Isaiah 51:6 - Exposition

Lift up your eyes to the heavens . Look to that which seems to you most stable and most certain to endure—the vast firmament of the heavens, and the solid earth beneath it, of which God "bears up the pillars" ( Psalms 125:3 ). Both these, and man too, are in their nature perishable, and will vanish away and cease to be. But God, and his power to save, and his eternal law of right, can never pass away, but must endure for evermore. Let Israel be sure that the righteous purposes of God with respect to their own deliverance from Babylon, and to the conversion of the Gentiles, stand firm, and that they will most certainly be accomplished. The heavens shall vanish away like smoke (comp. Psalms 102:26 ; Matthew 24:35 ; 2 Peter 3:10-12 ). And the earth shall wax old like a garment. So also in Psalms 102:26 and Hebrews 1:11 . The new heaven and new earth promised by Isaiah ( Isaiah 65:17 ; Isaiah 66:22 ), St. Peter ( 2 Peter 3:13 ), and St. John ( Revelation 21:1 ) are created in the last times, because "the first heaven and the first earth have passed away." They that dwell therein shall die in like manner. Dr. Kay observes that the Hebrew text does not say, "in like manner," but "as in like manner.'' Man is not subject to the same law of perishableness as the external world, but to a different law. External things simply "pass away" and are no more. Man disappears from the earth, but continues to exist somewhere. He has, by God's gift, a life that is to be unceasing.