In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast of choice wines, of choice meat full of marrow, of well refined choice wines. He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.
Parallel Translations
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In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast of choice wines, of choice meat full of marrow, of well refined choice wines.
He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.
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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.
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.
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.
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And in this mountain will the LORD of hosts make unto all peoples 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.
And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death for ever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people will He take away from off all the earth; for the LORD hath spoken it.
Cross-references (60)
- Revelation 21:4 (v8) He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The…
- Revelation 7:17 (v8) for the Lamb who is in the middle of the throne shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving waters. And God will wipe away…
- 1 Corinthians 15:54 (v8) But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will…
- Hosea 13:14 (v8) I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction?…
- 1 Corinthians 15:26 (v8) The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
Show all 60 cross-references
- Isaiah 35:10 (v8) Then Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain…
- Revelation 20:14 (v8) Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
- Matthew 8:11 (v6) I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven,
- 2 Timothy 1:10 (v8) but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light…
- Isaiah 30:26 (v8) Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of…
- Ephesians 4:18 (v7) being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of…
- Psalms 63:5 (v6) My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips,
- Jeremiah 31:12-13 (v6) They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to…
- Malachi 3:17-18 (v8) They shall be mine,” says Yahweh of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son…
- Isaiah 54:4 (v8) “Don’t be afraid, for you will not be ashamed. Don’t be confounded, for you will not be disappointed. For you will forget the shame of your…
- Isaiah 65:19 (v8) I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; and the voice of weeping and the voice of crying will be heard in her no more.
- Zechariah 9:16-17 (v6) Yahweh their God will save them in that day as the flock of his people; for they are like the jewels of a crown, lifted on high over his…
- Isaiah 30:19 (v8) For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he…
- Isaiah 51:11 (v8) Those ransomed by Yahweh will return, and come with singing to Zion. Everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and…
- Isaiah 60:1-3 (v7) “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you. For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness…
- Isaiah 60:15 (v8) “Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, so that no one passed through you, I will make you an eternal excellency, a joy of many…
- Matthew 27:51 (v7) Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.
- Luke 22:30 (v6) that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom. You will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
- Hebrews 2:14-15 (v8) Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death he might…
- Revelation 19:9 (v6) He said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.’ ” He said to me, “These are true words of…
- Psalms 69:9 (v8) For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
- Isaiah 61:7 (v8) Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will…
- Isaiah 66:5 (v8) Hear Yahweh’s word, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for my name’s sake, have said, ‘Let Yahweh…
- 2 Corinthians 3:13-18 (v7) and not as Moses, who put a veil on his face, that the children of Israel wouldn’t look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing…
- Hebrews 12:22 (v6) But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,
- 1 Peter 4:14 (v8) If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed; because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. On their part he is…
- Psalms 89:50-51 (v8) Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants, how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the mighty peoples, With which your enemies have…
- Isaiah 2:2-3 (v6) It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be…
- Isaiah 37:3 (v8) They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and…
- Matthew 5:11-12 (v8) “Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be…
- Hebrews 10:19-21 (v7) Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and…
- Isaiah 1:19 (v6) If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;
- Zechariah 8:3 (v6) Yahweh says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the…
- Matthew 26:29 (v6) But I tell you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s…
- Acts 17:30 (v7) The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
- Isaiah 55:1-2 (v6) “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and…
- Psalms 72:14-16 (v6) He will redeem their soul from oppression and violence. Their blood will be precious in his sight. They shall live, and to him shall be…
- Psalms 78:68 (v6) But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.
- Proverbs 9:1-5 (v6) Wisdom has built her house. She has carved out her seven pillars. She has prepared her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has also set her…
- Isaiah 25:10 (v6) For Yahweh’s hand will rest in this mountain. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the…
- Micah 4:1-2 (v6) But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Yahweh’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be…
- Matthew 22:1-10 (v6) Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who made a wedding feast for his…
- Song of Solomon 1:2 (v6) Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine.
- Song of Solomon 1:4 (v6) Take me away with you. Let’s hurry. The king has brought me into his rooms. We will be glad and rejoice in you. We will praise your love…
- Song of Solomon 2:3-5 (v6) As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit…
- Song of Solomon 5:1 (v6) I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have…
- Daniel 7:14 (v6) Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an…
- Ephesians 3:5-6 (v7) which in other generations was not made known to the children of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the…
- Ephesians 5:8 (v7) For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
- Hebrews 9:24 (v7) For Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in…
- Luke 2:32 (v7) a light for revelation to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”
- Luke 5:39 (v6) No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”
- Luke 14:16-23 (v6) But he said to him, “A certain man made a great supper, and he invited many people. He sent out his servant at supper time to tell those…
- Jeremiah 48:11 (v6) “Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither has he gone…
- Hebrews 9:8 (v7) The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn’t yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6–8 To wit, in Zion, whereby he meaneth his Church,…
To wit, in Zion, whereby he meaneth his Church, which should under Christ be assembled of the Jews and the Gentiles, and is here described under the figure of a costly banquet, as Matt. 22:2.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Isa 25:6 And in this mountain shall the LORD…
Isa 25:6 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.
Ver. 6. And in this mountain,] i.e., In the Church, {Isa 2:2} God’s court, {Isa 24:23} as the table stood in the sanctuary.
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Shall the Lord of hosts make.] Instead of that tree of life in paradise. See Rev 2:7.
Unto all people,] i.e., To the elect among all people, for reprobates are not worthy. {Mat 22:8 Rev 3:4}
A feast {a} of fat things.] The very best of the best. "Fat things, and marrow of fatness; wines," and the most refined; so that "the meek shall eat and be satisfied"; {Psa 22:16} "Their soul shall delight itself in fatness." {Isa 55:2} In the life to come, especially where there shall be solidum huius convivii complementum ac plena perfruitio. Meanwhile the saints have here, at the Lord’s table especially, their dainties and junketting dishes, their celestial viands and most precious provisions: "fat things marrowed," as the Hebrew word is; not only full of marrow, but picked, as it were, and culled out of the heart of marrow. Wine, {b} first, in "the lees," that keepeth the smell, taste, and vigour, vinum cos, as they call it; {as Jer 48:11} next, of "the finest and the best," such as at Lovain they call vinum theologicum, because the divines there, as also the Sorbonists at Paris, drink much of it. Jesus Christ, in his ordinances and graces, is all this, and much more. {Pro 9:2 Mat 22:2} And yet men had rather, as swine, feed on swill and husks, {c} than on these incomparable delicacies.
{a} Convivium opimum, et munificentissimum, convivium medullatorum.
{b} Vina probantur odore, colore, sapore, nitore.
{c} Convivium faecium - Heb., "Shemarim" - faeces, enim vina ipsa conservant.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv6–8 In this mountain; in Mount Zion, to wit, in…
In this mountain; in Mount Zion, to wit, in God’s church, which is very frequently meant by the names of Zion and Jerusalem, both in the Old and in the New Testament.
Make unto all people, both Jews and Gentiles, who shall then be admitted to the participation of the same privileges and ordinances,
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a feast of fat things; a feast made up of the most exquisite and delicate provisions; which is manifestly meant of the ordinances, graces, and comforts given by God in and to his church.
Of wines on the lees; which have continued upon the lees a competent time, whereby they gain strength, and afterwards drawn off from the lees, and so refined, as it is explained in the next clause.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v6 If we suppose (as many do) that this refers…
If we suppose (as many do) that this refers to the great joy which there should be in Zion and Jerusalem when the army of the Assyrians was routed by an angel, or when the Jews were released out of their captivity in Babylon, or upon occasion of some other equally surprising deliverance, yet we cannot avoid making it to look further, to the grace of the gospel and the glory which is the crown and consummation of that grace; for it is at our resurrection through Christ that the saying here written shall be brought to pass; then, and not till then (if we may believe St. Paul), it shall have its full accomplishment: Death is swallowed up in victory, Co1 15:54. This is a key to the rest of the promises here connected together. And so we have here a prophecy of the salvation and the grace brought unto us by Jesus Christ, into which the prophets enquired and searched diligently, Pe1 1:10.
I. That the grace of the gospel should be a royal feast for all people; not like that of Ahasuerus, which was intended only to show the grandeur of the master of the feast (Est 1:4); for this is intended to gratify the guests, and therefore, whereas all there was for show, all here is for substance. The preparations made in the gospel for the kind reception of penitents and supplicants with God are often in the New Testament set forth by the similitude of a feast, as Mat 22:1, etc., which seems to be borrowed from this prophecy. 1. God himself is the Master of the feast, and we may be sure he prepares like himself, as becomes him to give, rather than as becomes us to receive. The Lord of hosts makes this feast. 2. The guests invited are all people, Gentiles as well as Jews. Go preach the gospel to every creature. There is enough for all, and whoever will may come, and partake freely, even those that are gathered out of the highways and the hedges. 3. The place is Mount Zion. Thence the preaching of the gospel takes rise: the preachers must begin at Jerusalem. The gospel church is the Jerusalem that is above; there this feast is made, and to it all the invited guests must go. 4. The provision is very rich, and every thing is of the best. It is a feast, which supposes abundance and variety; it is a continual feast to believers, it is their own fault if it be not. It is a feast of fat things and full of marrow; so relishing, so nourishing, are the comforts of the gospel to all those that feast upon them and digest them. The returning prodigal was entertained with the fatted calf; and David has that pleasure in communion with God with which his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness. It is a feast of wines on the lees, the strongest-bodied wines, that have been kept long upon the lees, and then are well refined from them, so that they are clear and fine. There is that in the gospel which, like wine soberly used, makes glad the heart and raises the spirits, and is fit for those that are of a heavy heart, being under convictions of sin and mourning for it, that they may drink and forget their misery (for that is the proper use of wine - it is a cordial for those that need it, Pro 31:5, Pro 31:6), may be of good cheer, knowing that their sins are forgiven, and may be vigorous in their spiritual work and warfare, as a strong man refreshed with wine.
