Isaiah 25:9

Isaiah 24–27 is sometimes called Isaiah’s “Little Apocalypse”, because these chapters look beyond the nations of Isaiah’s own day to the end of all things, when God judges the whole earth and then restores it. Chapter 24 describes the earth laid waste and fearful under God’s judgment on human sin. Chapter 25 turns to a hymn of praise for God’s righteousness, his faithfulness and his victory, and these four verses stand at its heart: a feast, a veil removed, death swallowed up, and the glad cry of the people who waited for him.

Isaiah prophesied in the eighth century before Christ, while the Assyrian Empire was rising and Judah lived with war, unrest and the pull of other gods. God gave his people a hope reaching far past any one crisis of their time. The same LORD who judges the earth is the host who welcomes the nations to his table.

The word for mountain, har, can mean a single mountain or a range of hills, and in the prophets it often stands for the place of God’s presence and rule. “This mountain” is Mount Zion, where Jerusalem and the temple stood, the place God chose to dwell and the centre from which his reign and his blessings go out to the world. Isaiah has already said that in the last days the mountain of the LORD’s house will be raised up and “all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2–4).

The host is “the LORD of hosts”, a title for God as the supreme ruler over all creation, over the armies of heaven and of earth, and as the God who keeps his covenant. In Israel and among the nations a great banquet was far more than a meal. Kings held them to celebrate a victory, to seal an alliance or to display their wealth, and a feast spoke of peace, plenty and the generosity of the one who gave it. Here the King of the whole earth gives the banquet, and it outshines every feast any earthly king ever held.

The word for feast, mishteh, can mean drinking or drink as well as a banquet, and here it is a feast in the full sense, a joyful meal for a crowd of guests. Isaiah describes the menu twice, and the second time he goes further. “Fat things” translates shemen, a word tied to oil and richness, and it means the choicest food on the table. “Full of marrow” adds the richest parts of all. The Hebrew there is mâchâh, which Strong’s lists under the same word as “wipe away” in verse 8, although other lexicons treat the marrow sense as a separate verb.

The wine is just as fine. “Wines on the lees” (shemer) is wine left to age on its sediment, which deepens its flavour and body, so it is a mature vintage. “Well refined” is zâqaq, a word meaning to strain, extract or clarify, used of purifying metals and liquids. This wine has aged on its lees and then been strained clear of them. Food and drink are each named twice, a picture of full abundance set before a people who had often known famine and scarcity under oppression and judgment. David pictured the same overflowing goodness: “thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over” (Psalm 23:5).

The feast stands for all the blessings of God’s kingdom: full satisfaction for body and soul, peace, joy, and unbroken fellowship with God himself. It is also a victory feast, because the verses that follow tell what God has defeated.

“Destroy” in verse 7 is bâlaʻ, which means to swallow, swallow up or destroy. It is the same verb that verse 8 translates “swallow up”, so God swallows the veil over the nations just as he swallows death.

Two words name what lies over the world. The covering, lôwṭ, comes from a root meaning to wrap up and means a veil or wrapping. The vail, maççêkâh, comes from a root meaning to pour over or to weave, and it can mean a molten image elsewhere, but here it is a coverlet spread over something. “The face of the covering” uses pânîym, the word for face, which also means the surface or front of a thing, so the covering is spread over the people themselves. The two lines say the same thing twice, with “all people” and then “all nations”, to show that the trouble reaches everyone.

The covering and the veil picture the spiritual blindness and ignorance that have lain over mankind since the Fall, the sin and darkness that keep people from knowing God and seeing his glory. In Israel a veil was also linked with mourning, shame and concealment, and since the next verse speaks of death and tears, this veil is also the shroud of death and sorrow over the whole human race. Blindness to God and the reign of death go hand in hand.

Paul uses this picture when he says that a vail lies over the heart of Israel when the old covenant is read, and that “when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:14–16). Habakkuk looks to the day when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Simeon called the infant Jesus “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32), and John the Baptist pointed to him as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The unveiling begins with Christ and is complete in the new creation (Revelation 21:4), and the mountain of verse 7 looks ahead to the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Mount Zion, where God’s presence will be fully seen.

