Jewish hope for the renewal of creation: Isaiah, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and 4 Ezra (8:19–22)

Says "The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God" (8:19, BSB); it "will be set free from its bondage to decay" (8:21) and "has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time" (8:22). In Isaiah the Lord says, "I will create new heavens and a new earth" (Isa 65:17), where wolf and lamb "will feed together" (65:25), and these "will endure before Me" (66:22).

Later non-canonical Jewish writings develop this hope. In 1 Enoch God says, "I will transform the heaven and make it an eternal blessing and light: And I will transform the earth and make it a blessing" (45:4–5); after the resurrection "the earth shall rejoice, And the righteous shall dwell upon it" (51:5). Another section has "a new heaven" (91:16), with no new earth, as Charles notes. Jubilees also expects that "the heavens and the earth shall be renewed and all their creation" (1:29). In 4 Ezra (usually dated after AD 70), when Adam transgressed, "that which had been made was judged" (7:11), and the seer asks about the times "in which thou shalt renew the creation" (7:75, APOT numbering). Charles links the Enoch passage with Isa 65:17, 66:22 and 4 Ezra 7:75.

These texts are background only. How Paul’s words relate to them, and what the renewal involves, are left to the exegetical notes.