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II. That the world should be freed from that darkness of ignorance and mistake in the mists of which it had been so long lost and buried (Isa 25:7): He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering (the covering of the face) with which all people are covered (hood-winked or blind-folded) so that they cannot see their way nor go about their work, and by reason of which they wander endlessly. Their faces are covered as those of men condemned, or dead men. There is a veil spread over all nations, for they all sit in darkness; and no marvel, when the Jews themselves, among whom God was known, had a veil upon their hearts, Co2 3:15. But this veil the Lord will destroy, by the light of his gospel shining in the world, and the power of his Spirit opening men's eyes to receive it. He will raise those to spiritual life that have long been dead in trespasses and sins.
III. That death should be conquered, the power of it broken, and the property of it altered: He will swallow up death in victory, Isa 25:8. 1. Christ will himself, in his resurrection, triumph over death, will break its bands, its bars, asunder, and cast away all its cords. The grave seemed to swallow him up, but really he swallowed it up. 2. The happiness of the saints shall be out of the reach of death, which puts a period to all the enjoyments of this world, embitters them, and stains the beauty of them. 3. Believers may triumph over death, and look upon it as a conquered enemy: O death! where is thy sting? 4. When the dead bodies of the saints shall be raised at the great day, and their mortality swallowed up of life, then death will be for ever swallowed up of victory; and it is the last enemy.
IV. That grief shall be banished, and there shall be perfect and endless joy: The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. Those that mourn for sin shall be comforted and have their consciences pacified. In the covenant of grace there shall be that provided which is sufficient to counterbalance all the sorrows of this present time, to wipe away our tears, and to refresh us. Those particularly that suffer for Christ shall have consolations abounding as their afflictions do abound. But in the joys of heaven, and nowhere short of them, will fully be brought to pass this saying, as that before, for there it is that God shall wipe away all tears, Rev 7:17; Rev 21:4. And there shall be no more sorrow, because there shall be no more death. The hope of this should now wipe away all excessive tears, all the weeping that hinders sowing.
V. That all the reproach cast upon religion and the serious professors of it shall be for ever rolled away: The rebuke of his people, which they have long lain under, the calumnies and misrepresentations by which they have been blackened, the insolence and cruelty with which their persecutors have trampled on them and trodden them down, shall be taken away. Their righteousness shall be brought forth as the light, in the view of all the world, who shall be convinced that they are not such as they have been invidiously characterized; and so their salvation from the injuries done them as such shall be wrought out. Sometimes in this world God does that for his people which takes away their reproach from among men. However, it will be done effectually at the great day; for the Lord has spoken it, who can, and will, make it good. Let us patiently bear sorrow and shame now, and improve both; for shortly both will be done away.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv6–8 And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts…
And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things,.... Which is to be understood, not of the ultimate glory of the saints in heaven; which is sometimes represented by a feast; and the participation of it, by sitting down with the saints at a table in the kingdom of God, and by drinking wine there, to which state the best things are reserved, Mat 8:11, but rather of the Gospel dispensation, which lies in the ministration of the word and ordinances; and which are compared to a feast, which consists of the richest dainties, for the entertainment of the faith of God's people; and this is made by the Lord himself, who is sovereign Lord of all, the King of kings; who sits at table himself, and welcomes his guests, and is the sum and substance of the feast: and this is made in his "mountain"; the church, comparable to one for its visibility and immovableness; and for "all" his "people", Jews and Gentiles; for all that are made spiritually alive, and have a spiritual taste, and true faith in Christ, Mat 22:4 particularly the Lord's supper itself is a feast, and a feast of love, comparable to wine; and which is better than wine, and in which wine, in a literal sense, is made use of; and in which the choicest and richest food is presented to faith; the flesh and blood of Christ, which are meat and drink indeed; here the saints are fed as with marrow and fatness, Co1 5:7, Sol 1:2 but it seems rather to respect the marriage supper of the Lamb, in the latter day, when antichrist shall be destroyed, and Jews and Gentiles be converted, and shall join together in the participation of divine blessings, Rev 19:1 or, best of all, the glories, joys, and pleasures of the New Jerusalem state; in which the saints shall drink of the water of life freely, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations, Rev 21:6.
a feast of wines on the lees; that has been long kept on the lees, but now drawn off, and both strong and fine; of a banquet of wine, see Est 7:2 this refers to the wine of the kingdom, Mat 26:29,
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of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined: this heap of words, and repetition of them, show the plenty of the provisions, and the richness and excellency of them; and "fat" being mentioned is a proof that the words must respect the times of the Messiah, since, under the law, fat was not to be eaten (e).
(e) Fortunatus Scacchus, in Sacror. Elaeochr. Myrothec. l. 1. c. 40. col. 205. thinks, that as the prophet speaks of the deliverance of believers from present troubles, and of good things at the coming of the Messiah, the metaphors are taken from the customs of that age, in which feasts were not prepared without the best of ointments; nor in a royal feast were the flesh of any animals used but such as were well fed and kept, and which, according to the law were pure and clean; and agreeably he renders the whole verse thus:
"and the Lord of hosts will make to all people a feast of ointments; a feast of those (animals) that are kept; of ointments full of marrow (the richest and fattest) of those that are kept'';
"pure" beasts, well kept and clean, according to the law of Moses. So Gussetius observes, that signifies not fat, but oil; and not "lees" of wine, but bottles in which wine is "kept", Comment. Ebr. p. 868, 872. The Syriac version of the latter part of the text, though not according to the original, is remarkable;
"the feast, I say, of our heavenly and most mighty quickener, reserved and fat.''.
The interpreter seems to have in his view the great master of the feast, our Lord Jesus Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv6–8 And - In Mount Zion, in God's church. All…
And - In Mount Zion, in God's church. All people - Both Jews and Gentiles. A feast - A feast made up of the most delicate provisions, which is manifestly meant of the ordinances, graces, and comforts given by God in his church. Of wines - Which have continued upon the lees a competent time, whereby they gain strength, and are afterwards drawn off, and refined.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Verse 6. In this mountain] Zion, at Jerusalem. In…
Verse 6. In this mountain] Zion, at Jerusalem. In his Church.
Shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast] Salvation by Jesus Christ. A feast is a proper and usual expression of joy in consequence of victory, or any other great success. The feast here spoken of is to be celebrated on Mount Sion; and all people, without distinction, are to be invited to it. This can be no other than the celebration of the establishment of Christ's kingdom, which is frequently represented in the Gospel under the image of a feast; "where many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" Mt 8:11. See also Lu 14:16; Lu 24:29-30. This sense is fully confirmed by the concomitants of this feast expressed in the next verse, the removing of the veil from the face of the nations, and the abolition of death: the first of which is obviously and clearly explained of the preaching of the Gospel; and the second must mean the blessing of immortality procured for us by Christ, "who hath abolished death, and through death hath destroyed him that had the power of death."
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Of wines on the lees - "Of old wines"] Heb. lees; that is, of wines kept long on the lees. The word used to express the lees in the original signifies the preservers; because they preserve the strength and flavour of the wine. "All recent wines, after the fermentation has ceased, ought to be kept on their lees for a certain time, which greatly contributes to increase their strength and flavour. Whenever this first fermentation has been deficient, they will retain a more rich and sweet taste than is natural to them in a recent true vinous state; and unless farther fermentation is promoted by their lying longer on their own lees, they will never attain their genuine strength and flavour, but run into repeated and ineffectual fermentations, and soon degenerate into a liquor of an acetous kind. All wines of a light and austere kind, by a fermentation too great, or too long continued, certainly degenerate into a weak sort of vinegar; while the stronger not only require, but will safely bear a stronger and often-repeated fermentation; and are more apt to degenerate from a defect than excess of fermentation into a vapid, ropy, and at length into a putrescent state." Sir Edward Barry, Observations on the Wines of the Ancients, p. 9, 10.
Thevenot observes particularly of the Shiras wine, that, after it is refined from the lees, it is apt to grow sour. "Il a beaucoup de lie; c'est pourquoi il donne puissemment dans la teste; et pour le rendre plus traitable on le passe par un chausse d'hypocras; apres quoi il est fort clair, et moins fumeux. Ils mettent ce vin dans des grandes jarres de terres qui tiennent dix ou douze jusqu'a quatorze carabas: mais quand l'on a entame une jarre, il faut la vuider au plutost, et mettre le vin qu'on en tire dans des bouteilles ou carabas; car si l'on y manque en le laissant quelque tems apres que la jarre est entamee il se gate et s'aigrit." Voyages, Tom. ii. p. 245. - "It has much sediment, and therefore is intoxicating. In order to make it more mellow, they strain it through a hypocrates' sleeve, after which it is very clear and less heady. They lay up this wine in great earthen jars, which hold from ten to fourteen carabas: but when a jar is unstopped, it is necessary to empty it immediately, and put the wine into bottles, or carabas; for if it be left thus in the jar, it will spoil and become acid."
The caraba, or girba, is a goat's skin drawn off from the animal, having no apertures but those occasioned by the tail, the feet, and the neck. One opening is left, to pour in and draw off the liquor. This skin goes through a sort of tanning process, and is often beautifully ornamented, as is the case with one of these girbas now lying before me.
This clearly explains the very elegant comparison, or rather allegory, of Jeremiah, Jer 48:11; where the reader will find a remarkable example of the mixture of the proper with the allegorical, not uncommon with the Hebrew poets: -
"Moab hath been at ease from his youth,
And he hath settled upon his lees;
Nor hath he been drawn off from vessel to vessel,
Neither hath he gone into captivity:
Wherefore his taste remaineth in him,
And his flavour is not changed."
