The Book of the Prophet Isaiah is sixty-six chapters long and has often been called “the fifth Gospel,” due to its many messianic references. In examining the focus of those chapters, along with the varied explanations offered for the differences, the last ten chapters (Is 56-66) attest to the post-exilic period, when the Israelites have finally returned to their homeland. Today’s first reading is taken from the beginning of that third and final section of the book. When this week’s omitted verses are included (vv. 2-5), the entire passage can be understood as a prophetic exhortation.
The beginning of the Exile to Babylon is traditionally considered to be 586 BC and it ends about fifty years later in ca. 548 BC. Now, in re-establishing the nation, Isaiah exhorts the people to do so according to God’s word and in keeping with the covenant. The opening verse established the criteria for what they were to do and how it should be done, “Observe what is right, do what is just, for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed.” Then, twice, the passage makes reference to the house of prayer. In the Gospel of Saint Mark, Jesus refers to this verse when casting the money-changers from the temple, “Then He taught, saying to them, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it a den of thieves’” (Mk 11:17).
The best biblical description of what the house of prayer should look like is found in the Book of Revelation, primarily in its many descriptions of the redeemed gathered before the throne of God. “When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones. They sang a new hymn, saying: ‘Worthy are you to receive the scroll and to break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation’” (Rev. 5:7–9).
In Saint John’s Gospel (Jn 2:13-22), Jesus cleared the Temple, telling them not to turn the Temple “into a marketplace”, but in Mark’s version of that incident (Mk 11:15-19), Jesus not only expelled the money-changers, but He also taught and drew the attention of people to the full situation that was at hand. The explicit Markan quotation itself (v. 17) is a combination of two passages, besides the citation from Isaiah that “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” it is combined with a verse from Jeremiah, “Has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves? (Jer 7:11).
The reference to “for all the nations” was particularly relevant because the cleansing likely took place in the Court of the Gentiles. There, in the outer court of the Temple, the foreigners or God-fearers, those non-circumcised Gentile believers, understood as Jewish proselytes, could come to pray in the temple precincts. Eventually, after the destruction of the Temple, the synagogue assumed the function of a house of prayer (Heb. bet hat-tefilla), but also became known as a house of assembly (Heb. bet ha-kneset) and a house of study (Heb. bet ha-midrash).
Nature and dignity 