The word for death, mâveth, covers natural and violent death and the state of the dead, and it can also mean pestilence or ruin. Here death is the great enemy of mankind, the consequence of sin and the cause of more grief than anything else, and God swallows it up with the same verb, bâlaʻ, that he used for the veil.

“In victory” translates lānetsach, a word of long duration that Strong’s says usually means “continually”. It also carries the sense of eminence or glory, and “strength” and “victory” are among the KJV’s other renderings of it. So the promise is that God will swallow up death for ever, and the victory lasts. Paul takes up these words when he describes the resurrection of believers: “then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). He goes on, “O death, where is thy sting?” and ends, “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57).

Christ won this victory by his death and resurrection. Hebrews says that through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death and set free those who through fear of death were held in bondage all their lives (Hebrews 2:14–15). He is risen as “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20–22), the guarantee that all who belong to him will rise. Yet “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26), so the full swallowing up of death waits for his return.

Verse 9 gives the words God’s people will say when all this comes to pass. “In that day” uses yôwm, which means a day or a span of time, and in the prophets “that day” is the time when the LORD acts decisively, in judgment and in salvation. Here it is the day when the feast is spread, the veil is lifted and death is swallowed up.

“Lo”, Hebrew hinneh, is an exclamation that calls everyone to look. “This is our God” uses ʼĕlôhîym, a word plural in form that, when it names the true God, is read as a plural of majesty, and its verbs are usually singular. In a land surrounded by nations with many gods, the people point to the one God they belong to and confess him as their own. The second line names him again by his covenant name: “this is the LORD.”

To wait, qâvâh, means to wait for, look for or hope for. It is an eager, hopeful expectation that trusts God’s character and his timing. Judah was often tempted to look for safety in foreign alliances or in its own strength, and those who waited for the LORD trusted his promises through every trial. Scripture speaks often of this waiting: “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart” (Psalm 27:14), “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him” (Psalm 62:5), and “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him” (Lamentations 3:25–26). Habakkuk was told of God’s vision, “though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come” (Habakkuk 2:3).

Their waiting ends in salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh, which means deliverance or something saved, and takes in help, victory, health and welfare. The word can describe a rescue that people bring about, but this salvation is the LORD’s own, a full rescue from oppression, suffering and death itself. The people answer it with two words for joy. The first, gîyl, means to rejoice or be glad, from a root that Strong’s gives as to spin round under strong feeling, and the second, sâmach, means to rejoice, to feel and show great joy. Their gladness is “in his salvation”, in what God has done. A psalm sings the same: “This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

The salvation Isaiah’s people waited for comes in Jesus, whose name, Iēsous in Greek, means “the LORD saves”. In the synagogue at Nazareth he read from Isaiah and said, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:18–21). When he fed the five thousand (Matthew 14:13–21), he gave a foretaste of God’s abundant provision, and his parables of banquets show the kingdom open to all who will come. He is the bread of life and the living water, and his death on the cross gives the richest nourishment of all, cleansing from sin and eternal life for all who trust him. By his resurrection he swallowed up death.

The promise has begun and is still to be finished. Believers now taste the victory through the Spirit’s comfort and freedom from condemnation, and we wait for the day when it is complete. Revelation calls that day the marriage of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7–9), where Christ is both host and centre and his people from every nation feast with him for ever. So we wait as Isaiah’s people waited, for “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20–21).

Death and grief are real, and these verses name them as enemies that God himself will swallow up. The tears you have cried are seen by the Lord GOD, who has promised to wipe them away with his own hand. Whatever shame you carry, from others’ scorn or your own failings, is covered in Christ and will one day be taken away before the whole earth.

Until then we live as people who wait, and that waiting is full of hope, because the one who made the promise is the LORD. The feast is spread “unto all people”, so the invitation we have received is one we can pass on to anyone. And when the long wait is over, our first words will be about him: “Lo, this is our God.”