Sir John Chardin's MS. note on this place of Jeremiah is as follows: "On change ainsi le vin de coupe en coupe en Orient; et quand on en entame une, il faut la vuider en petites coupes ou bouteilles, sans quoy il s'aigrit. "They change the wine from vessel to vessel in the east; and when they unstop a large one, it is necessary to empty it into small vessels, as otherwise it will grow sour."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 Isa 25:6-7. And in this mountain — In mount…
Isa 25:6-7. And in this mountain — In mount Zion, namely, God’s church, very frequently meant by the names of Zion and Jerusalem, both in the Old and New Testaments; shall the Lord make unto all people — Both Jews and Gentiles, who shall then be admitted to a participation of the same privileges and ordinances; a feast of fat things — A feast made of the most delicate provisions: which is manifestly meant of the ordinances, graces, and comforts given by God in his church. Of wines on the lees — Which have continued upon the lees a competent time, whereby they gain strength, and are afterward drawn out and refined. He will destroy the face of the covering — The covering of the face, or the veil, as the next clause expounds it, namely, of ignorance of God, and of the true religion; cast over all people — Which then was upon the Gentiles and the Jews, 2Co 3:14-16. This is a manifest prophecy concerning the illumination and conversion of the Gentiles.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv6–8 And in this mountain - In mount Zion, that…
And in this mountain - In mount Zion, that is, in Jerusalem. The following verses undoubtedly refer to the times of the Messiah. Several of the expressions used here are quoted in the New Testament, showing that the reference is to the Messiah, and to the fact that his kingdom would commence in Jerusalem. and then extend to all people.
Shall the Lord of hosts - (See the note at Isa 1:9.)
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Make unto all people - Provide for all people. He shall adapt the provisions of salvation not only to the Jews, but to people everywhere. This is one of the truths on which Isaiah loved to dwell, and which in fact constitutes one of the peculiarities of his prophecy. It is one of the chief glories of the gospel, that it is unto all people. See Isa 57:7; Dan 5:19; Dan 7:14; compare Luk 2:10 : ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people’
A feast - A feast, or entertainment, was usually observed, as it is now, on occasion of a great victory, or any other signal success. It is, therefore, emblematic of an occasion of joy. Here it is used in the twofold sense of an occasion of joy, and of an abundance of provisions for the necessities of those who should be entertained. This feast was to be prepared on mount Zion - in the provision which would be made in Jerusalem by the Messiah for the spiritual needs of the whole world. The arrangements for salvation arc often represented under the image of an ample and rich entertainment (see Luk 14:16; Rev 19:19; Mat 13:11).
Of fat things - Of rich delicacies. Fat things and marrow are often used as synonymous with a sumptuous entertainment, and are made emblematic Of the abundant provisions of divine mercy (see Isa 55:2; Psa 63:5; Psa 36:8 : ‘I shall be satisfied with the fatness of thy house. ‘)
A feast of wines on the lees - The word which is used here (שׁמרים shemâriym) is derived from שׁמר shâmar, to keep, preserve, retain, and is applied usually to the lees or dregs of wine, because they retain the strength and color of the wine which is left to stand on them. It is also in this place applied to wine which has been kept on the lees, and is therefore synonymous with old wine; or wine of a rich color and flavor. This fact, that the color and strength of wine are retained by its being suffered to remain without being poured from one vessel into another, is more fully expressed in Jer 48:11 :
Moab hath been at ease from his youth,
And he hath settled on his lees,
And hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel,
Neither hath he gone into captivity;
Therefore his taste remaineth in him,
And his scent is not changed.
Compare Zep 1:12. It is well known that wines, unless retained for a considerable time on the lees, lose their flavor and strength, and are much less valuable (compare the notes at Joh 2:10; notes at Joh 1:11).
Of fat things full of marrow - Marrow is also an emblem of richness, or the delicacy of the entertainment Psa 63:5.
Of wines on the lees well refined - The word rendered ‘well refined’ (מזקקים mezuqqāqiym) is usually applied to the purifying of metals in a furnace 1Ch 28:18; 1Ch 29:4; Job 28:1. When applied to wine, it denotes that which has been suffered to remain on the lees until it was entirely refined and purified by fermentation, and had become perfectly clear.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Mountain of Sion, a figure of the Church, and…
Mountain of Sion, a figure of the Church, and of heaven. The Jews shall feast: yea, some of all nations shall partake of the blessed Eucharist, and obtain heaven. The expressions are too grand for a corruptible feast. (Calmet) --- Wine. Literally, "of vintage," (Haydock) on which occasion great rejoicings were made. (Hesiod, Hercul. 297.) --- Protestants, "of wines on the lees." (Haydock) --- In the East, the wines were very thick, Psalm lxxv. 9. (Calmet) --- On the rejection of the Jews, the Gentiles were converted. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v6 6 And in this mountain
4. ZION AS THE PLACE OF THE FEAST GIVEN TO ALL NATIONS IN OPPOSITION TO MOAB, WHICH PERISHES INGLORIOUSLY
Isa_25:6-12
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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 5destroy in this mountain
The face of the covering 6cast over all people,
And the vail that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death 7in victory;
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces;
And the 8rebuke 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 910trodden down under him,
Even as straw is11 12trodden 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 13spoils 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.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_25:6. שְׁמָנִים מְמֻחָים are not fat pieces unmarrowed, but, on the contrary, fat pieces marrowy, yea provided with abundant marrow. If the stem מָחָה, from which ממחים comes, is to be regarded as not different from מָחָה to wipe away, and not as a denominative from מֹחַ marrow, we must assume as common fundamental signification “to rub, to spread over, to besmear.” But as then מְמֻחָה would be only what is covered over with fat, not what is in itself fat, the derivation from מֹחַ is in my opinion more probable. This Pual is found only here, and no other of the forms that occur has the signification “pinguem, medullosum esse.” Instead of מְמֻחִים we have מְמֻחָיִם, a verb לה֞ (מָחָה) being formed from מֹחַ and its third radical appearing after the manner of verbs לה֞ (comp. בְּעָיוּ ,אֵתָיוּ, Isa_21:12). The object of employing this form is to increase the concord of sounds which is in Isa_25:6 so prominent.
Isa_25:7. In פני הלוט we have the genitive of identity, the covering being marked as that which forms the front view, as the foreside. The substantive לוֹט is found only here. The participle לוֹט is evidently chosen for the sake of assonance (comp. Isa_24:3). It is formed after the analogy of קוֹם, 2Ki_16:7. Comp. Gesen. Gr., § 72, note 1. מַסֵּכָה and נְסוּכהָ are not from נָסַךְ effundere, libare, but from another נָסַךְ whose radical meaning seems to be “to weave.” מַסֵּכָה is therefore properly a texture, a woven covering. The word is found besides Isa_28:20.
Isa_25:10. הִדּוּשׁ is as a verbal form quite abnormal and unexampled. It appears to me to be a changing of the regular infinitive form הִדּוֹשׁ into a nominal form, and is allied to forms such as הִתּוּךְ, Eze_22:22, חִלּוּל, Lev_19:24. הדּוּשׁ would then be conculcatio, detrusio.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. After the hymn by which the Prophet had given expression to his subjective emotions, he returns to his objective representation of the future. He resumes the discourse broken off at Isa_24:23, whilst he further depicts what will happen on Mount Zion, and—in opposition to this—what will befall the wicked. What will take place on Mount Zion is of a twofold character, positive and negative. Positively, the Lord will prepare for all nations a feast consisting of the most precious articles of food and drink (Isa_25:6). Negatively, He will first remove the covering which was hitherto spread over all nations (Isa_25:7); Secondly, He will abolish death, wipe off all tears, and take away the reproach which His people had hitherto to endure on the whole earth (Isa_25:8). While believers rejoice in the salvation prepared for them by Jehovah their God, to whom they can now point as to one who is not merely to be believed in, but to be seen in His manifested presence (Isa_25:9), and whose hand bears and upholds all the glory of Mount Zion (Isa_25:10 a), the Moabites, i.e., those who are represented by Moab, are cast like straw into the dung-hole on which they stand (Isa_25:10 b). They will indeed work with the hands in order to rescue themselves, but their efforts will not save them from the most ignominious ruin, and their proud, high fortresses will be levelled to the ground, and crushed to dust (Isa_25:11-12).
2. And in this mountain——refined.
Isa_25:6. “This mountain” points back to “Mount Zion,” Isa_24:23. Not only Israel, all nations will be collected on the mountain. There the Lord will prepare a feast for them. That it is a spiritual feast, and that it is not simply for one occasion, but that it will be a permanent, everlasting entertainment, is implied in the nature of the thing. For there everything will be spiritual; and when according to Isa_25:8. death will be forever abolished, there must, that the antithesis may be maintained, reign forever life, and everything which is the condition of life. This feast meets us elsewhere, both in the Old and in the New Testament, under various forms. In Exo_24:11 it is related that Moses and the elders of Israel, after they had seen God, ate and drank on the holy mountain, which transaction we are by all means justified in regarding as a typical one. Comp. Psa_22:27; Psa_22:30; Isa_55:1; Isa_65:11 sqq. In the New Testament this holy feast given by God appears sometimes as the Great Supper (Luk_14:16 sqq.), sometimes as the marriage of the king’s son (Mat_22:1 sqq.; Isa_25:1 sqq.), or the marriage of the Lamb (Rev_19:7; Rev_19:9; Rev_19:17 sqq., in which latter place the counterpart of this feast is set forth). It is remarkable that this most glorious, most spiritual feast is represented in so homely a way by the Prophet. This is a clear example of that law of prophecy according to which the future is always represented from the materials furnished by the present. The richest, strongest, most nutritious thing which Isaiah knew to be served up at an earthly feast, is employed as an image to set forth the heavenly banquet. This richest thing was the fat. Therefore the fat of the animals offered in sacrifice (flos carnis) was the chief constituent of the bloody offerings, especially of the Shelamim [E. V., peace offerings] (Exo_29:13-22; Lev_3:3-5; Leviticus 9-11; Leviticus 14-16; Lev_8:16; Lev_9:19 sqq.). We can therefore say: What God Himself formerly required of men, as the noblest part of the victims offered to Him, He now Himself as host offers to His redeemed upon His holy mountain. But the expression “fat” or “marrow” is used also in reference to the land and its vegetable products, to designate the finest. Thus it is said, Gen_45:18, “ye shall eat the fat of the land;” Num_18:12, “all the fat of oil and all the fat of new wine and corn;” Deu_32:14, “the fat of kidneys of wheat.” That שֶמֶן can stand in this sense, we have already seen from other utterances of Isa_5:1; Isa_10:16; Isa_17:4; Isa_28:1-4. The most excellent drink accompanies the choicest food. That Isaiah designates this drink by שְׁמָרִים is owing to the endeavor to put as parallel to שֶׁמָנִים a word resembling it in sound. But the question arises, how can Isaiah call the most excellent wine שְׁמָרִים? This word seems primarily to denote a wine containing dregs, that is, turbid with dregs, therefore, a bad wine. But Isaiah manifestly understands by שְׁמָרִים wines which have lain a sufficient time on their lees. For the lees are not only the product of a process of purification, but also a reacting substance which contributes to heighten the strength, color and durability of the wine. A wine poured off from its lees too soon tastes too sweet and does not keep long. Cato, too, (De re rust. cap. 154) designates a wine that has lain long enough on its lees vinum faecatum. Comp. Gesenius,Thes., p. 1444, and his commentary on this place. The expression שְׁמָרִים (only plural) comes therefore from שָׁמַר, and שֶׁמֶר is primarily conservatio, the letting lie, then conservatum, that which is let lie (comp. Jer_48:11). The plural denotes the multiplicity of the ingredients contained in the sediment. שְׁמָרִים is moreover used here metonymically; for it plainly signifies not the lees alone, but also the wine united with the lees. But we can not, of course, drink the lees united with the wine. This wine poured off from the lees must be percolated (מזקק only here in Isaiah).
