Isaiah 64:1

Hebrew Bible

1 If only you would tear apart the sky and come down! The mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire ignites dry wood or fire makes water boil, let your adversaries know who you are, and may the nations shake at your presence! 3 When you performed awesome deeds that took us by surprise, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard or perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who intervenes for those who wait for him.

Mark 1:10

New Testament

7 He proclaimed, “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 Now in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. 10 And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.

 Notes and References

"... Mark uses the term, schizō, which he uses on only one other occasion in his Gospel, immediately after Jesus’ baptism, when “he saw the heavens being torn open” (Mark 1:10) and the Spirit descending as a dove as a voice from heaven declares Jesus to be the Son of God (Mark 1:11)—the very thing the centurion says when he sees not heaven, but the temple curtain, torn in two.89 Mark is here implying that God is the active agent in both tearings.90 And to these two tearings we can add a third, for from John’s Gospel we know both that Jesus referred to his own body in terms of the temple (John 2:21) and that the “veil of his flesh” (compare Heb 10:19-20) was torn when one of the soldiers (could it have been the centurion?) pierced his side with a spear (John 19:34).91 There may also be a veiled reference to Isaiah 64:1 (“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence”), suggesting that the cross of Christ is an eschatological event presaging the return of God’s empowering presence in the form of God’s Spirit ..."

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Staurology, Ontology, and the Travail of Biblical Narrative: Once More unto the Biblical Theological Breach (pp. 7-33) Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, 23.2, 2019

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