Isaiah 56 Footnotes

56:3-7 The Lord’s word to Isaiah here in effect canceled the directives of Dt 23:1-8, which excluded eunuchs, Ammonites, and Moabites from the congregation of Israel. The law of Moses was given when Israel was about to occupy the land of Canaan, a time when strict separation from pagan religious practices and from anything symbolic of spiritual imperfection or rebellion against the Lord, was of highest priority. The Law (torah) is “instruction” or “teaching,” not legislation in the modern sense. It was given through a prophet, and while its commandments were in general “holy and just and good” (Rm 7:12) the Lord can reinterpret the specifics of the law through a word to a later prophet. (In the NT, Paul cited the book of Isaiah as “the law,” 1Co 14:21.) What God originally sought of his people, through the Law, was purity of heart and righteous behavior. Now, hundreds of years later, he graciously allows anyone who loves him, regardless of physical or ethnic characteristics, to enter the temple and worship him.