3. And he will destroy——spoken it.
Isa_25:7-8. The covering here spoken of brings at once to mind the vail of Moses, Exo_34:30 sqq. To the visible covering there corresponds an invisible one also, which lies on the heart. But when the Lord will take away the covering, He will first of all remove the covering of the heart, as Paul says, 2Co_3:16, “περιαιρεῖται τὸ κὰλυμμα.” Then will the external covering also fall off, and men will be capable of seeing the glory of the Lord face to face (1Co_13:12; 1Jn_3:2). [All that the Prophet here says of a covering and vail must be understood metaphorically. A literal, external covering cast over the nations, distinct from a spiritual one, is not to be thought of. D. M.]. Isa_25:8. The second negative blessing is that the Lordswallows up death also. בִּלַּע occurs not unfrequently in Isa_3:12; Isa_9:15; Isa_29:3; Isa_49:19. It seems here and Isa_25:7 to denote more than that its object is removed, for then it could be placed somewhere else; but its object is to be conceived as existing no more. Paul tells us (1Co_15:26; 1Co_15:54) that death shall in this sense be swallowed up. When there is no death, there are no more tears. For tears flow, either in the case of the living, over that which leads to death; or in the case of survivors, over those who have suffered death. The Apostle John quotes in Rev_7:17; Rev_21:4, our place to prove that he regards the things which he saw as a fulfilment, not only of his own prophecy, but also of that spoken by Isaiah. He thus makes his own prophecy an echo or reproduction of the prophetic word of the Old Testament. Where sin and death have disappeared, there can be no more reproach, but only glory. There is a new earth: it is a dwelling-place of God with man; it has, therefore, become the place of the divine glory. Where then could there be upon it any more a place for the reproach of those who belong to the people of God? For the Lord hath spoken it. Comp. on Isa_1:2.
4. And it shall be said——rest
Isa_25:9-10 a. What follows is not a hymn, but a report of one. This is plain from the use of the impersonal אמר (Isa_45:24; Isa_65:8). The hymn in Isa_25:1 sqq. came from the Prophet’s own mouth: this one is heard by him, and related with a brief statement of its leading thoughts. The redeemed now see the Lord in whom they have hitherto only believed (comp. Isa_25:7 and 1Jn_3:2). That they see Him is clear from the expression הנֵּה זֶה (comp. Isa_21:9). The heathen, who believed in false gods, experience the very opposite. They are confounded when they must mark the vanity of their idols; but they who believe in Jehovah will after faith be rewarded with seeing; for they can point with the finger to their God as one who is really existent and present before the eyes of all, and can say: Our God is no illusion as your false gods; we and all see Him as truly existing, as Him who was and is to come, יהוה (Exo_3:14). Herein is their joy perfect (Joh_15:11). ויושׁיענו is not “and He saves us,” but “that He may save us” (comp. Isa_8:11; Ew. § 347 a): That the joy for the experienced salvation is not transitory and delusive, but will be everlasting is confirmed by the sentence, For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest,etc., Isa_25:10 a. The hand of Jehovah will settle upon this mountain, it will rest upon it (Isa_7:2; Isa_11:2). But what the hand of Jehovah holds, stands fast for ever.
5. And Moab——to the dust.
Isa_25:10 b –12. In opposition to the high, triumphant joy of believers, the Prophet now depicts the lot of unbelievers. He mentions Moab as the representative of the latter. He cannot mean thereby the whole nation of Moab. For all nations partake of the great feast on the holy mountain (Isa_25:6), from all nations the covering is taken off (Isa_25:7), from all faces the tears are wiped away (Isa_25:8). Moab consequently cannot be excluded. Even Jeremiah (Jer 48:47) leads us to expect the turning of the captivity of Moab in the latter days. It can therefore be only the Moab that hardens itself against the knowledge of God which will suffer the doom described in Isa_25:10 sqq. But if Moab, so far as it is hostile to God, has to bear this sentence, why not likewise the God-opposing elements from all other nations? Moab therefore stands for all. But why is Moab in particular named? The Moabites were remarkable for their unbounded arrogance. Jeremiah (Isa_48:11) specifies as the cause of this arrogance the fact that they had, from the time when they began to be a people, dwelt undisturbed in their own land. Further, we must assume that the Prophet, when he began the sentence (Isa_25:10 b), had before his mind the image which he uses (Isa_25:10-11), and the whole series of thoughts attached to it. It is, moreover, probable that he chose the name Moab just for the sake of the image. According to Gen_19:37 the father of the Moabites owed his birth to the incestuous intercourse of the eldest daughter of Lot with her father. An allusion to this fact has been always supposed to be contained in the name מוֹאָב. And this view is not destitute of philological support, comp. Ges.Thes., p. 774, sub voceמואב. The K’ri מוֹ מַדְמֵנָה lets us more clearly perceive why Isaiah made mention of Moab as the representative of the heathen world, and should, therefore, perhaps be preferred. But, whether we read מֵי or מוֹ, it is manifest that the Prophet wishes to express the idea “water of the dung-hole,” and that, alluding to the etymology of Moab, he has named the unbelievers of Moab as representatives of the unbelievers of all nations. Moab is therefore cast down (Isa_28:27 sq.; Isa_41:15) under him (i.e., under the place on which he stood, comp. Exo_16:29; Jos_5:8; Jos_6:5; Job_40:12; Amo_2:13). Straw is cast into the filthy water of the dung-hole, in order that it may be saturated by it, and rendered fitter for manure. Our interpretation of מו מ׳ is confirmed by the fact that מדמנה obviously contains an intentional allusion to the Moabite city מַדְמֵן (Jer_48:2). The person cast into the dung-hole seeks to save himself. We have therefore to suppose the hole to be of considerable extent. He spreads forth his hands as if to swim. But it is sorry swimming. The desperate struggle for life is thus depicted. The effort is unavailing. Moab must find an ignominious end in the impure element. The Lord presses Him down. Moab is elsewhere blamed for two evil qualities: 1) his pride, 2) his lying disposition (Isa_16:6; Jer_48:29). A corresponding punishment is inflicted: the lies, the artifices symbolized by the skilful motions of the hands (ארבות from אָרַבnectere, especially insidias struere) are of no avail. The haughty Moab (comp. נאוה here and Jer_16:6) must perish in the pool of filthy water. The Lord humbles the proud by making disgrace an element of their punishment. That עִם signifies “in spite of” is not sufficiently attested. It can well retain here its proper signification “with;” for, in fact, Jehovah presses down not only the proud, but also the cunning and artful. The humbling of pride is, however, the main thing. This is therefore once more asserted, Jer_25:13, without a figure in strong expressions. The phrase “the defence of the height of thy walls” for “the defence of thy high walls” is idiomatic Hebrew. Compensation for the adjective is sought in substantive forms (comp. Isa_22:7; Isa_30:30). Three verbs are used corresponding to the three substantives. If עד־עפר is not equivalent simply to לארץ, we must find in it the idea of being reduced to dust.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Isa_24:2. “When general judgments take place, no distinction is observed between man and wife, master and servant, mistress and maid, learned and unlearned, noble and plebeian, clergy and laity; therefore let no one rely on any external prerogative or superiority, but let every one without distinction repent and forsake sin.”—Cramer. Though this is right, yet we must, on the other hand, remember that the Lord declares in reference to the same great event, “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (Mat_24:10 sq.). There is no contradiction in these two statements. Both are true: outward relations will make no difference; there shall be no respect of persons. But the state of the heart will make a difference. According to the inward character there will, in the case of those whose external position in the world is perfectly alike, be some who enter life, others whose doom is death.
2. Isa_24:5 sq. “The earth is burdened with sins, and is therefore deprived of every blessing. The earth must suffer for our guilt, when we have as it were spoilt it, and it must be subject to vanity for our sakes (Rom_8:20). What wonder is it that it should show itself ungrateful toward us?”—Cramer.
[3. Isa_24:13 sq. “Observe the small number of this remnant; here and there one who shall escape the common calamity (as Noah and his family, when the old world was drowned), who when all faces gather blackness, can lift up their head with joy. Luk_21:26-28.” Henry.—D. M.].
