Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest?
Ver. 1. Thus saith the Lard.] The same he saith in effect here in this last chapter that he had done in the first, rejecting the Jews' vain confidence in their temple and sacrifices, and showing that he was neither confined to their temple nor contented with their sacrifices, so long as the hidden man of the heart and the spiritual worship was wanting - so long as they neglected his laws and served their own lusts. Isa 66:3
Heaven is my throne.] Coelum est solium meum; there do I manifest the most glorious and visible signs of my presence; there I am in a special manner worshipped according to mine excellent greatness; and there my courtiers have a more ardent zeal for me than those flatterers had for Darius. Dan 6:7
The earth is my footstool.] So it should be ours, since God hath in Christ "put all things under our feet." Psa 8:6 The earth hath its name in Hebrew from treading upon; and terra a terendo, these earthly things should be trampled on as base and bootless.
Where is the house that ye build unto me?] q.d., A house indeed I commanded to be built for me, but not to hold me, or there to keep me cooped up as in a cell, that, you should therehence conclude, The temple, God's house, shall never perish; therefore neither shall we. You must know that I am intra, et extra, et supra, et circa, et infra omnia, within and without, and above and about, and beneath all things.
“ Enter praesenter Deus hic et ubique potenter. ”
This the heathens knew. Empedocles said that God was a circle, the centre whereof is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. This the Turks acknowledge, by building their mosques or temples open at the top, to show that God is nowhere circumscriptively and definitively, but repletively everywhere. He is higher than heaven, saith Bernard, deeper than hell, larger than earth, broader than the sea: he is nowhere, and yet everywhere, yet he is everywhere all-present. The heavens have a large place, but they have one part here and another there; but the Lord is totally present wheresoever present, not commensurable by any place whatsoever.