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Isaías 64

ARC · Chapter 64/66

1Oh! se fendesses os céus, e descesses, se os montes se escoassem de diante da tua face!

2Como o fogo de fundir arde, e o fogo faz ferver as aguas, para fazeres notorio o teu nome aos teus adversarios, e assim as nações tremessem da tua presença!

3Como quando fazias coisas terriveis, quaes nunca esperavamos, quando descias, e os montes se escoavam de diante da tua face.

4Porque desde a antiguidade não se ouviu, nem com ouvidos se percebeu, nem olho viu, fóra de ti, ó Deus, o que ha de fazer áquelle que o espera.

5Saiste ao encontro áquelle que se alegrava e praticava justiça e aos que se lembram de ti nos teus caminhos: eis que te enfureceste, porque peccámos; n'elles ha eternidade, para que sejamos salvos.

6Porém todos nós somos como o immundo, e todas as nossas justiças como trapo da immundicia; e todos nós caimos como a folha, e as nossas culpas como um vento nos arrebatam.

7E já ninguem ha que invoque o teu nome, que se desperte, para pegar de ti; porque escondes de nós o teu rosto, e nos fazes derreter, por causa das nossas iniquidades.

8Porém agora, ó Senhor, tu és nosso Pae: nós o barro, e tu o nosso oleiro; e todos nós a obra das tuas mãos

9Não te enfureças tanto, ó Senhor, nem perpetuamente te lembres da iniquidade: eis, olha, peço-te, todos nós somos o teu povo

10As tuas sanctas cidades estão feitas um deserto: Sião está feita um deserto, Jerusalem está assolada.

11A nossa sancta e gloriosa casa, em que te louvavam nossos paes, foi queimada a fogo; e todas as nossas desejaveis coisas se tornaram em assolação.

12Conter-te-hias tu ainda sobre estas coisas, ó Senhor? ficarias calado, e nos opprimirias tanto?

📖 Chapter study

Summary

An impassioned prayer asking God to "rend the heavens and come down," acknowledging that the whole people has become like something unclean and their good deeds like a "filthy rag." Even so, the people cry out, calling God "Father" and "Potter," asking that he not remember their iniquity forever.

Explanation

The prayer opens with an intense, almost desperate longing for a visible, dramatic intervention from God, "as when the melting fire burneth" — as he did in the past (a reference to the miracles of the Exodus). The confession "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" is one of the most honest and humble statements in all of Scripture about the insufficiency of our own good works before God's holiness. The image of God as "potter" and the people as "clay" (echoing Isaiah 45:9) conveys both humility (the clay does not control its own shape) and hope (a potter can reshape what is broken). The practical application today is that honestly acknowledging our moral limitations, without trying to justify our own works, is the first step toward an authentic relationship with God.

Fun facts

  • The expression "filthy rag" (v. 6) in the original Hebrew refers to cloths used during menstruation, a deliberately shocking image meant to convey just how insufficient even human "good works" are before God's absolute purity.
  • The potter-and-clay metaphor is picked up by Paul in Romans 9:20-21 to discuss God's sovereignty over creation, showing how this image from Isaiah became foundational to Christian theology on the relationship between Creator and creature.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Isaías 64:1The plea for the heavens to open and God to come down is a desperate cry for direct, visible intervention. It’s as if the sky were a fabric that needed to be torn for Him to descend, an image of urgency after so long waiting for an answer.
  2. Isaías 64:2Comparing God’s arrival to fire that makes water boil describes a manifestation powerful enough to cause a reaction even in His adversaries, an image of power so obvious no one could ignore it.
  3. Isaías 64:3“Terrible things which we looked not for” recalls past, surprising interventions of God, probably including the Exodus, as grounds for expecting something similar again.
  4. Isaías 64:4“Neither hath the eye seen” describes an action of God so far beyond common experience that no one has ever witnessed anything like it, reserved specifically for those who wait for Him with patience.
  5. Isaías 64:5“In those is continuance” is a notoriously hard phrase to translate, but the verse’s central idea is that God meets whoever practices righteousness, even while acknowledging that wrath also arose because of the people’s sin.
  6. Isaías 64:6Filthy rag translates an expression that in the original Hebrew refers to a cloth used during ritual impurity. The comparison is deliberately harsh: even the people’s good deeds are described as worthless given the situation they’re in.
  7. Isaías 64:7“There is none that calleth upon thy name” laments the people’s lack of spiritual initiative, and God’s hidden face is described as the direct consequence of that distance, not as arbitrary abandonment.
  8. Isaías 64:8The image of clay and the potter repeats what already appeared in chapter 45: clay doesn’t choose the shape it’s given, so there’s no room to complain about the result. Here it’s used not as an accusation, but as an appeal of trust amid the despair of exile.
  9. Isaías 64:9The plea for God not to remember “iniquity” forever appeals to the ongoing relationship between God and His people, using their very identity of belonging, “we are all thy people,” as the argument for the plea.
  10. Isaías 64:10Calling Zion and Jerusalem “a wilderness” and “a desolation” describes the city’s real destruction after the Babylonian conquest, the concrete scene behind this whole lament.
  11. Isaías 64:11The mention of “our holy and our beautiful house” burned with fire refers to the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple by the Babylonians in 586 BC, a loss that sums up the scale of the tragedy lamented in the chapter.
  12. Isaías 64:12The final question, whether God will keep silent through all this, closes the lament with no immediate answer, leaving the plea open for the next chapter, which already brings a divine response.

Chapters

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