4. Isa_24:17-20. Our earth is a volcanic body. Mighty volcanic forces were active at its formation. That these are still in commotion in the interior of the earth is proved by the many active volcanoes scattered over the whole earth, and by the perpetual volcanic convulsions which we call earthquakes. These have hitherto been confined to particular localities. But who can guarantee that a concentration and simultaneous eruption of those volcanic forces, that is, a universal earthquake, shall not hereafter occur? The Lord makes express mention of earthquakes among the signs which shall precede His second coming (Mat_24:7; Mar_13:8; Luk_21:11). And in 2Pe_3:5 sqq. the future destruction of the earth by fire is set over against the destruction of the old world by water. Isaiah in our place announces a catastrophe whose characteristic features will be that, 1) there will be no escape from it; 2) destructive forces will assail from above and below; 3) the earth will be rent asunder; 4) it will reel and totter; 5) it will suffer so heavy a fall that it will not rise again (Isa_24:20 b). Is there not here a prophecy of the destruction of the earth by volcanic forces? And how suddenly can they break loose! The ministers of the word have every reason to compare this extreme exposedness of our earth to fire, and the possibility of its unexpectedly sudden collapse with the above-cited warnings of the word of God, and to attach thereto the admonition which is added in 2Pe_3:11.
5. Isa_24:21. The earth is a part of our planetary system. It is not what it appears to the optical perception to be, a central body around which worlds of a different nature revolve, but it, together with many similar bodies, revolves round a common centre. The earth according to that view of the account of the creation in Genesis 1, which appears to me the true one, has arisen with all the bodies of our Solar system out of one primary matter, originally united, common to them all. If our Solar System is a well-ordered, complete organism, it must rest on the basis of a not merely formal, but also material unity; i.e., the separate bodies must move, not only according to a principle of order which governs all, but they must also as to their substance be essentially like. And as they arose simultaneously, so must they perish simultaneously. It is inconceivable that our earth alone should disappear from the organism of the Solar System, or pass over to a higher material condition. Its absence, or ceasing to exist in its previous form and substance, would necessarily draw after it the ruin of the whole system. Hence the Scripture speaks every where of a passing away and renovation of the heaven and the earth (Psa_102:26; Isa_51:6; Isa_65:17; Isa_66:22; Mat_5:18; Mat_24:29; Mat_24:35; 2Pe_3:7; 2Pe_3:10; 2Pe_3:13; Heb_12:26; Rev_20:11; Rev_21:1). The heaven that shall pass away with a great noise, whose powers shall be shaken, whose stars shall fall, is the planetary heaven. The same lot will happen to the companions of our earth, to the other planets, and to the centre, the sun, and to all other co-ordinate and subordinate stellar bodies, which will befall the earth itself. This is the substance of the view which serves as a basis for our place. But personal beings are not thereby by any means excluded from the צבא מרום. The parallel expression מלכי האדמה, and the use in other places of the related expression צבא השׁמים lead us rather to suppose personal beings to be included. But I believe that a distinction must be made here. As the heavenly bodies which will pass away simultaneously with the earth, can only be those which arose together with it, and which stand in organic connection with it, so also the angelic powers, which are judged simultaneously with us men, can be only those which stand in connection with the heavenly bodies of our Solar System, i.e., with the earthly material world. There are heavenly bodies of glorious pneumatic substance. If personal beings stand in connection with them, they must also be pure, glorious, resplendent beings. These will not be judged. They are the holy angels, who come with the Lord (Mat_25:31). But it is quite conceivable that all the bodies of our Solar System are till the judgment like our earth suffered to be the theatre of the spirits of darkness.
6. Isa_24:21-23, It seems to me that the Prophet has here sketched the chief matters pertaining to eschatology. For the passing away of heaven and earth, the binding of Satan (Rev_20:1-3), the loosing of Satan again (Rev_20:7), and finally the reign of God alone, which will make sun and moon unnecessary (Rev_21:23)—are not these the boundary-stones of the chief epochs of the history of the end of the world?
7. Isa_25:6. [“The Lord of hosts makes this feast. The provision is very rich, and every thing is of the best. It is a feast, which supposes abundance and variety; it is a continual feast to believers: it is their fault if it be not. It is a feast of fat things and full of marrow; so relishing, so nourishing are the comforts of the Gospel to all those that feast upon them and digest them. The returning prodigal was entertained with the fatted calf; and David has that pleasure in communion with God, with which his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness. It is a feast of wines on the lees; the strongest-bodied wines, that have been long kept upon the lees, and then are well refined from them, so that they are clear and fine. There is that in the Gospel which, like fine wine, soberly used, makes glad the heart, and raises the spirits, and is fit for those that are of a heavy heart, being under convictions of sin, and mourning for it, that they may drink and forget their misery (for that is the proper use of wine; it is a cordial for those that need it, Pro_31:6-7) may be of good cheer, knowing that their sins are forgiven, and may be vigorous in their spiritual work and warfare, as a strong man refreshed with wine.” Henry.—D. M.]
8. Isa_25:9. “In the Old Testament the vail and covering were before men’s eyes, partly because they waited for the light that was to appear, partly because they sat in darkness and in the shadow of death (Luk_1:79). The fulfilment of this prediction has in Christ already begun, and will at last be perfectly fulfilled in the Church triumphant where all ignorance and sorrow shall be dispelled (1Co_13:12).” Cramer.
9. Isa_25:8. “God here represents Himself as a mother, who presses to her bosom her sorrowful son, comforts him and wipes away his tears (Isa_66:13). The righteous are to believe and appropriate this promise, that every one may learn to speak with Paul in the time of trial: the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us, Rom_8:18.” Cramer.
10. Isa_25:10. “This is now the hope and consolation of the church that the hand of the Lord rests on this mountain, that is, that He will be gracious, and let His power, help and grace be there seen and felt. But the unbelieving Moabites, i.e., the Jews, with all others who will not receive the gospel, shall be threshed to pieces as straw in the mire; these the Lord’s hand will not rescue, as it helps those who wait on Him, but it shall press them down so that they will never rise, according to the saying, Mar_16:16.” Veit Dietrich.
11. Isaiah 25 Three thoughts contained in this chapter we should hold fast: 1) When we see the world triumph over every thing which belongs to the Lord and His kingdom, when our hearts are anxious about the preservation in the world of the Church of Christ, which is sore oppressed, let this word of the Prophet comfort our hearts. The world-city which contains all that is of the world, sinks into the dust, and the church of Christ goes from her chains and bands into the state of freedom and glory. We have often seen that it is the Lord’s way to let every thing come to maturity. When it is once ripe, He comes suddenly with His sentence. Let us comfort ourselves therewith, for thus will it happen with the world and its dominion over the faithful followers of Christ. When it is ripe, suddenly it will come to an end. 2) No one who has a heart for the welfare of the nations can see without the deepest pain how all hearts are now seduced and befooled, and all eyes closed and covered. The simplest truths are no longer acknowledged, but the more perverse, brutal and mean views and doctrines are, the more greedily are they laid hold of. We cannot avert this. But our comfort is that even this seduction of the nations will reach its climax. Then men will come to themselves. The vail and covering will fall off, and the Gospel will shine with new light before the nations. Therewith let us comfort ourselves. 3) Till this happens, the church is sorrowful. But she shall be full of joy. The promise is given to her that she shall be fully satisfied with the good things of the house of the Lord. A life is promised to her which neither death nor any pain can affect, as she has rest from all enemies. The word of the Lord shall be fulfilled in her: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The Church that has such a promise may wait in patient quietness for its accomplishment, and praise the Lord in affliction, till it pleases Him to glorify her before all nations.” Weber, The Prophet Isaiah. 1875.
12. Isa_26:1. “The Christian church is a city of God. God has built it, and He is the right Master-builder. It is strong: 1) on account of the Builder; 2) on account of the foundation and corner-stone, which is Christ; 3) on account of the bond wherewith the living stones are bound together, which is the unity of the faith.” Cramer. [The security and happiness of true believers, both on earth and in heaven, is represented in Scripture under the image of their dwelling in a city in which they can bid defiance to all their enemies. We dwell in such a city even now, Psa_46:4-5. We look for such a city, Heb_11:10; Heb_11:16; Revelation 21—D. M.]
13. Isa_26:2. [These words may be taken as a description of the people whom God owns, who are fit to be accounted members of the church of the living God on earth, and who will not be excluded from the celestial city. Instead of complaining that only the righteous and the faithful will be admitted into the heavenly city, it should rather give us joy to think that there will be no sin there, that none but the just and true will there be found. This has been a delightful subject of reflection to God’s saints. The last words written by Henry Martyn were: “Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? When shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in no wise enter in any thing that defileth; none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts—none of their corruptions which add to the miseries of mortality shall be seen or heard of any more.”—D. M.]
14. Isa_26:4. “The fourth privilege of the church is trust in God the Rock of Ages, i.e., in Christ, who not only here, but also Matthew 16; 1 Corinthians 10; 1 Peter 2, is called a rock in a peculiar manner, because no other foundation of salvation and of the church can be laid except this rock, which is here called the rock of ages on account of the eternity of His being, merit and office. Hence a refutation can be drawn of the papistical fable which makes Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, to be the rock on which the church is built.” Foerster. [“Whatever we trust to the world for, it will be but for a moment. All we expect from it is confined within the limits of time; but what we trust in God for will last as long as we shall last. For in the Lord Jehovah, Jah, Jehovah, in Him who was, and is, and is to come, there is a rock of ages, a firm and lasting foundation for faith and hope to build upon; and the house built on that rock will stand in a storm.” Henry.”—D. M.]
15. Isa_26:5. “It is very common with the prophets, when they prophesy of the kingdom of Christ to make reference to the proud and to the needy, and to represent the latter as exalted and the former as brought low. This truth is directed properly against the self-righteous. For Christ and His righteousness will not endure spiritual pride and presumption; but the souls that are poor, that hunger and thirst for grace, that know their need, these Christ graciously receives.” Cramer.
16. Isa_26:6. “It vexes the proud all the more that they will be overcome by those who are poor and of no consequence. For example, Goliath was annoyed that a boy should come against him with a staff (1 Sam. 13:43) Cramer.
