Isaiah 25 KJV
Praise for God's Salvation
Isaiah Chapter 25: Praise for God's Salvation
The chapter's depiction of a universal feast on Mount Zion (v.6) inverts ancient Near Eastern treaty meals where vassals ate before their suzerain, here positioning Yahweh as host to all peoples in an act of covenantal inclusion rather than domination.
1 Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
2 For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.
3 Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee.
4 For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
5 Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low.
6 And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7 And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.
9 And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
10 For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.
11 And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands.
12 And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.
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Did You Know?
The chapter's depiction of a universal feast on Mount Zion (v.6) inverts ancient Near Eastern treaty meals where vassals ate before their suzerain, here positioning Yahweh as host to all peoples in an act of covenantal inclusion rather than domination.
Verse 8's declaration that God will 'swallow up death in victory' employs the rare verb bala' (to engulf), echoing but subverting Ugaritic Baal myths of Mot devouring the storm god, recasting death itself as the defeated enemy in a monotheistic framework.
The reversal motif linking Isaiah 24's cosmic curses to chapter 25's blessings mirrors Deuteronomy 28's covenant structure, transforming famine and exile into abundance and restoration as a deliberate Deuteronomic echo within prophetic literature.
References to the 'city' being made a 'heap' (vv.2,12) likely allude to the 7th-century BCE destruction of Assyrian centers like Nineveh, yet the text's lack of specificity enables its reuse as a type for Rome in later Jewish and Christian apocalyptic readings.
The wiping away of tears in v.8 directly informs the Targum's interpretive expansion, where the Shekinah performs this act, bridging the Masoretic text to rabbinic traditions of divine compassion that later shape Christian liturgy for All Saints' Day.