Isaiah 66:5

"Hear the word of Jehovah, ye that tremble at his word: Your brethren that hate you, and cast you out for my name's sake, have said, Let Jehovah be glorified, that we may see your joy; but it is they that shall be put to shame. A voice of tumult from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of Jehovah that rendereth recompense to his enemies."

An outstanding thing here is that, "These verses presuppose a schism within the Jewish community, with the faithful believers being persecuted and cast out by their own brethren."[8] There is nothing new about this development; throughout Isaiah, the two Israels of God have been clearly visible.

This prophecy, without any doubt, applies to the total destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., whether or not there might have been earlier applications. The mention of the temple, however, points strongly to the Roman destruction. Kelley also observed that the voice of Jehovah coming from the temple "emphasized that those being judged were the Israelites."[9] This, of course, is true. That destruction signaled the end of the Jewish nation for a period of about two millenniums, a cessation forever of the daily sacrifices, the total and final destruction of their temple, the end of their government, and the physical death of more than a million of the people. There is no wonder that Peter referred to that event as "the end of all things" (1 Peter 4:7); and as far as the Jewish Dispensation was concerned, it surely was!

"These verses are an address to the pious and persecuted part of the nation (that is, the righteous remnant); and it is designed for their comfort and consolation, and contains the assurance that God would appear in their behalf."[10] In that terrible destruction of Jerusalem to which we have applied the passage, God did indeed appear upon behalf of the saints; and he made it possible for every Christian to escape with his life, before the city was ravaged. (See the full discussion of this in Vol. 1 (Matthew) of my New Testament Series of Commentaries, pp. 386,387.)

Isaiah's reference here to brothers persecuting brothers, "Is one of the earliest allusions to purely religious persecution and theological hatred. The intolerance of Isaiah 66:5 was acted out, almost to the letter, in John 9:24,34,"[11] in the record of the man born blind.

What we have in these verses is a continuation of what Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 13.