17. Isa_26:8-10. That the justice of God must absolutely manifest itself that the majesty of the Lord may be seen, and that the wicked may learn righteousness, must even from a new Testament view-point be admitted. But the New Testament disputes the existence of any one who is righteous when confronted by the law, and who is not deserving of punishment. [But that there is none righteous, no not one, is taught most emphatically in the Old Testament also.—D. M.]. But it (the New Testament) while it shuts up all, Jews and Gentiles, without exception, under sin (Gal_3:22; Rom_3:9; Rom_11:32), sets forth a scheme of mediation, which, while it renders full satisfaction to justice, at the same time offers to all the possibility of deliverance. This mediation is through the Cross of Christ. It is only when this mediation has not been accepted that punitive justice has free course. It should not surprise us that even the Evangelist of the Old Covenant, who wrote chap. 53, did not possess perfect knowledge of this mediation. Let us remember John the Baptist (Mat_3:7; Mat_11:11) and the disciples of the Lord (Luk_9:54). [Let us not forget that Isaiah was a true Prophet, and spoke as he was moved by the Spirit of God. The Apostle Paul did not find fault with the most terrible denunciations of judgment contained in the Old Testament, or affect a superiority over the men who uttered them. On the contrary, he quotes them as words which could not be suffered to fall, but which must be fulfilled in all their dreadful import. See e.g. Rom_11:9-10.—D. M.].
18. Isa_26:12. “It is a characteristic of true, sincere Christians, that they give God the glory and not themselves, and freely confess that they have nothing of themselves, but everything from God (1Co_4:7; Php_2:13; Heb_12:2).” Cramer.
19. Isa_26:16. The old theologians have many comforting and edifying thoughts connected with this place: “A magnet has the power to raise and attract to itself iron. Our heart is heavy as iron. But the hand of God is as a magnet. When that hand visits us with affliction, it lifts us up, and draws us to itself.” “Distress teaches us to pray, and prayer again dispels all distress. One wedge displaces the other.” “Ex gravibus curis impellimur ad pia vota.” “Ex monte myrrhae procedimus ad collem thuris (Cant. 9:6). In amaritudine crucis exsurgit odor devotae precationis (Psa_86:6 sq.).” “Ubi nulla crux et tentatio, ibi nulla vera oratio. Oratio sine mails est tanquam avis sine alis. Optimus orandi magister necessitas. Τὰ παθήματα μαθήματα. Quae nocent, docent. Ubi tentatio, ibi oratio. Mala, quae hic nos premunt, ad Deum ire compellunt. Qui nescit orare, ingrediatur mare.” “When the string is most tightly drawn, it sounds best. Cross and temptation are the right prayer-bell. They are the press by which God crushes out the juice of prayer.” Cramer and Foerster.
20. Isa_26:20. As God, when the deluge was about to burst, bade Noah go into his ark as into his chamber, and Himself shut the door on him (Gen_7:6); so does the Lord still act when a storm is approaching; He brings His own into a chamber where they can be safe, either for their temporal preservation and protection against every might (Psa_91:1), or, on the other hand, to give them repose by a peaceful and happy death.” “His anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life (Psa_30:6).” Cramer.
21. Isa_27:1. [“Great and mighty princes [nations] if they oppose the people of God, are in God’s account, as dragons and serpents, and plagues of mankind; and the Lord will punish them in due time. They are too big for men to deal with, and call to an account; and therefore the great God will take the doing of it into His own hands.” Henry.—D. M.].
22. Isa_27:2-5. “It seems to the world that God has no concern for His church and Christians, else, we imagine, they would be better off. But certain it is, that it is not the angels but God Himself that will be watcher over this vineyard, and will send it gracious rain.” Veit Dietrich. [“The church is a vineyard of red wine, yielding the best and choicest grapes, intimating the reformation of the church, that it now brings forth good fruit unto God, whereas before it brought forth fruit to itself, or brought forth wild grapes, Isa_5:4.” “God takes care (1) of the safety of this vineyard; I the Lord do keep it. He speaks this, as glorying in it, that He is, and has undertaken to be, the keeper of Israel; those that bring forth fruit to God are, and shall be always, under His protection. (2) God takes care of the fruitfulness of this vineyard: I will water it every moment; and yet it shall not be over watered. We need the constant and continual waterings of the divine grace; for if that be at any time withdrawn, we wither and come to nothing.” Henry. D. M.].
23. Isa_27:4. “Est aurea promissio, qua praecedentem confirmat. Indignatio non est mihi, fury is not in me. Quomodo enim is nobis irasci potest, qui pro nobis est mortuus? Quanquam igitur appareat, eum irasci, non tamen est verum, quod irascatur. Sic Paulo immittitur angelus Satanae, sed non est ira, nam ipse Christus dicit: sufficit tibi gratia mea. Sic pater filium delinquentem castigat, sed non est ira, quanquam appareat ira esse. Custodia igitur vineae aliquando cogit Deum immittere speciem irae, ne pereat luxurie, sed non est ira. Est insignis textus, which we should inscribe on all tribulations: Non est indignatio mihi, non possum irasci. Quod autem videtur irasci est custodia vineae, ne pereas et fias securus. Luther. “In order to understand fully the doctrine of the wrath of God we must have a clear perception of the antithesis: the long-suffering of God, and the wrath of God, wrath and mercy.” Lange.
24. Isa_27:7-9. “Christ judges His church, i.e., He punishes and afflicts it, but He does this in measure. The sorrow and cross is meted out, and is not, as it appears to us, without measure and infinite. It is so measured that redemption must certainly follow. But why does God let His Christians so suffer? Why does He not lay the cross on the wicked? God answers this question and speaks: the sin of Jacob will thereby cease. That is: God restrains sin by the cross, and subdues the old Adam.” Veit Dietrich.
25. Isa_27:13. [“The application of this verse to a future restoration of the Jews can neither be established nor disproved. In itself considered, it appears to contain nothing which may not be naturally applied to events long past.” J. A. Alexander.—“This prediction was completely and entirely fulfilled by the return of the Jews to their own country under the decree of Cyrus.” Barnes.—D. M.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Isa_24:4-6. Fast-day sermon. Warning against dechristianization of the life of the people. 1) Wherein such dechristianization consists: a, transgression of the commandments that are in force; b, alteration of the commandments which are essential articles of the everlasting covenant, as e.g. removing of all state institutions from the basis of religion. 2) Its consequences: a, Desecration of the land (subjectively, by the spread of a profane, godless sentiment; objectively, by the secularization of relations hitherto held sacred); b, the curse consumes the land, Isa_24:4.
2. On Isa_25:1-5. The Lord, the refuge of the needy. 1) He has the power to help. This we perceive a, from His nature (Lord, God, Wonderful); b, from His deeds (Isa_25:1 b, Isa_25:2). 2) He gives His strength even to the feeble, (Isa_25:4). 3) These are thereby victorious, (Isa_25:5).
3. On Isa_25:6-9. Easter Sermon, by T. Schaeffer (Manch. Gab. u. ein Geist III. p. 269):—“The glorious Easter-blessing of the Risen One: 1) Wherein it consists? 2) who receive it? 3) what are its effects? Christmas Sermon, by Romberg [ibid. 1869, p. 78): Our text represents to us Christmas joy under the image of a festive board. Let us consider, 1) the host; 2) the guests; 3) the gifts.”
4. On Isa_26:1-4. Concerning the church. 1) She is a strong city in which salvation is to be found. 2) The condition of having a portion in her is faith. 3) The blessing which she is instrumental in procuring is peace.
5. Isa_26:19-21. The comfort of the Christian for the present and future. 1) For the present the Christian is to betake himself to his quiet chamber, where he is alone with his Lord and by Him made cheerful and secure. 2) For the future he has the certain hope, a, that the Lord will judge the wicked, b, raise the believer to everlasting life.
6. Isa_27:2-9. How the Lord deals with His vineyard, the church. 1) Fury is not in Him towards it; 2) He protects and purifies it; 3) He gives it strength, peace and growth; 4) He chastens it in measure; 5) He makes the chastisement itself serve to purge it from sins.
Footnotes:
[5]Heb. Swallow up.
[6]Heb. covered.
[7]for ever.
[8]reproach.
[9]Or, threshed.
[10]be cast down.
[11]Or, threshed in Madmenah.
[12]cast down into the waters of the dunghole.
[13]devices.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv6–8 in this mountain--Zion: Messiah's kingdom was to begin, and…
in this mountain--Zion: Messiah's kingdom was to begin, and is to have its central seat hereafter, at Jerusalem, as the common country of "all nations" (Isa 2:2, &c.).
all people-- (Isa 56:7; Dan 7:14; Luk 2:10).
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feast--image of felicity (Psa 22:26-27; Mat 8:11; Luk 14:15; Rev 19:9; compare Psa 36:8; Psa 87:1-7).
fat things--delicacies; the rich mercies of God in Christ (Isa 55:2; Jer 31:14; Job 36:16).
wines on the lees--wine which has been long kept on the lees; that is, the oldest and most generous wine (Jer 48:11).
marrow--the choicest dainties (Psa 63:5).
well refined--cleared of all dregs.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 6. Here begins a promise of favour to Gentiles,…
6. Here begins a promise of favour to Gentiles, and the people of God from among them, united with God’s true ones in Zion.
In this mountain — Zion. Jerusalem, till now disparaged, henceforth shall be attractive to all, and by rich spiritual provisions shall nourish and exhilarate all. This verse resumes the subject suspended at the close of the preceding chapter.
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Unto all people — None excluded from any part of the world.
Feast of fat things — The figure of rich and dainty food implies the glorious provisions of salvation, just as Zion symbolizes the universal Church of God.
Wines on the lees — A specified part of what is provided. The phrase means the oldest and choicest wines — those longest undrawn from the bottle sediment.
6. Will destroy… the face of the covering — The fulness of the Messianic times will remove the veil that rests on the Gentiles, hitherto living in darkness. Isa_9:2; Isa_42:6-7; Luk_1:78-79; Act_26:17-18.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–8 6. in this mountain] Mount Zion (cf. Isa_24:23), shewing…
6. in this mountain] Mount Zion (cf. Isa_24:23), shewing that the author lived in Jerusalem.
a feast (lit. “banquet”) of fat things … full of marrow] The fat parts of the animal, which in ordinary sacrifice were reserved for the deity, were regarded in the East as the choicest delicacy. The same image is used in Psa_36:8; Psa_63:5 of the highest spiritual enjoyment in fellowship with God.
