Isaiah 65:18

But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) I create Jerusalem . . .—From the prophet’s stand-point, as elsewhere, both in 1 and 2 Isaiah, the earthly city, transformed and transfigured, occupies the central place in the new creation. In the New Testament we note the transfer of the promise to the unseen eternal city, the Jerusalem which is above (Galatians 4:26; Revelation 21:10).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

65:17-25 In the grace and comfort believers have in and from Christ, we are to look for this new heaven and new earth. The former confusions, sins and miseries of the human race, shall be no more remembered or renewed. The approaching happy state of the church is described under a variety of images. He shall be thought to die in his youth, and for his sins, who only lives to the age of a hundred years. The event alone can determine what is meant; but it is plain that Christianity, if universal, would so do away violence and evil, as greatly to lengthen life. In those happy days, all God's people shall enjoy the fruit of their labours. Nor will children then be the trouble of their parents, or suffer trouble themselves. The evil dispositions of sinners shall be completely moritified; all shall live in harmony. Thus the church on earth shall be full of happiness, like heaven. This prophecy assures the servants of Christ, that the time approaches, wherein they shall be blessed with the undisturbed enjoyment of all that is needful for their happiness. As workers together with God, let us attend his ordinances, and obey his commands.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But be ye glad and rejoice - (See the notes at Isaiah 51:11).

Forever - It is not to be momentary happiness - like a bright morning that is soon overcast with clouds. The joy of God's people is to endure for ever, and they shall have ceaseless cause of praise and thanksgiving.

I create Jerusalem a rejoicing - A source of rejoicing; or a place of rejoicing.

And her people a joy - That is, in themselves joyful, and a source of joy to all others. The idea is, that the church would be a place of the highest happiness, and that they who were redeemed would have occasion of perpetual joy. The Saviour did not come to minister gloom, nor is the true effect of religion to make his people melancholy. Religion produces seriousness; but seriousness is not inconsistent with permanent happiness. Religion produces deep thought and soberness of deportment and conversation; but this is not inconsistent with a heart at ease, or with a good conscience, or with permanent joy. Religion fills the mind with hope of eternal life; and the highest happiness which the soul can know must be in connection with the prospect of unchanging blessedness beyond the grave.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. rejoice for ever … Jerusalem—(Isa 51:11). "Everlasting joy … Zion." Spiritually (1Th 5:16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

You that are my people, though you cannot rejoice with that degree of joy that attendeth a present fruition of good; yet be glad, and rejoice with the

rejoicing of hope, for the thing is certain what I am already doing. Nor let your present state, or the discouragements you have from seeming improbabilities, spoil your joy; for it is not a work to be produced in an ordinary course, or by an ordinary power, but by the power of me, who bring something out of nothing, or out of what hath no fittedness to such a production; and I will create

Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy: by Jerusalem here must be meant the church, as well under the gospel as under the law (because the gospel church is grafted into that olive); or else this prophecy must be understood as fulfilled in the coming of Christ, Luke 2:10; or else it referreth to a more full calling of the Jews than we have yet seen or heard of.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But be you glad, and rejoice for ever in that which I create,.... This may refer either to persons converted, both at the beginning of the Gospel, and in the latter day, whether Jews or Gentiles; who are the Lord's creation, or new creatures, being made new men; having new hearts and spirits given them, or created within them; new principles of life, light, grace, and holiness, wrought in them, which are the produce of almighty and creating power; and all such instances are matter of joy, as to the angels in heaven, so to the saints on earth, and especially to the ministers of the Gospel; because of the grace bestowed on men, the glory brought to God, and their own ministry blessed and succeeded, and so their hands and hearts strengthened: or else this refers to the state of things under the Gospel dispensation, in every age of it, and especially in some periods of it, particularly the first and last; and the whole indeed is a new world or state of God's creating, and is matter of joy to all the people of God. The Targum renders it,

"rejoice in the world of worlds, which I:create:''

agreeably to which is the version of Bishop Chandler (g),

"rejoice for the age to come, that I create;''

the world to come, Hebrews 2:5, which Christ is said to be the father of, in the Septuagint version of Isaiah 9:6, the Gospel dispensation, the Messiah's future world, as opposed to the legal dispensation.

For, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy; that is, do that for them, through the mighty power of his grace, as will justly occasion joy to them, and to all others well affected to them; the conversion of the Jews will be matter of joy to the Gentiles; and that, and the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles, as well as the destruction of antichrist, which will occasion a new face of things in the world, will be matter of joy to the whole church; see Revelation 18:20.

(g) Defence of Christianity, c. 2. sect. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. I create Jerusalem a rejoicing &c.] i.e. either an object in which one may rejoice (Isaiah 65:19, ch. Isaiah 60:15) or an abode of joy (ch. Isaiah 51:3, Isaiah 61:7).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - I create Jerusalem (comp. Revelation 21:2, "I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband"). The description which follows in vers. 11, 12 is quite unlike that of the old Jerusalem. A rejoicing. The "new Jerusalem" was to be from the first all joy and rejoicing - a scene of perpetual gladness. Her people also was to be "a joy" or "a delight," since God would delight in them (ver. 19). Isaiah 65:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The fact that they have thus passed away is now still further explained; the prophet heaping up one kı̄ (for) upon another, as in Isaiah 9:3-5. "For behold I create a new heaven and a new earth; and men will not remember the first, nor do they come to any one's mind. No, be ye joyful and exult for ever at that which I:create: for behold I turn Jerusalem into exulting, and her people into joy. And I shall exult over Jerusalem, and be joyous over my people, and the voice of weeping and screaming will be heard in her no more." The promise here reaches its culminating point, which had already been seen from afar in Isaiah 51:16. Jehovah creates a new heaven and a new earth, which bind so fast with their glory, and which so thoroughly satisfy all desires, that there is no thought of the former ones, and no one wishes them back again. Most of the commentators, from Jerome to Hahn, suppose the ri'shōnōth in Isaiah 65:16 to refer to the former sorrowful times. Calvin says, "The statement of the prophet, that there will be no remembrance of former things, is supposed by some to refer to the heaven and the earth, as if he meant, that henceforth neither the fame nor even the name of either would any more be heard; but I prefer to refer them to the former times." But the correctness of the former explanation is shown by the parallel in Jeremiah 3:16, which stands in by no means an accidental relation to this passage, and where it is stated that in the future there will be no ark of the covenant, "neither shall it come to mind, neither shall they remember it," inasmuch as all Jerusalem will be the throne of Jehovah, and not merely the capporeth with its symbolical cherubim. This promise is also a glorious one; but Jeremiah and all the other prophets fall short of the eagle-flight of Isaiah, of whom the same may be said as of John, "volat avis sine meta." Luther (like Zwingli and Stier) adopts the correct rendering, "that men shall no more remember the former ones (i.e., the old heaven and old earth), nor take it to heart." But ‛âlâh ‛al-lēbh signifies to come into the mind, not "to take to heart," and is applied to a thing, the thought of which "ascends" within us, and with which we are inwardly occupied. There is no necessity to take the futures in Isaiah 65:17 as commands (Hitzig); for אם־שׂישׂוּ כּי (כי with muach, as in Ven. 1521, after the Masora to Numbers 35:33) fits on quite naturally, even if we take them as simple predictions. Instead of such a possible, though not actual, calling back and wishing back, those who survive the new times are called upon rather to rejoice for ever in that which Jehovah is actually creating, and will have created then. אשׁר, if not regarded as the accusative-object, is certainly regarded as the object of causality, "in consideration of that which" (cf., Isaiah 31:6; Genesis 3:17; Judges 8:15), equivalent to, "on account of that which" (see at Isaiah 64:4; Isaiah 35:1). The imperatives sı̄sū vegı̄lū are not words of admonition so much as words of command, and kı̄ gives the reason in this sense: Jehovah makes Jerusalem gı̄lâh and her people mâsōs (accusative of the predicate, or according to the terminology adopted in Becker's syntax, the "factitive object," Ges. 139, 2), by making joy its perpetual state, its appointed condition of life both inwardly and outwardly. Nor is it joy on the part of the church only, but on the part of its God as well (see the primary passages in Deuteronomy 30:9). When the church thus rejoices in God, and God in the church, so that the light of the two commingle, and each is reflected in the other; then will no sobbing of weeping ones, no sound of lamentation, be heard any more in Jerusalem (see the opposite side as expressed in Isaiah 51:3).