Isaiah 66:22 drops a strange detail that sages noticed and never forgot: "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I make remain before Me." The definite articles — the new heavens, the new earth — imply that these future creations already exist. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 9:1 unpacks this startling implication.
R. Huna's teaching
R. Huna, citing R. Eliezer ben Yose the Galilean, stated the claim directly. The Holy One created the new heavens and the new earth ahead of time. They were prepared in advance, held in reserve, waiting for the messianic future to unveil them.
The argument rests on grammar. The text says "as the new heavens" — implying something already specific, already identifiable. A nineteenth-century commentary, Ets Yosef by Enoch Zondel ben Joseph, refined the idea: these new heavens existed "potentially as an idea and not actually." The blueprint was drawn. The execution was pending.
David's response
David, in Psalm 104:1, offers praise that reads like a witness statement. "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord, my God, You are very great. You have put on honor and majesty."
The sages asked what David meant by "very great." R. Eleazar and R. Joshua gave a parallel answer. "You were great before You created," they taught, "but You became very great after You created Your world." The adjective "great" belonged to God before creation. The intensifier "very" was earned by the act of creating.
What this reveals about creation
The theology is subtle. Before the world existed, God was complete — infinite, perfect, great. But once creation began, a new kind of greatness became visible. Not because God changed, but because there were now witnesses. Honor and majesty are relational words. They require someone to honor, someone to acknowledge majesty. The moment creation existed, God's greatness was visible in a way it had not been before.
David's praise is therefore not flattery. It is observation. The world itself had amplified God's greatness by providing a stage on which it could be seen.
The future already here
R. Huna's reading adds a second layer. If the new heavens and new earth already exist in potential, then the <a href='/categories/midrash-aggadah.html'>messianic age</a> is not a distant future that has yet to be designed. It is a prepared reality waiting for its moment. The Jewish imagination of the world to come is not speculation about something unmade — it is anticipation of something already drafted, held back only by the timing of its revelation.
The takeaway: the world you see is not the only world God has made. Another one waits behind it, already sketched, already real in the divine imagination, waiting to be unveiled when the time is right.