90 A. Gardner hands (10). The verse thus links with the previous one, paralleling life as long as a tree, and links also with the following verse where labour will not be in vain. 6) The people will not labour “in vain” (qyrl) nor bring forth “calamity” (hlhb) (65,23), with both words appearing in Lev 26,16 (11), in a passage concerned with what will happen if people do not obey the covenant. Lev 26,16 appears in a similar context to Deut 28,12, one of the passages cited as background to the previous Isaianic verse. The notion of not labouring in vain is also likely to be a reversal of Isa 49,4 where God’s servant believed he had laboured in vain (qyrl). 7) God will be attentive to his servants (65,24). This verse contrasts God’s immediate response to his servants to the lack of response he himself received from those people who had forsaken him (Isa 65,12) (12). 8) Wild beasts will be at peace with domesticated ones (65,25). This is almost a repeat of Isa 11, 6-9 (13). It is also what God intended for his original creation, but which did not eventuate (14). To sum up what has been found in Isaiah 65 up to the present: it is primarily concerned with changed conditions for humans depending upon which attitude to God they display: it pronounces reward in the form of physical benefits and spiritual peace upon God’s servants and earthly punishment in the form of physical deprivation, as well as mental anguish and ultimately death, upon those who have not sought God. In such a world, there will be no aggression from wild beasts or snakes. It is humans to whom justice is being given and righteous humans will enjoy the fruits of their labour in contrast to those pictured in Deut 28,30. Further, Jerusalem in the future, will be spared devastation. * ** The new heavens and the new earth of Isa 65,17 and what they entail are crucial for answering the theological question of why sinners continue to exist (Isa 65,20) after their inception. I made a study of the new heavens and new earth in an earlier publication (15) and concluded that they indicate a new era in God’s relationship with his people and the land. Isa 65,17 says that at the time of the creation of the new heavens and earth “the former things will not be remembered (hnrkzt) or come into mind (blAl[ hnyl[t)”. The closest Biblical background to this statement is Jer 44,21: (10) Cf. WHYBRAY, Isaiah 40–66 (London 1975) 278; A. MOTYER, The Prophecy of Isaiah. An Introduction and Commentary (Downer’s Grove, IL 1993) 531. (11) This is noted by SMITH, Rhetoric and Redaction, 151. (12) SMITH, Rhetoric and Redaction, 152. For previous appeals to people to be attentive to God cf. e.g. Isa 55,6; 56,1. (13) STECK, “Beobachtungen”, 225 points out that the word for “snake” used in Isa 65,25 differs from Isa 11,8, linking instead with Genesis 3. (14) For details cf. A.E. GARDNER, “Ecojustice: A study of Gen. 6:9-11”, The Earth Story in Genesis (eds. N. HABEL – S. WURST) (The Earth Bible 2; Sheffield 2000) 121-126. (15) A.E. GARDNER, “Ecojustice or Anthropological Justice? A Study of the New Heavens and New Earth in Isaiah 65:17”, The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets (ed. N.C. HABEL) (Earth Bible 4; Sheffield 2001) 204-218.