Isaiah 65:20

20 No longer will there be there a child whose days are cut short, or an old man whose days have not come to their full measure: for the young man at his death will be a hundred years old, and he whose life is shorter than a hundred years will seem as one cursed.

Isaiah 65:20 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 65:20

There shall be no more thence an infant of days
That is, there shall no more be carried out from thence, from Jerusalem, or any other place where the church of God is, to the grave, in order to be interred, an infant that has lived but a few days, a very common thing now; but, in the latter day, such instances will be rare, or rather there will be none at all; every child born will live to the age of man, and not be cut off by any premature death, either by any natural disease, or by famine, or sword, or any other calamity, which will now have no place: nor an old man that hath not filled his days;
who, though he may in some sense, or in comparison of others, be said to be old, yet has not arrived to the full term of man's life, threescore years and ten, or more; for it seems, by what follows, as if the term of human life will be lengthened in the latter day, and reach in common to a hundred years; so that as long life is always reckoned a temporal happiness, among the rest that shall be enjoyed, this will be one in the latter day; and which is to be understood not of the Millennium state, in which there will be no death, ( Revelation 21:4 ) , which yet will be in this, as the following words show; but of the state preceding that, even the spiritual reign of Christ: for the child shall die an hundred years old;
not that that shall be reckoned a child that shall die at a hundred years of age ^F8, the life of man being now, in these days of the Messiah, as long as they were before the flood, as the Jewish interpreters imagine; but the child that is now born, or he that is now a child, shall live to the age of a hundred years, and not die before: but lest this outward happiness should be trusted to, and a man should imagine that therefore he is in a happy state for eternity, being blessed with such a long life, it follows, "but" or though the sinner, being an hundred years old; shall be accursed;
for though this shall be common in this state to good men and bad men, to live a hundred years, yet their death will not be alike; the good man will be blessed, and enter into a happy state of joy and peace; but the wicked man, though he lives as long as the other in this world, shall be accursed at death, and to all eternity; see ( Ecclesiastes 8:12 Ecclesiastes 8:13 ) .

---

FOOTNOTES:

F8 Vid. Gloss. in T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 91. 2.

Isaiah 65:20 In-Context

18 But men will be glad and have joy for ever in what I am making; for I am making Jerusalem a delight, and her people a joy.

19 And I will be glad over Jerusalem, and have joy in my people: and the voice of weeping will no longer be sounding in her, or the voice of grief.

20 No longer will there be there a child whose days are cut short, or an old man whose days have not come to their full measure: for the young man at his death will be a hundred years old, and he whose life is shorter than a hundred years will seem as one cursed.

21 And they will be building houses and living in them; planting vine-gardens and getting the fruit of them.

22 They will no longer be building for the use of others, or planting for others to have the fruit: for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my loved ones will have joy in full measure in the work of their hands.