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wines on the lees well refined] i.e. wine that has been left to stand long on its sediment, in order that its strength, flavour, bouquet, &c., might be enhanced by repeated fermentation (cf. Jer_48:11; Zep_1:12). Such old wines had to be strained before being used; hence the expression “well-refined” in E.V. The choice of terms in the Hebr. is partly dictated by the assonances: fat things corresponding to wines on the lees, and full of marrow to well refined. For the image of the feast as an emblem of the blessings of the kingdom of God cf. ch. Isa_55:1-2; Psa_23:5; Mat_8:11; Mat_22:2 ff.; Luk_14:15 ff.; Rev_19:9.
6–8. This section attaches itself directly to the concluding thought of ch. 24. The feast of Isa_25:6 may be regarded as a coronation-festival, inaugurating the reign of Jehovah on Mount Zion (Isa_24:23), although of course the state of things which is thus symbolised is not transitory but eternal. What is signified is the admission of all nations to communion with the one true God, and, as a consequence of this, the cessation of all the evils of human life. The whole passage, standing out as it does from a gloomy background of judgment and terror, is one of the most remarkable and fascinating in the Old Testament.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–8 (6) And in this mountain shall the Lord .…
(6) And in this mountain shall the Lord . . .—The mountain is, as in Isa_2:1, the hill of Zion, the true representative type of the city of God. True to what we may call the catholicity of his character, Isaiah looks forward to a time when the outlying heathen nations shall no longer be excluded from fellowship with Israel, but shall share in its sacrificial feasts even as at the banquet of the great King. In the Hebrew, as even in the English, the rhythm flows on like a strain of music appropriate to such a feast. The “wines on the lees” are those that have been allowed to ripen and clarify in the cask, and so, like the “fat things full of marrow,” represent the crowning luxuries of an Eastern banquet.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Vers. 6-8. The blessings of the final state are…
Vers. 6-8. The blessings of the final state are now touched upon, as a special subject for thanksgiving. They are not enumerated; but a certain number are set forth, as specimens from which we may form a conception of the general condition of the "saved." These are:
(1) a heavenly feast, in which they will all participate (ver. 6);
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(2) a removal of the "veil," or "covering," which is in this life over all things, causing men to have an indistinct vision, and an erroneous estimate of their value;
(3) the abolition of death, which will no longer hang over them as a thing to be feared; and
(4) the cessation of tears, or the entire freedom of the saved from all sorrow.
In this mountain; i.e. the heavenly Zion the "mountain of the Lord"s house". (Isa_2:2; comp. Isa_24:23) Unto all people; rather, unto all peoples. There is no restriction of salvation to any particular race or nation Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free", (Col_3:11) are equally invited, and some of each come in. (Dan_7:14 Mat_8:11 Rev_5:9 Rev_7:9) The Church of the redeemed contains men and women of all "nations and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues." A feast of fat things. It follows from many passages of Holy Scripture that there is something in the final beatitude of man which is best represented to us in our present condition by the image of a "feast something very different, no doubt, from the festive joy of which our Teutonic ancestors hoped to partake in the halls of Odin, but yet figured to us most fitly and appropriately by terms ordinarily used to describe earthly feasting. Our Lord tells of a "marriage supper," to which he will invite his friends; (Mat_22:2-12) and the scene of the "marriage supper of the Lamb, "according to St. John in the Revelation", (Rev_19:7-9) is heaven. There man, it would seem, will partake of a sacrificial feast with his glorified Lord (Mat_26:29) will eat the "heavenly manna," which is "angels" food", (Psa_78:25) and drink a spiritual drink which may be called "the fruit of the vine," deriving from this "eating" and "drinking" life and joy and strength. It has been already observed, in the Commentary upon Exodus (p. 581), that the sacrificial meal on Sinai, whereto the seventy elders were admitted, (Exo_24:9-11) prefigured this heavenly feasting, and throws a certain light upon it. All gross and carnal ideas must, of course, be subtracted from the conception of the heavenly festivity; but it seems to be true to say that our author, and also St. John and our Lord himself, imply that in the world to come there will be a feast, at which God will be the Host, and all men, priests and laity alike, his guests, and receive from him the choicest and most exquisite gifts gifts which will make them supremely happy (see Mr. Cheyne"s note on the passage, p. 148). A feast of wines on the lees. "Wine which remained on its Ices, and was not poured off them into another vessel, was considered to be of especial strength. (see Jer_48:11) Its defect was a want of clearness. The wine of the heavenly banquet is to be at once strong and perfectly clear or "well refined.
Divine provision for the human soul.
In the vegetable and animal kingdoms God has made full and rich provision for all the wants and cravings of our body for its revival, its nourishment, its strength, its enjoyment. In the gospel of his grace he has granted us the most ample and generous provision for our spiritual nature. In Christ Jesus, in "the truth as it is in him," and in his holy service, we have all we need for
I OUR SPIRITUAL REVIVAL. Food, especially wine, is given to revive as well as to nourish. "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish". (Pro_31:6) Many a human life has been saved by the restoring cup administered with a wise hand. The wine of heavenly truth is for a revival indeed. From him who is the "true Vine" (Joh_15:1) comes that reanimating virtue which calls from spiritual death the soul that was about to perish in its sin.
II NOURISHMENT. Food is, above all things, for sustenance. We partake of the kind and welcome growths of the garden and the field that the waste of our system may be repaired, and that life may be preserved in its fullness and integrity. Without constant refreshment from "the Word of the truth of the gospel," if we did not sit down daily to the table which God has spread for us in his heavenly wisdom, our souls would soon fade and fail and die. As we eat of the "Bread of life," as we drink of the river that makes glad the city of God," we find our life sustained; we "live unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
III STRENGTH. "A feast of fat things full of marrow." That which is ample, not only to sustain life, but to augment its force. "Of wines on the lees wines that have acquired, and will presumably impart, strength. In Jesus Christ is everything to confer spiritual vigor, manliness, power. Communion with him, the study of his life and character, active service in his cause, the direct communications which proceed from his upholding, energizing Spirit, all these minister to spiritual strength; they are all open to every disciple, so that the Christian teacher has a right to say, imperatively, to the disciple, "Be strong in the Lord". (Eph_6:10)
IV JOY. Wine and gladness are closely associated in Scripture. (see Psa_4:7 Psa_104:18) Feasting and joy are also intimately connected. The provision which is made in the feast of the gospel is one that gives a purer, truer, more manly, more lasting joy; for it is the joy of the soul, and it is a joy in God.
V ADAPTATION. The wine of this feast was to be strong for those who wanted strength the lees;" it was also to be well refined" for those who wanted the coarse flavor removed and desired purity as well as power. (Jer_48:11) The same Divine truth, delivered from the same lips, contained within the same covers, has force, for those who need to be mightily wrought upon, and refinement for those whose moral perceptions are clear and whose spiritual taste is fine and cultured. There is everything on the table of our Lord to meet the varied cravings of these hearts of ours.
1. This is a feast which we are not at liberty to decline; for the Lord of hosts has made it has prepared it with exceeding care and at great cost.
2. It is open to every hungering soul. It is made "unto all people." It is free to all. "He, every one that thirsteth," etc. C.
Jehovah"s feast after reconciliation.
The picture in this text is based upon the familiar custom in Judaism of associating a sacrificial feast with a thank offering or peace offering. Such feasts were highly festive and joyous occasions. As an instance of the custom, reference may be made to the scene of the anointing of King Saul. Samuel made a feast, after sacrifice, to which some thirty persons were bidden. (1Sa_9:19, 1Sa_9:22) "According to the Mosaic Law, the fat pieces of the victim were to be devoted to Jehovah immediately by burning, and the next best piece, the breast, mediately by giving it to his servants the priests;" the rest was a foundation for a feast in which the offerers shared. The "wines on the lees" are those kept long, that have become old and mellowed. "Full of marrow" indicates superior quality. The first reference may be to the joy of the returned captives when God permitted a revival of Jerusalem; but the full reference must be to the spiritual provisions of Messianic times. For "feasts" as the figure for spiritual blessings, gospel provisions, comp. Psa_22:26-29 Isa_55:1-5 Mat_8:11 Mat_25:1 Luk_13:28, 29 14:15-24. Keeping to the idea of feast after sacrifice sealing the reconciliation, and working that idea out in relation to Christian times, we note
I GOD GIVES COMMUNION WHEN HE GIVES RECONCILIATION. The feast was designed to assure the worshippers that all separations and enmities were done away, and God was now in gracious and comfortable relations with them. In the East restored friendship is sealed by eating together. It will at once be seen how this constancy of Divine communion with renewed souls is sealed in the symbolic meal of our sacramental Supper. That feast keeps up the assurance of God"s comfortable relations with us. We are the restored and accepted ones to whom God gives his friendship.
II GOD IS CONCERNED ABOUT HIS FUTURE RELATIONS WITH HIS REDEEMED ONES. It is important to correct a sentiment which very seriously imperils right Christian living, but seldom gets shape in actual words. It is assumed that God is supremely anxious for our salvation, our "conversion" as we call it, but indifferent to what we are and do, if only we are saved. This modern modification of Antinomian error is met by the fact that God makes a feast for the redeemed, providing for them after redemption. God is the food for the soul"s life, and that life he quickens.
III GOD WANTS JOY TO CHARACTERIZE THOSE CONTINUOUS RELATIONS. Therefore is the festive figure chosen. "The joy of the Lord is our strength." The redeemed of the Lord ought to march "with singing unto Zion." Depressions may come, but they may not abide. Our Christian life should be a glad feasting on the abundance God provides. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv6–8 A feast of fat things
Isa_25:6-9
A feast of fat things
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The Gospel feast
I.
THE FEAST.
