Isaiah 66:1 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
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?
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
heaven
הַשָּׁמַ֣יִםha.sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
throne
כִּסְאִ֔יkis.'I
H3678
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
earth
וְהָאָ֖רֶץve.ha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · conjunction + definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
footstool
רַגְלָ֑יrag.Lai
H7272
a foot (as used in walking) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix
house
בַ֙יִת֙va.yit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular absolute
build
תִּבְנוּtiv.nu-
H1129
to build (literally and figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
place
מָק֖וֹםma.Kom
H4725
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
rest
מְנוּחָתִֽיme.nu.cha.Ti
H4496
repose or (adverbially) peacefully · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
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
Acts 7:48-50 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,
Acts 17:24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Matthew 5:34-35 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
1 Kings 8:27 But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have b…
Psalms 132:7 We will go into his tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool.
2 Samuel 7:5-7 Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith the LORD, Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in?
John 4:20-21 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
1 Chronicles 28:2 Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 66:1-4
Here, I. The temple is slighted in comparison with a gracious soul, Isa 66:1, Isa 66:2. The Jews in the prophet's time, and afterwards in Christ's time, gloried much in the temple and promised themselves great things from it; to humble them therefore, and to shake their vain confidence, both the prophets and Christ foretold the ruin of the temple, that God would leave it and then it would soon be desolate. After it was destroyed by the Chaldeans it soon recovered itself and the ceremonial services were revived with it; but by the Romans it was made a perpetual desolation, and the ceremonial law was abolished with it. That the world might be prepared for this, they were often told, as here, o…
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 human nature; this is the seat of the divine Majesty, where he in a most illustrious manner displays his glory; and therefore we are to look upwards to God in heaven, and direct all our devotion to him there, and not imagine that he dwells in temples made with hands; or is confined to any place, and much less to any on earth, as the temple at Jerusalem, the Jews boasted of, and trusted in; and which were the unworthy notions they had of God in the times of Christ and his disciples; to confute whic…
This saith Jehovah. This discourse is different from the preceding one; for here the Prophet exclaims against the Jews, who, puffed up with vain confidence in the sacrifices and the temple, indulged freely in their pleasures, and flattered themselves in their sins under this pretense. He shews that this confidence is not only foolish and groundless, but diabolical and accursed; for they grossly mock God who endeavor to serve and appease him by outward ceremonies. Accordingly, he reproaches them with endeavoring to frame an idol in place of God, when they shut him up in the temple. Next, he speaks of the renovation of the Church, and of the extension of it throughout the whole world.
Heaven…
The Church Fathers
He has not even built a house for himself! He has nothing to do with space. Even if it is written that "the heaven is his throne," he is not contained as the words suggest.
In hesitation I turn to Christ, since I am herein seeking him; and I discover how the earth may be worshiped without impiety, how his footstool may be worshiped without impiety. For he took on himself earth from earth, and he received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because he walked here in very flesh and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation, and no one eats that flesh unless he has first worshiped, we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord may be worshiped, and not only that we do not sin in worshiping it but that we sin in not worshiping.
"Heaven is my throne, while the earth is my footstool." … Haven't you also read that other text, "Who measured the heaven with the palm of his hand?" … Whoever sat in the palm of his own hand?…Does the same heaven become wide when he is sitting in it and narrow when he is measuring it? Or is God the same size in his seat as he is in his palm? If that is the case, God did not make us in his own likeness, because we have palms that are much narrower than the part of the body we sit with. But if he is as broad in the palm as he is broad in the beam, then he made very unequal parts for us. No, that is not where the likeness lies. Such an idol should be ashamed of itself in a Christian mind. So then, take "heaven" as standing for all the saints, since earth too stands for all who are on the earth, "Let all the earth worship you."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Footstool — Connected with a throne (2 Chr. 9:18). Jehovah symbolically dwelt in the holy place between the cherubim above the ark of the covenant. The ark was his footstool (1 Chr. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; 132:7). And…
Earth · God’s footstool — God’s footstool
Footstool · .The earth is God’s — .The earth is God’s
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).
Although the note on which this prophecy opens is a different one from any that has yet been struck, there are many points in which it coincides with the preceding prophecy. For not only is Isa 65:12 repeated here in Isa 66:4, but the sharp line of demarcation drawn in chapter 65, between the servants of Jehovah and the worldly majority of the nation with reference to the approaching return to the Holy Land, is continued here. As the idea of their return is associated immediately with that of the erection of a new temple, there is nothing at all to surprise us, after what we have read in Isa 65:8., in the fact that Jehovah expresses His abhorrence at the thought of having a temple built by t…
my throne . . . my footstool: God’s kingdom extends over all creation (see 40:22; Matt 5:34-35). • a temple . . . a resting place: Because the entire universe is God’s dwelling place, humans cannot limit him to a building (see 1 Kgs 8:27). • Stephen quoted Isa 66:1-2a in his last sermon (Acts 7:49-50).
Rashi on Isaiah 66:1
The heavens are My throne I do not need your Temple.
which is the house that is fitting for My Shechinah.
