No longer will they build houses for others to inhabit, nor plant for others to eat. For as is the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, and My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.
If these promises were in part fulfilled when the Jews, after their return out of captivity, were settled in peace in their own land and brought as it were into a new world, yet they were to have their full accomplishment in the gospel church, militant first and at length triumphant. The Jerusalem that is from above is free and is the mother of us all.
Commenting on Isaiah 65:17-25
They shall not build, and another inhabit,.... As the Canaanites did, whose houses the Israelites inhabited; but they shall inhabit the houses they have built, and shall not be dispossessed by an enemy: they shall not plant, and another eat; the fruit of the vines, olives, fig trees, or others, planted by them: for as the days of a tree are the days of my...
They shall not experience the curse pronounced (Lev 26:16; Deu 28:30). tree--among the most long-lived of objects in nature. They shall live as long as the trees they "plant" (compare Isa 61:3, end of verse; Psa 92:12). enjoy--Hebrew, "consume," "wear out"; they shall live to enjoy the last of it (Isa 62:9).