Those that transgressed or “rebelled” against the Lord are the obstinate idolaters referred to in chaps, 65.
, 66. Their carcasses lie’s spectacle to all who come up to worship at Jerusalem, subject to never-ending corruption and never-ending burning. According to the prophet’s conception, the scene takes place on the earth, in me vicinity of Jerusalem, probably in the Valley of Hinnom, but the language may have suggested a punishment by everlasting fire in the world to come. (A. B.Davidson, D. D.)
Gehenna
This verse is the basis of the later Jewish conception of Gehenna as the place of everlasting punishment (see Salmond’s “Christian Doctrine of Immortality”). Gehenna is the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom (Valley of Hinnom), the place where, of old, human sacrifices were offered to Moloch, and for this reason desecrated by King Josiah (2Ki_23:10). Afterwards it became a receptacle for filth and refuse, and Rabbinical tradition asserts that it was the custom to cast out unclean corpses there, to be burned or to undergo decomposition. This is, in all probability, the scene which had imprinted itself on the imagination of the writer, and which was afterwards projected into the unseen world as an image of endless retribution. The Talmudic theology locates the mouth of hell in the Valley of Hinnom. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
The eternal imaged by the temporal
The prophet blends temporal and eternal This world and the next coalesce to his view. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
Hell
Hell is of both worlds, so that in the same essential sense, although in different degree, it may be said both of him who is still living but accursed, and of him who perished centuries ago, that his worm dieth not and his fire is not quenched. (J. A. Alexander.)
Doom following unfaithfulness and transgression
1. It is a terrible ending, but it is the same as upon the same floor Christ set to His teaching--the Gospel net cast wide, but only to draw in both good and bad upon a beach of judgment; the wedding feast thrown open and men compelled to come in, but among them a heart whom grace so great could not awe even to decency; Christ’s Gospel preached, His example evident, and Himself owned as Lord, and nevertheless some whom neither the hearing nor the seeing nor the owning with their lips did lift to unselfishness or stir to pity-. Therefore He who had cried, “Come all unto Me,” was compelled to close by saying to many, “Depart.”
2. It is a terrible ending: but one only too conceivable. For though God is love, man is free--free to turn from that love; free to be as though he had never felt it; free to put away from himself the highest, clearest, most urgent grace that God can show. But to do this is the judgment.
3. “Lord, are there few that be saved?” The Lord did not answer the question but by bidding the questioner take heed to himself “Strive to enter in at the strait gate,” (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Eternal punishment
I. THE WICKEDNESS OF THE WICKED. II. ITS PUNISHMENT. Certain. Terrible. Without alleviation or hope.
III. THE PERPETUATION OF ITS MORAL LESSONS. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The goodness and severity of God
The public reading of the synagogue repeats once more after Isa_66:24, on account of its terrible import, the encouraging words of Isa_66:23 “in order to conclude with words of comfort.”(F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
