Delusions God Would Choose in Isaiah 66:4 Exegesis
Isaiah 66:4 presents one of the Hebrew Bible's most unsettling declarations: "I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears on them; because when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, they didn't listen; but they did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn't delight" [1]. The verse confronts readers with divine agency in human deception, raising questions about judgment, culpability, and the mechanics of covenant violation.
Literary Context and Structure
Isaiah 66 concludes the book's final section (chapters 40–66), which addresses the Babylonian exile and its aftermath [6]. The immediate context contrasts two groups: those who tremble at God's word (66:2) and those who persist in abominable practices (66:3). Verse 3 catalogs cultic violations—slaughtering oxen alongside human sacrifice, offering lamb's blood while breaking dogs' necks, presenting grain offerings mixed with swine's blood, burning memorial incense while blessing idols. These juxtapositions suggest syncretistic worship, blending legitimate temple ritual with practices forbidden in Levitical law [2]. Verse 4 announces the consequence: God will respond to their choices with choices of his own.
The verse divides into two parallel movements. The first half states divine action ("I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears on them"), while the second provides justification ("because when I called, no one answered"). The structure mirrors the people's behavior back to them: they chose abominations, so God chooses their calamities; they refused to answer, so God brings what they feared.
The Crux: "Their Delusions"
The Hebrew term translated "delusions" carries interpretive weight. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown notes that the word means "vexations" or "calamities" rather than mental deception, arguing that parallelism with "fears" requires this reading [3]. Under this interpretation, God chooses not false beliefs but the very disasters the people sought to prevent through their idolatrous rituals. The translation "choose their calamities" yields the sense: "choose the calamities which they thought to escape by their own ways" [3]. Their protective magic fails, and the feared outcomes arrive as divine judgment.
John Gill, however, takes "delusions" more literally, understanding it as God permitting false teachers and false messiahs to deceive the people [5]. He connects this to the Scribes and Pharisees who appeared righteous but "devoured widows' houses," and to the false Christs who arose after Israel rejected the true Messiah [5]. This reading emphasizes judicial hardening: God allows deception as punishment for prior rejection.
Rashi offers a terse gloss: "and their fears—What they fear" [4], which supports the calamity interpretation without elaborating on mechanism. The ambiguity in the Hebrew permits both readings—God either sends the disasters they feared or permits the delusions they embraced—but the parallelism and broader prophetic pattern favor the former.
Divine Response to Human Choice
The verse's second half grounds divine action in human refusal: "because when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, they didn't listen" [1]. This language echoes Isaiah 65:12, establishing a pattern of divine initiative met with human indifference. The prophetic call-and-response framework appears throughout Isaiah's oracles, where God's word demands acknowledgment and obedience. The people's silence constitutes active rejection, not mere passivity.
The final clause intensifies the indictment: "but they did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn't delight" [1]. The verb "chose" (בָּחַר, bachar) creates deliberate wordplay with God's choice in the verse's opening. They chose evil; God chooses their punishment. The covenant relationship operates on reciprocal terms, and persistent violation triggers covenant curses. The fears they sought to avert through forbidden rituals become the instruments of judgment.
Theological Implications: Divine Hardening
Isaiah 66:4 participates in a broader biblical theme of judicial hardening, where God responds to sustained rebellion by confirming people in their chosen path. This pattern appears in Pharaoh's hardened heart (Exodus 4–14), in the commission of Isaiah himself (Isaiah 6:9-10), and in Paul's discussion of divine wrath giving people over to their desires (Romans 1:24-28). The mechanism is not arbitrary caprice but covenantal consequence: those who persistently refuse God's word find themselves unable to perceive it, and those who choose idols find those idols cannot save.
The verse resists simplistic readings that would make God the author of evil or absolve humans of responsibility. The people's choice precedes and occasions God's choice. Their evil was done "in my eyes" [1], emphasizing divine perspective as the standard they violated. The judgment fits the crime: they sought security through abominations, so God ensures those abominations yield the opposite of security.
Historical Function
In its exilic and post-exilic setting, Isaiah 66:4 would have addressed communities tempted to syncretism or despair. Why had the temple fallen? Why had covenant promises seemingly failed? The prophetic answer: not divine weakness but divine judgment on covenant violation. The people's cultic innovations, far from protecting them, had invited the very disasters they feared. The verse warns against repeating the pattern and calls for exclusive loyalty to YHWH.
Later Jewish interpretation, represented by Rashi's brief comment [4], read the verse within the framework of exile and return, understanding "fears" as the concrete historical calamities that befell Judah. Christian interpretation, exemplified by Gill [5], extended the pattern to the rejection of Christ and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, seeing in the false messiahs and failed revolts the outworking of chosen delusions.
The verse's enduring force lies in its depiction of judgment as the ratification of human choice. God does not impose alien punishments but allows chosen paths to reach their natural conclusions. The delusions—whether understood as calamities or deceptions—are "theirs" because they flow from their own selections. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility interlock: God chooses, but he chooses in response to what they chose first.
Sources
- Isaiah “I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears on them; because when I called, no one answered; when I spoke, they didn’t listen; but they did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.” -- Isaiah 66:4”
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge “Isaiah 65:4 cross-references: Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, Leviticus 11:7, Numbers 19:11, Numbers 19:16, Deuteronomy 14:3, Deuteronomy 14:8, Deuteronomy 14:21, Deuteronomy 18:11, Isaiah 66:3, Isaiah 66:17, Ezekiel 4:14, Zechariah 9:7, Matthew 8:28, Mark 5:2, Luke 8:27”
- Isaiah (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Isaiah 66:4: delusions-- (Th2 2:11), answering to "their own ways" (Isa 66:3; so Pro 1:31). However, the Hebrew means rather "vexations," "calamities," which also the parallelism to "fears" requires; "choose their calamities" means, "choose the calamities which they thought to escape by their own ways." their fears--the things they feared, to avert which their idolatrous "abominations" (Isa 66:3) were practised. I called . . . none . . . answer--(See on Isa 65:12; Isa 65:24; Jer 7:13). did . . . chose--not only did the evil deed, but did it deliberately as a ”
- Sefaria (Jewish (Rabbinic)) “Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki) on Isaiah 66:4: and their fears What they fear.”
- Isaiah (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Isaiah 66:4: I also will choose their delusions,.... Suffer them to approve and make choice of such persons that should delude and deceive them; as the Scribes and Pharisees, who were wolves in sheep's clothing, and through their appearance of sanctity deceived many, and by their long prayers devoured widows' houses; and as these false prophets, so likewise false Christs, many of which arose after the true Messiah was come, and was rejected by them, whom they embraced, and, by whom they were deluded and ruined, Mat 7:15. and will bring their fears upon them; the things they fear”
- Isaiah (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Isaiah 40:1: 40:1–66:24 The rest of Isaiah provides a message of comfort and a revelation of God’s character and his purposes for Israel. As 39:6-7 predicted, Judah would experience judgment and exile after the time of Isaiah. Throughout chs 40–66, Isaiah prophesied from the vantage point of the Exile having already become a reality. Therefore, the Babylonian exile provides the background for understanding these chapters. 40:1–55:13 This section announces the good news of God’s coming salvation. The Lord is coming to vindicate his own and to judge his enemies. Salvation would ”