Isaiah 64

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¹Oh, that You would tear open the heavens and come down, That the mountains would quake at Your presence— ✦ ²As fire kindles brushwood, as fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence! ✦ ³When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. ✦ ⁴For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of one who waits for Him. ✦ ⁵You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, We continued in our sins for a long time; Yet shall we be saved? ✦ ⁶For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our wrongdoings, like the wind, take us away. ✦ ⁷There is no one who calls on Your name, Who stirs himself to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us And have surrendered us to the power of our wrongdoings. ✦ ⁸¶But now, Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter, And all of us are the work of Your hand. ✦ ⁹Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord, Nor remember wrongdoing forever. Behold, please look, all of us are Your people. ✦ ¹⁰Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. ✦ ¹¹Our holy and beautiful house, Where our fathers praised You, Has been burned by fire; And all our precious things have become a ruin. ✦ ¹²Will You restrain Yourself at these things, Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure? ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Ps 79 ·5 Isa 63 ·5 Ps 74 ·4 Hab 3 ·4 Isa 59 ·3 Lam 1 ·3 1 Kgs 8 ·3 Isa 57 ·3

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 64 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 64YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 64David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 64Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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