Bible Strands
Isaiah 65:6
Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will pay it back into their laps,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses the rebellious Israelites who claim exclusive holiness and demand He keep His distance (Isaiah 65:5). He declares His response to their persistent idolatry and open scorn on the hills.
The words — The term כְתוּבָה (khe.tu.Vah) translates as "[it is] written," and אֶחֱשֶׂה ('e.che.Seh) means "I will be silent." These words establish that the record of their actions is fixed and divine restraint is ending.
The thread — The declaration that God will no longer remain silent parallels Psalms 50:3 and Psalms 50:21, where delayed judgment shifts to active confrontation. The promise of measured repayment connects directly to Jeremiah 16:18 and the immediate context of Isaiah 65:7.
Why it lands — The text requires acknowledgment that recorded rebellion triggers inevitable divine accounting rather than continued indifference. Readers must face the reality that God’s silence is a temporary holding pattern, not permanent acquiescence to their practices.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,
Cross-references
- Psalms 50:3 Our God approaches and will not be silent! Consuming fire precedes Him, and a tempest rages around Him.
- Jeremiah 16:18 And I will first repay them double their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and they have filled My inheritance with their abominations.”
- Psalms 50:21 You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
- Psalms 79:12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors sevenfold the reproach they hurled at You, O Lord.
- Isaiah 42:14 “I have kept silent from ages past; I have remained quiet and restrained. But now I will groan like a woman in labor; I will at once gasp and pant.
- Isaiah 64:12 After all this, O LORD, will You restrain Yourself? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?
- Ezekiel 22:31 So I have poured out My indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their ways down upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”
- Joel 3:4 Now what do you have against Me, O Tyre, Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering against Me a recompense? If you retaliate against Me, I will swiftly and speedily return your recompense upon your heads.
- Malachi 3:16 At that time those who feared the LORD spoke with one another, and the LORD listened and heard them. So a scroll of remembrance was written before Him regarding those who feared the LORD and honored His name.
- Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And books were opened, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books.