The verse opens with a command to pay attention.
“For behold,” God says, and everything that follows is meant to be received with wide eyes.
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” (Isaiah 65:17, ESV)
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17, NIV)
The verse makes two claims that are inseparable from each other.
First, God is creating something new.
Second, what currently exists is so thoroughly replaced that it will not be missed, mourned, or recalled.
To understand what Isaiah is promising, you have to understand both claims together: the nature of the new creation and the completeness of the transformation it brings.
The World That Precedes the Promise
What Isaiah 65 Was Responding To
Isaiah 65:17 does not appear in a vacuum.
It arrives at the end of a chapter that begins with God’s lament over a people who have persistently turned away.
Isaiah 65:1–7 describes a nation that sought other gods, burned offerings in gardens, and consulted the dead.
The prophet describes the accumulated weight of Israel’s history of unfaithfulness and the consequences that followed.
By verse 13, a sharp contrast emerges: God’s servants will eat while those who rejected him will go hungry; they will rejoice while the rebellious will be put to shame.
And then, beginning in verse 17, God announces something that reaches far beyond the immediate historical moment.
What “Former Things” Means
The phrase “former things shall not be remembered” is the second clause of the verse, and it identifies the problem the new creation is answering.
The Hebrew word translated “former” is harishonot, referring to the prior state of things, the old order, all that came before.
Bible Study Tools notes that the ancient commentary tradition understood the “former things” to include the accumulated pain, the exile, the destruction, and the long record of suffering that marked Israel’s history.
The promise is not simply that new things will exist.
The promise is that the weight of everything that came before will not follow God’s people into the new order.
The new creation is designed, in part, to be incapable of being overshadowed by what preceded it.
The New Creation: What God Is Announcing
The Weight of the Word “Create”
The Hebrew verb behind “I create” is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1 when God created the heavens and the earth.
Bara in the Hebrew Bible is almost exclusively reserved for divine action.
Human beings make, fashion, and build, but they do not bara.
Isaiah’s use of this word is deliberate: he is not describing reform, renovation, or improvement.
He is describing something only God can do.
BibleRef notes that the phrase “new heavens and a new earth” is unique in the Old Testament, appearing here and in Isaiah 66:22, before being taken up in the New Testament by Peter in 2 Peter 3:13 and John in Revelation 21:1.
The deliberate choice of bara places this promise in the same category as the original creation: a sovereign act of God bringing into existence what did not previously exist in that form.
The Relationship Between New and Jerusalem
Verse 18 makes an unusual connection that is easy to miss when reading only verse 17.
God says: “For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.”
The parallelism is intentional: creating new heavens and a new earth is set in parallel with creating Jerusalem.
The scope of the cosmic promise and the specificity of the city are tied together.
BibleRef notes that this connection means the new creation is not simply an abstract cosmological event.
It is a place of inhabitation, relationship, and joy where God’s people dwell with him.
Crosswalk observes that the structure of Isaiah 65:17–19 moves from the cosmic to the personal: from new heavens and earth to a city to a people to the sound of weeping being heard no more.
The new creation is the frame; the people of God are the content.
How Revelation 21 Receives the Promise
The Direct Echo
The New Testament does not simply reference Isaiah 65:17 in passing.
It builds an entire vision around it.
Revelation 21:1 opens with almost identical language: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”
BibleRef notes that what John describes in Revelation 21–22 is the fulfillment of what Isaiah announced: the eternal dwelling place of believers, a state in which every category of loss has been permanently ended.
Seven things are notably absent from John’s new creation: the sea, death, mourning, weeping, pain, the curse, and night.
Each one of those seven absences is the fulfillment of one aspect of what the “former things” contained.
The Continuity of the Promise
What connects Isaiah 65:17 to Revelation 21 is not merely verbal similarity but theological continuity.
The God who announces the new creation in Isaiah is the same God who says from the throne in Revelation 21:5: “Behold, I am making all things new.”
The word “behold” appears in both passages, framing the announcement as something requiring full attention.
The new creation is not a plan that changed between the Testaments.
It is a single promise that is first announced through Isaiah and finally revealed in its fullest form through John.
The Interpretive Question
What Isaiah 65:17 Is and Is Not Describing
Careful readers of this passage have noted a tension: verses 18–25 describe a world where death still occurs, where children are born, and where people build and plant.
Some interpreters connect this to a millennial kingdom, a period between the current age and the final new creation of Revelation 21.
