought to embrace the Christian faith, shall be added to the church, and so be saved. And our Saviour has told us that for the sake of these elect the days of the destruction of the Jews should be shortened, and a stop put to the desolation, which otherwise would ha…
seed--"the holy seed" (Isa 6:13), a posterity from Jacob, designed to repossess the Holy Land, forfeited by the sin of the former Jews.
my mountains--Jerusalem and the rest of Judea, peculiarly God's (compare Isa 2:2; Isa 11:9; Isa 14:32).
it--the Holy Land.
elect-- (Isa 65:15, Isa 65:22).
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 65:9
An inheritor of my mountains "An inheritor of my mountain" - הרי hari, in the singular number; so the Septuagint and Syriac; that is, of Mount Sion. See Isa 65:11 and Isa 56:7, to which Sion, the pronoun feminine singular, added to the verb in the next line, refers; ירשוה yereshuah, "shall inherit her." - L.
John Gill on Isaiah 65:9
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob,.... Jerom says most understand this of Christ; and who indeed is called the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, and sprang from Jacob or Israel, and came out of the tribe of Judah; and may be fitly signified by the cluster, in which new wine and a blessing were, which "seed" here is explanative of; since the clusters of all divine perfections, of all the blessings of grace, and of all the promises of it, are in him: and since he is that seed in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed, and with whom the covenant of grace was made, Galatians 3:16, but others, the above ancient writer observes, understood it of the apostle…
The Church Fathers
Those who have attained the summit of perfection have as their harbor not life, or the resurrection or any of these admirable things but the desired One himself, for whose sake they counted misfortune a delight, and weary toil the sweetest repose, and time spent in the desert more desirable than city life, and poverty fairer than wealth and irksome slavery sweeter than any position of authority. This is the reward awaited by the doers of virtue. "It is an inheritance for those who serve God," as the prophet Isaiah exclaims.
The holy Scripture often calls the church "the holy mountain" whose lesser part came from Israel. For if Israel had received the faith that is in our Lord Jesus Christ, they would have formed the greater part of the church's composition, and the multitude of the nations would have been added to them. But because they did not believe, they became the lesser of the two. The nations became greater, while Israel became quite small. For the remnant will be saved. Therefore they inherit a small portion in the holy mountain, that is, the church.
(Verse 9) And I will bring forth offspring from Jacob, and from Judah those who possess my mountains; my chosen ones will inherit it, and my servants will dwell there. They will pasture their flocks in the open fields and find rest in the valley of Achor, for my people who have sought me. He who above called the grape of the goblet, or the berry, or (as many wills) the cluster, now calls it the seed of Jacob and Judah, who possess the mountains or its mountain. Many understand the seed of Jacob and Judah to mean Christ, of whom it is said in Genesis: Judah, your brothers shall praise you (Gen. XLIX, 8), and so on. For no one doubts that the Savior was born from the lineage of Judah. Others, however, understand it to mean the Apostles, of whom we have often said: A remnant will be saved (Isai. I, 9). And: Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah (Rom. IX, 29). They have possessed the mountain of the Lord conscious of dwelling in Christ, saying: We have come to Mount Zion and the heavenly city of the living God, Jerusalem (Heb. XII, 22). Or its mountains, of which it is sung in the Psalms: Mountains surround it, and the Lord surrounds his people (Psalm CXXIV, 2). And: His foundations are in the holy mountains (Psalm 86:1). But the elect of the Lord shall possess Zion, and they shall dwell in it, his servants. Of whom it is written in the same volume: The seed of Abraham, his servants, the sons of Jacob, his elect (Psalm 105:6). Therefore, whoever is still seed, not yet formed into a son, is a servant of the Lord, to whom he says in the Gospel: I know that you are the seed of Abraham, but you are not yet sons (John 8). For if they were Abraham's seed, they would do the works of Abraham. But the one who is a son, he is also chosen by the Lord. Therefore the chosen one possesses Jerusalem, and the servants dwell in it, and it is said that there is a distinction between the sons and servants: You have not received again the spirit of bondage in fear, but the spirit of adoption (Rom. VIII, 15). And it shall be, he says, fields or forests for sheepfolds. In Hebrew, it is called Sharon for fields. Every region around Lydda, Joppa, and Jamnia is suitable for grazing flocks. Concerning this, it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: 'The wilderness will turn into pastures' (Acts 9), as it is also…
Dictionary and topics
Cattle — Abounded in the Holy Land. To the rearing and management of them the inhabitants chiefly devoted themselves (Deut. 8:13; 12:21; 1 Sam. 11:5; 12:3; Ps. 144:14; Jer. 3:24). They may be classified as,…
Condescension Of God · Expostulates with backsliding Israel — Expostulates with backsliding Israel
Election · Ensures to saints: The inheritance — Ensures to saints: The inheritance
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob. He explains the preceding verse by other words, and shews that the Lord wishes to reserve for himself some "seed" that shall call upon him; for the Lord is wont to chastise his people in such a manner as to determine that the Church shall exist, in which his truth and the pure religion may be preserved, and which Paul for that very reason calls "the pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Timothy 3:15.) We must not, therefore, judge of the Church from the present condition of things, (for nothing in this world can be permanent,) but from the purpose of God, which will not suffer it to be overturned or destroyed. This ought to be carefully remembered by…
As the word ri'shōnâh (first of all) has clearly intimated that the work of the future will not all consist in the execution of penal justice, there is no abruptness in the transition from threatening to promises. "Thus saith Jehovah, As when the must is found in the cluster, men say, Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing within it, so will I do for the sake of my servants, that I may not destroy the whole. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and an heir of my mountains out of Judah, and my chosen ones shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there." Of the two co-ordinate clauses of the protasis (Isa 65:8), the first contains the necessary condition of the second. Hattı̄…
The Lord planned to spare and reward a remnant of righteous people.
Rashi on Isaiah 65:8
As when wine is found in the cluster Jonathan renders: As Noah was found innocent in the generation of the Flood.
the wine This is Noah, who was sweet.
in the cluster Heb. בָּאֶשְׁכּוֹל. In the bereft (הַמְשֻׁכָּל) generation. This may also be interpreted according to its apparent meaning.
for the sake of My servants For the sake of every righteous man found among them.
