Isaiah 25King James Version
A song in the midst of judgment. 'He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.' The first explicit promise of the end of death in the Hebrew Bible. Revelation quotes it directly.
A hymn of praise after the apocalyptic judgment. God has destroyed the city of the ruthless and sheltered the poor. He prepares a feast on the mountain for all peoples. Death itself will be swallowed up forever, and every tear wiped away. Moab, type of all proud nations, is trampled like straw in the dung-pit.
The God who judges becomes the host who feeds. Death is not the final word: the one who made the feast has already scheduled death's defeat.
verse: "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces", the most direct abolition-of-death promise in the Hebrew prophets, cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
A mountain banquet set at the end of history, after the ruined city of pride is rubble. The scene is deliberately abundant: fat things, wines on the lees, well-refined. Below the feasting mountain, Moab still struggles and drowns in its own pride.
The LORD as feast-host and conqueror of death. The poor and needy whom God shelters. Moab personified as the proud enemy trampled under God's feet. No individual human figures.
The feast on the mountain (v. 6) is one of the original images behind the New Testament wedding banquet parables. The death-swallowed-up promise (v. 8) is foundational for resurrection theology in both testaments. This short chapter is densely quoted across centuries of Jewish and Christian liturgy.
For when you feel grief is permanent and death has the final word. This chapter insists the one who made everything also has the authority to end mourning, not as sentiment but as cosmic act.
1O 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.
2For 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.
3Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee.
4For 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.
5Thou 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.
6And 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.
7And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8He 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.
9And 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.
10For 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.
11And 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.
12And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.