Others read the language as figurative, consistent with Isaiah’s broader use of physical imagery to describe spiritual realities.
The Riddleblog notes that the passage may hold both a near-term fulfillment in the messianic age and a far-term fulfillment in the final consummation.
Bible Study Tools acknowledges that Isaiah’s poetry often collapses time, holding together near and distant fulfillments within the same prophetic vision.
What every major interpretive tradition agrees on is the essential point: God is announcing a radical transformation of the created order that ends the accumulated suffering of the old world and inaugurates a state that surpasses anything the former things could offer.
What This Verse Holds for the Believer
A Promise About the Past
The second clause of Isaiah 65:17 is as theologically rich as the first.
“The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” is not a statement about forgetting in the way amnesia works.
It is a statement about proportion.
The new creation will be so comprehensive, so complete, and so satisfying that what came before will not need to be mourned because nothing good will have been lost and nothing painful will persist.
Romans 8:18 carries the same logic: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
The forgetting of the former things is not loss.
It is the testimony of how completely the new creation has answered everything the old creation lacked.
A Promise About the Future
This verse is a resource for the present precisely because it describes the future.
The God who announced in the eighth century BC that he would create new heavens and a new earth is the same God who is working in every circumstance of the believer’s life right now.
Christianity.com notes that the promise of the new creation is not meant to produce passive waiting but active confidence.
When a Christian faces suffering, loss, or grief, Isaiah 65:17 is not a verse that says endure until it gets better.
It is a verse that says: what is coming makes the entire category of former things something you will not need to carry.
The God who bara in Genesis, who promised through Isaiah, and who confirmed through John is still creating, and the work he has begun will not end until everything is new.
A Prayer From Isaiah 65:17
Lord, I carry more former things than I usually admit.
Grief that has not resolved, losses that have not been replaced, pain that surfaces when I am not prepared for it. I carry the weight of what has been, and sometimes it is heavy enough to make the future hard to see.
Let this verse do what You designed it to do. Let it reach into the weight of what was and announce that the God who creates new heavens and new earth has already said: the former things will not be remembered.
Not because they did not matter, but because what You are making is so fully new that they will not need to be mourned.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions About Isaiah 65:17
What does “new heavens and a new earth” mean in Isaiah 65:17?
It describes radical transformation of the created order using bara, the Hebrew verb from Genesis 1:1. BibleRef notes the phrase is unique in the Old Testament, signaling a sovereign act of new creation, not renovation. The scope encompasses the cosmos and narrows to God’s people dwelling with him.
Is Isaiah 65:17 about heaven or the millennial kingdom?
Interpreters are divided. Bible Study Tools notes Isaiah’s prophecy often holds both near-term and far-term fulfillments together. Some read verses 18–25 as millennial; others as figurative. All views agree that God announces a transformation that permanently ends the suffering of the old order.
What does “former things will not be remembered” mean in Isaiah 65:17?
It means the new creation will be so complete that the old order casts no shadow. BibleRef notes Revelation 21 pictures God wiping every tear with no more death or pain. The forgetting is not erasure but proof that nothing painful persists and nothing good is lost.
How does Isaiah 65:17 connect to Revelation 21:1?
Revelation 21:1 directly echoes Isaiah 65:17 with almost identical language. Crosswalk notes this is the fulfillment of what Isaiah announced: God’s people dwelling eternally with him, with seven categories of loss permanently absent. The same Creator God frames both announcements with the word “Behold.”
Does Isaiah 65:17 refer to spiritual renewal or a literal new creation?
Both dimensions are present. Christianity.com notes the passage describes genuine transformation of the created order, not merely a metaphor. The specific images in verses 18–25 are consistent with Isaiah’s wider use of physical language for theological realities. The promise encompasses both spiritual and ultimately physical renewal.
Commentaries and Sources
Motyer, J. Alec. Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. IVP Academic, 1999.
Oswalt, John N. The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1998.
What Are the New Heaven and New Earth? GotQuestions.org.
What Does Isaiah 65:17 Mean? BibleRef.com.
Isaiah 65:17–19 Commentary. Bible Study Tools.
Isaiah 65: Millennial Reign or New Heaven and Earth? The Riddleblog.
Isaiah 65:17 and the Promise of New Creation. Crosswalk.
New Heavens and New Earth in Isaiah 65. The Gospel Coalition.
Isaiah 65 and New Creation. Christianity.com.
Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1999.
