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The word 'abhorring' in Isaiah 66:24 occurs but once more in the
Scriptures, namely in Daniel 12:2 where it is translated 'contempt', and will
be the fate of those not found 'written in the book' as in Revelation 20:15
and 21:27. During the siege of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 we learn from Josephus
that 110,000 of Israel perished, and that many were thrown over the walls
into the gorge, and we know that Gehenna was situated in just such a place
and into this fire and brimstone the carcases of criminals were thrown. What
took place at the siege of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 may foreshadow what will
again take place in the last days. See for further notes the article on Lake
of Fire, page 41.
Everything written in Revelation 21, Isaiah 65 and 66 presents us with
an apparent contradiction. No death, yet carcases; no crying, yet carcases,
premature death, no more curse, yet some being accursed. How can these
things be?
The answer is awaiting us at the close of Isaiah 65.
The millennial
conditions are still there:
'The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat
straw like the bullock' (Isa. 65:25).
The prophecy of Genesis 3:14 is 'God said unto the serpent ... and dust
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life', and at the selfsame time that the
wolf and the lamb shall feed together, Isaiah 65 adds,
'Dust shall be the serpent's meat' (25).
To feed on ashes, to lick the dust, to be brought to dust, for the dust
to be turned into brimstone (Psa. 72:9; Isa. 49:23), 'to lick the dust like a
serpent' (Micah 7:17), are all recognized figures of speech, that are
concentrated in one verse of Revelation, namely in Revelation 20:10:
'And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be
tormented day and night for ever and ever' (or unto the ages of the
ages).
That this lake of fire, second death, torment, feeding on ashes, goes
on beyond the Millennial kingdom into the new heaven and the new earth, is
inescapable. The apparent contradiction however is solved by the closing
sentence of Isaiah 65:25:
'They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the
Lord'.
The holy mountain of the Lord is not the whole wide earth. Jerusalem
will be newly created and a centre of light and truth surrounded by the rest
of the earth, occupied by the nations that survive the decimation of the time
of the end. Isaiah himself has told us what will take place:
'And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the
Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and
shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will