A House of Prayer for all nations
By Ria Delves
Isaiah 56 paints a beautiful picture of what happens when people choose to respond to God’s loving invitation to enter into relationship with Him. In the opening verses of the chapter, two groups are described – the stranger and the eunuch, groups that were often excluded from the assembly. But here they are encouraged not to feel excluded from the community of God that they have joined. Instead, they are reassured of God’s welcome.
“Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants - everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My covenant - even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
We also see in the passage the language and imagery of covenant including keeping the Sabbath, which was one of the signs of being in relationship with the God of Israel. The promise is that anyone who chooses to join to the Lord, to love and serve Him is no longer outside the covenant (represented by the stranger and the eunuch) but is now part of the house of God.
God is the One who initiates the covenant-making process and provides an opportunity for all who would accept, to join themselves to Him. For those who respond and align with Him, He brings into His family, to His holy mountain. He makes them joyful in His house of prayer and accepts their burnt offerings and sacrifices on His altar, a sign of their ratifying the covenant with Him. Isaiah shows the outcome of joining to the Lord, of loving and serving Him as being welcomed into His house of prayer.
a house of prayer for all nations
The meditation verses end with the well-known phrase – “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations”, which Jesus references when He clears out the traders who were using the temple as a place of business, instead of using it for its intended purpose. (See Matthew 21:13; Luke 19:46; Mark 11:17).
The Hebrew word used for house is bayit and has a meaning of home or house as containing a family. Thus, the place where God has chosen for His name to dwell and to have possession of is that of a home, a family. And because God is the one who puts the house together, He gets to put His own identifier on it. He gets to say what the house is and give it a name. And He’s called it ‘a house of prayer’. God’s house, His home, the place that He calls ‘His’ is marked by prayer.
When king Solomon prays at the dedication of the first temple in 1 Kings 8, he prays, “29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. 30 And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.” (ESV)
But this place of prayer was not only for the people of Israel, but also for ‘the stranger who comes from a far country’, that when they come and pray to the God of Israel, He would hear and answer them. (1 Kings 8:41-43) God’s heart is for all the nations to come to Him, and when we pray for the nations we are joining with God’s heart.