Isaiah 66:17-24: a reflection

17“Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go to the gardens, following one in the middle, eating pig’s meat, abominable things, and the mouse, they shall come to an end together,” says the LORD. 18“For I know their works and their thoughts. The time comes that I will gather all nations and languages, and they will come, and will see my glory. 19“I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20They 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. 21Of them I will also select priests and Levites,” says the LORD. 22“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,” says the LORD, “so your offspring and your name shall remain. 23It shall happen that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before me,” says the LORD. 24“They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

The chapter that closes Isaiah opens a vast horizon. God declares that the time is coming when he will gather all nations and languages, and they will come and see his glory. From peoples who had never heard his name, he will send messengers to distant coasts, and they will declare his glory among the nations. What began with one people becomes a gathering of the whole world.

Even more striking, God says he will take some of these gathered peoples and make them priests and Levites, servants in his own house. He promises new heavens and a new earth in which his people and their name will endure, where all flesh will come from Sabbath to Sabbath to worship before him. The long story of Israel opens out into a future large enough for every nation to find a place before God.

The book ends on a solemn note as well, a sober picture of the ruin that comes to those who set themselves against God. Isaiah will not let us imagine that rejecting God is without consequence. Hold both together: the wide welcome and the real warning. Let the vision of nations streaming to worship enlarge your hope and your prayers, and let the warning keep you humble and reverent before the God whose glory fills the whole earth.

Lord, you promise to gather all nations to see your glory and even to make servants in your house of those once far off. Enlarge my hope and my prayers to match that vision. Keep me humble and reverent before your holiness, and let me be among those who come from Sabbath to Sabbath to worship you, in the new creation you are making. Amen.