Isaiah 56:1-8 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Isaiah 56:1-8. Let’s go!
Isaiah 56:1-2 (NIV)
1 This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this, the man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
On verses 1-2: In Isaiah 55, Isaiah has just announced God’s open invitation to everyone to come and freely receive the forgiveness, mercy and freedom that He makes possible. You would think that this would be a fitting way to end the book of Isaiah. Yet the book of Isaiah continues on for 10 more chapters dealing with various topics, two of the biggest being what God expects of His people now and what God will do at the very end of time.
It’s as if God is saying to the people reading the book of Isaiah that (1) though we cannot meet God’s standards of holiness on our own strength (which in many ways is the message of Isaiah 1-39) and (2) though God saves us in ways that we could not earn (the message of Isaiah 40-55), (3) God still expects His people to live as righteously as they can and not to treat God’s grace as a licence for immorality. So chapter 55 ushers in the third and final big section of the book of Isaiah with these words “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed”.
In other words, God wants us to live justly and to do right not as a way to earn God’s salvation and righteousness, but as a response to the salvation and righteousness that God has freely given to us.
Another way to look at the whole book of Isaiah is that Isaiah 1-39 is about what happened before God’s people became exiles, Isaiah 40-55 is about God’s messages to His people while they are exiles, and Isaiah 56-66 is God’s messages to His people after their exile is over.
Isaiah 56:3-5 (NIV)
3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”
4 For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant–
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
On verses 3-5: In verses 3-8 God speaks to two groups that the Jewish exiles would have had some questions about: foreigners and eunuchs. We’ll deal with foreigners as part of verses 6-8. Let’s first deal with eunuchs. In Isaiah’s time, when one nation conquered another nation, the conquering nation would take the citizens of the conquered nation and either exterminate them or take them as captives. If they chose to take them as captives, to prevent the captives from multiplying and becoming a threat, they would either kill the male captives (as Pharaoh did with the Jews in Exodus) or turn the male captives into eunuchs by mutilating and removing their sexual organs. Some scholars believe that this is what happened to exiles like Daniel and Nehemiah while in Babylon.
Given this background, one question the Jewish exiles would naturally ask is, “When we go back to Jerusalem, can the eunuchs go back with us? Doesn’t Deuteronomy 23:1 say that eunuchs are not allowed in God’s temple?” God gives His response to those questions in verses 4-5. His response is basically that the eunuchs can come back to Jerusalem and enter God’s temple on one condition: that they “choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant” (v4). God is essentially saying: “I don’t look at the person’s physical appearance. I look at his inner spirit and the condition of his heart.”
What I find beautiful about verse 5 is what God says He will do for eunuchs who choose to please Him. Knowing that eunuchs were unable to have children by whom they could be remembered after they are gone, God says that He will find another way for these eunuchs to be remembered forever: God is going to write their names on the walls of the temple, such that theirs will be an everlasting name (v5). Don’t you love the personal, sensitive and thoughtful way that God ministers to people’s deepest hurts?
Isaiah 56:6-8 (NIV)
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant–
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
8 The Sovereign LORD declares– he who gathers the exiles of Israel: “I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.”
On verses 6-8: The second group that God addresses is foreigners. While the Jewish people were exiles in Babylon, some of them would still carry on worshiping Yahweh, though without a temple. In a culture where paganism ruled the land, there must have been some Babylonians and other Gentiles (non-Jewish people) living in Babylon who were attracted to the purity of the Jewish faith and would ask to join the Jews in their worship. Could these foreigners return to Jerusalem with the Jewish exiles, even when foreigners were not considered to be part of God’s chosen people? Here in verses 6-7 God answers that question. God basically says to foreigners, “I don’t exclude you. As long as you hold fast to my covenant, you can be part of my house of prayer as well.”
That’s why God says in verse 7 that his house will be a called “a house of prayer for all nations.” In fact, they say that by the time Jesus was born, the temple had been rebuilt in Jerusalem and the biggest court in the temple was called the Court of the Gentiles. It goes to show that Gentiles have a place in God’s heart and in God’s house as well.
From what Isaiah 56 says about eunuchs and foreigners, we can learn at least two important lessons:
1. God has a heart for people from every nation. God’s heart is not only for the Jewish people, but for all peoples. His house is “a house of prayer for all nations” (v7). God wants all people everywhere, from every nation, to bind themselves to Him.
2. With God there is no favoritism. The message of Isaiah 56 is that as long as you keep God’s covenant, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Gentile, a Jew, or a eunuch; you have a place in God’s house. For God it is not about your ancestry, your culture or your sex. What counts is: do you keep God’s covenant?
The New Testament would later build on this understanding: since none of us can keep God’s covenant in our own power, Jesus came and kept God’s covenant on our behalf such that every single one of us, by trusting in Jesus’ work and not our own, can be part of God’s house.
Thank You Father that no matter who we are or where we come from, we can all be a part of Your house through Your Son Jesus Christ. For You do not focus on the appearance of things; You focus on the heart. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
