B

66:1 -6.

c

d

Tremble at word.

e  Abominations offered.

d

Tremble at word.

c

B

66:7 -21.

c

Travail, nation born.

d

Chariots -- flames of fire.

e  Abominations offered.

d

Chariots -- Israel restored.

e  Offering in a clean vessel.

c

Priests and Levites taken.

A

66:22 -24.

a

Seed remains.

b  Worship.

All flesh.

Evil seed

'No more

I make

a

b  Abhorring.  All flesh.

or 'Tares'.

So at the end we have the new heavens and new earth, the Holy Mountain

on which none shall hurt nor destroy, the nation born at once, the chosen

people regathered, a clean offering unto the Lord, and all flesh from one new

moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, coming up to worship the

Lord at Jerusalem.

Side by side with this blessed state we have the sinner accursed, dying

an hundred years old; the serpent doomed to feed on dust; the abominable

offerings detailed in Isaiah 66:3 and 17, and the abhorring unto all flesh of

the carcases being destroyed in Gehenna.

'O Jerusalem, City of the Lord, Mother eagerly desired of her children,

radiant light to them that sit in darkness, and are far off, home after

exile, haven after storm, -- expected as the Lord's garner, thou art

still to be only His threshing floor, and heaven and hell as of old

shall, from new moon to new moon, through the revolving years, lie side

by side within thy narrow walls!  For from the day that Araunah the

Jebusite threshed out his sheaves upon thy high windswept rock to the

day when the Son of Man standing over thee divided in His last

discourse the sheep from the goats, the wise from the foolish, and the

loving from the selfish, thou hast been appointed of God for trial and

separation and judgment' (Geo. Adam Smith).

'The end is not yet'.  The ancient Hebrew prophets saw as far as this,

but knew there was much more.  The phrase, we meet at times in the Old

Testament translation, 'for ever and ever'.  The Hebrew L'olam va ed,

literally means 'unto the age and beyond', and is a vivid testimony to their

expectation.  Not until we enter the New Testament, and traverse its entire

length, not until we ascend up beyond the heavens, and above the New

Jerusalem, beyond the thousand year reign, not until we reach that day when

God shall be all in all, will the goal of the ages be attained.  Isaiah in

his vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem has taken us some distance on the

way; we are indeed glad for all the bright future that it predicts.  We

rejoice in its glorious testimony to an accepted sacrifice and a victorious

Redeemer, but Isaiah is mainly concerned with one sphere of blessing, the