What does Isaias Chapter 56 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Justice and sabbath observance frame the blessings. Eunuchs and adhering strangers receive expressly conditional promises. Blind watchmen and self-seeking shepherds contrast with the house of prayer.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 56 commands judgment and justice before approaching salvation. Blessing concerns sabbath preservation and hands kept from evil. The adhering stranger is not to predict exclusion, nor the eunuch call himself a dry tree. Eunuchs keeping sabbaths, choosing what pleases and holding covenant receive a place and name better than sons and daughters within God's house and walls, never perishing.

Strangers adhering to worship, love and service, keeping sabbath and covenant, are brought to the holy mountain and made joyful in prayer's house. Their offerings please upon the altar; the house is called prayer's house for all nations. The gatherer of scattered Israel continues gathering a congregation. The promise's stated conditions are retained without a general declaration abolishing every historical social or ceremonial rule.

Field and forest beasts are called to devour. Watchmen are blind and ignorant, like dumb dogs unable to bark, seeing vain things and loving sleep and dreams. Insatiable, impudent dogs and uncomprehending shepherds turn each to gain. The final invitation to wine and drunkenness promises tomorrow as today and more. A completed lavish feast or clinical addiction is not supplied; the edition's pastor interpretation remains attributed.

The story inside

Opening: Justice and sabbath observance frame the blessings. Development: Eunuchs and adhering strangers receive expressly conditional promises. Conclusion: Blind watchmen and self-seeking shepherds contrast with the house of prayer.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Justice and sabbath observance frame the blessings.
2
Eunuchs and adhering strangers receive expressly conditional promises.
3
Blind watchmen and self-seeking shepherds contrast with the house of prayer.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 83128–83133
56:1. Thus saith the Lord: Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my justice to be revealed. 56:2. Blessed is the man that doth this, and the son of man that shall lay hold on this: that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, that keepeth his hands from doing any evil.
Lines 83135–83145
56:3. And let not the son of the stranger, that adhereth to the Lord, speak, saying: The Lord will divide and separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say: Behold I am a dry tree. 56:4. For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, They that shall keep my sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall hold fast my covenant: 56:5. I will give to them in my house, and within my walls, a place, and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name which shall never perish.
Lines 83147–83155
56:6. And the children of the stranger that adhere to the Lord, to worship him, and to love his name, to be his servants: every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and that holdeth fast my covenant: 56:7. I will bring them into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations.
Lines 83157–83158
56:8. The Lord God, who gathereth the scattered of Israel, saith: I will still gather unto him his congregation.
Lines 83163–83171
56:10. His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams. 56:11. And most impudent dogs, they never had enough: the shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last. 56:12. Come, let us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness: and it shall be as to day, so also to morrow, and much more.