1. Spiritual blessings are here, as in other places, set forth under the emblem of feast (Pro_9:2-5; Luk_14:16-24; Mat_22:4). In Christ, and in His Gospel, provision is made for our refreshment in various respects.
(1) Truth is afforded for the understanding.
(2) Beauty (the amiable perfections of God and Christ), goodness, love, hope, joy.
(3) Provision is also made for the sustenance of the Divine life in the soul Joh_6:32-33; Joh_6:47-57).
(4) In the Gospel there is not barely provision, but a feast; abundant provision. A rich variety of truths, and clear and satisfactory discoveries concerning them. Abundant mercy, to remove the most aggravated guilt, and to give assurance of pardon, reconciliation, and peace. Abundant grace, to purify from all defilement, and enrich with holiness and comfort. There is most agreeable, rich, and delightful provision. But, for whom? For those who have their spiritual taste rectified, and have spiritual discernment 1Co_2:14). A feast of fat things. Bishop Lowth reads, of delicacies; of fat things full of marrow, or, of delicacies exquisitely rich. The truths of the Gospel are enlarging, ennobling, and consoling to the mind; the grace of it enriching, invigorating, and comforting to the spirit; its doctrines, precepts, promises, exhortations, sweet and precious. Cheering, exhilarating provision. Wines on the lees; or, old wines (Lowth). The truths of the Gospel give the fullest satisfaction and comfort to believers. Well refined. Refined from every impure and carnal mixture.
2. But where is the feast made? In this mountain This is said in allusion to Judaea, a mountainous country, and especially to Jerusalem and Mount Zion, whore this provision was first made. There Christ died and rose again, the Spirit was first poured out, the Gospel first preached, and the Christian Church first formed. But the Christian Church itself is often figuratively described under the terms, Jerusalem and Mount Zion Heb_12:22).
3. Do we further inquire, for whom this feast is made, and on what terms such may partake of it! It is made for all people, on the terms of repentance and faith.
4. To this feast we are invited. But we neither know by nature our want of these blessings, nor the worth of them, nor the way of attaining them. To remedy this evil we have--
II. A GRACIOUS PROMISE. He will destroy the face, etc. The face of the covering is put by a hypallage, for the covering of the face. The expression has a reference to the veil that was upon the face of Moses, or to that of the tabernacle and temple, both emblematical of the obscurity of that dispensation. But much darker was the dispensation the heathen were under. The veil of unbelief is also intended (Rom_11:32); and that of prejudice. These veils are removed by the plain and powerful preaching of the Gospel (2Co_3:12-13). By the circulation of the Scriptures. By the spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph_1:17-19). By the heart turning to the Lord (2Co_3:16), and faith in Jesus (Joh_12:46). Here we have a manifest prophecy of the illumination and conversion of both Jews and Gentiles, and of the universal spread of religion.
III. THE EFFECT PRODUCED (verse 8). The Messiah, who is the light of the world, is the light of life.
1. He will swallow up death in victory.
(1) Spiritual death, introduced by the sin of Adam, is swallowed up in victory Hence, he that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
(2) Temporal death.
2. The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will remove sufferings and sorrows, and the causes of them forever (Rev_21:4).
3. And the rebuke of His people, etc. This implies, that the people of God have been, and will be more or less, under reproach, in all ages, till the glorious period here spoken of arrive.
IV. THE JOY AND TRIUMPH OF GODS PEOPLE (verse 9). Their enemies now reproach them, Where is your God? But what will then be the reply of the Lords people? Lo, this is our God; we have trusted, hoped, waited for Him, and now He hath saved us. Henceforth we shall have the everlasting fruition of His glorious presence. The presence of God shall remain with the Church (verse 10). (J. Benson, D. D.)
A feast of fatness
This prophecy spans the Gospel dispensation. First, it presents to us the Gospel dispensation in its present state of grace. The prophet says In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things. By this mountain the prophet intends Mount Zion; and from the literal Mount Zion it was that the Word of the Lord went forth, being preached in the first instance by the forerunner of Christ, and then by the incarnate Son of God Himself. And all the blessings which have flowed to the Church and to the world have come to us from Jerusalem--that Jerusalem which is the type of the Christian Church And you will observe that this Gospel dispensation, with its blessings and its privileges, is spoken of under the familiar imago of a feast. This imagery is eminently calculated to present to us an idea of the fulness of the grace of the Gospel. It is not as if God was offering provision to starving men just enough, as we should say in common parlance, to keep body and soul together. It is not a scanty provision: it is not a provision simply of bread and water. Now, in order to see what is meant let us apply this, in the first place, to the Gospel dispensation in its bearing upon sinners to whom the invitation is first addressed. You mark, in the first verse, that it is a feast of fat things. It is a feast of wine in the very best condition--wine which is old, settled upon its lees, and which by reason of its age has now attained its very best and choicest flavour. Now, let us observe how aptly this illustrates the provision of the Gospel in its aspect to those to whom the message and the invitation are still addressed. When we, for instance, as ministers, are called upon to deliver this invitation under any circumstances, we feel that we are entirely unhampered by any limitation as to persons, or by any limitation as to the question of sufficiency and adaptation to those who are invited. It is not, I mean, a scanty hospitality which God has provided. It is not such that he who has to deliver the invitation in this church, or anywhere else in the midst of the streets of London, has to consider, Well, the Gospel is only intended for a certain class of sinners; the Gospel is only intended for certain kind of sins; and before I deliver this invitation I have to decide whether this is a case which it will suit,--whether this is a case which is included in the provision that is made,--whether I may not be deceiving and disappointing this man. No such thing. It is a feast; it is a feast of fat things; and it is a feast of the very choicest wines. What does all this mean when we strip off the imagery,--when we look at this not as a beautiful piece of prophetic poetry, but in its reality, in its actual bearing upon men to whom the Gospel is addressed? It means to say that there is abundant rich provision for every sinner. It means to say that God in His love has provided for the case of every man. It means that the blessings of salvation which we have to offer in Jesus Christ are not scanty blessings,--that they are not such blessings as leave us any doubt as to whether they will meet the case of this particular man, but that the salvation which is in Christ is a feast, and a feast of fat things. And then, again, take the aspect of this Gospel towards those who have already received the invitation, and who are, so to say, sitting down at the feast table. Every believing man who is in Christ is as a man sitting down at a perpetual feast. Everyday is, in this sense, a feast day to him. Every day is a day upon which he is to be feeding upon Christ, and to be nourishing his soul with the rich and costly blessings of salvation. Better to have the feeblest faith than to be an unbeliever. But is this the condition in which God would have His believing people to be? I say, no such thing. God intends that you should receive, and receive without doubting, and receive without reserve, when you come to Christ, the fulness and the freeness of His grace. He intends that you should believe Him when He says Thy sins are forgiven. He does not expect of you that you should be content with saying Ah, at some time or other God will forgive my sins: there is hope that my sins will be forgiven. He intends to make you feel, and desires to have you realise from day to day, that it is not simply bread and water, but that it is wine and milk. There is this unbroken continuity between what we call grace and what we very properly call glory. You observe how this appears clearly in the end of the passage, because the prophet flows from one thing into the other as naturally as possible. What I want you particularly to mark, as one of the chief things I would impress upon you, is how, beginning with this Word of the Lord in Jerusalem--beginning with the taking away of the yell from off the faces of all people--beginning with the invitation to repent and believe and receive the remission of sins through our Lord Jesus Christ--the prophet goes on to what we find ultimately to be at the very end of the dispensation; how naturally, as if there was no break, as if it was just one flow of grace until, if I may so express it, the river of grace is lost in the vast expanse of the ocean of glory. There seems to be no chasm. Indeed, wherever there is in any young man or in any old man, in any woman or in any child, a work of grace--real, saving grace--that is the beginning, and glory with all its details and all its blessedness, all its companionships and all its occupations, will be nothing more than the full efflorescence and the full development and the full consummation of that work of grace which is begun. Well now, you see, these are blended together in the text; and the apostle says that God will in that day fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah, and that He will swallow up death in victory. He will not do it before. Death is not swallowed up in victory, even when the triumphant Christian dies. But the apostle says, interpreting the words of the prophet, Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written; that is, when the voice of the archangel shall be heard, and the trumpet shall sound, and when the graves shall give up their dead, and when they that have gone down to the grave in a natural body, in dishonour, in corruption, in feebleness, shall be raised in power and in incorruption and in glory,--then shall be brought to past the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. And this is to be followed by the fulfilment of the declaration of the prophet, interpreted by the figure of the Apocalypse. God is then to wipe away all tears. Tears, as we know, on earth, have many sources. There are the tears of penitence: we shall have to shed them no longer. There are the tears of anguish on account of temporal sorrow and bereavement and bodily suffering: we shall have to shed them no more.
There are the tears of anxiety amid all the pressing cares of life. There are the tears of despondency and disappointment. We shall have to shed them no more. There is another source of tears while we are yet in the body. You and I have often shed tears from another cause--tears of joy. And why do we shed tears of joy? Because the joy is sometimes so sudden, it is so deep, it is so great, it so thoroughly overmasters us and transports us, that the feeble body cannot bear it; and the result is that tears course down our cheeks, and, as we say not infrequently, we weep for joy. There will be no weeping for joy after the resurrection. Because, though we shall have the joy, we shall be capacitated to bear it: we shall have the joy, even the joy of our Lord, but our whole nature will be strong enough to enjoy that joy, and so there will be no more tears. (J. C. Miller, D. D.)
In this mountain
A poets imagination and a prophets clear vision of the goal to which God will lead humanity are both at their highest in this great song of the future, whose winged words make music even in a translation. No doubt it starts from the comparatively small fact of the restoration of the exiled nation to its own land. But it soars far beyond that. It sees, all mankind associated with them in sharing its blessings. It is the vision of Gods ideal for humanity. That makes it the more remarkable that the prophet, with this wide outlook, should insist with such emphasis on the fact that it has a local centre. That phrase in this mountain is three times repeated in the hymn; two of the instances have lying side by side with them the expressions all people and all nations, as if to bring together the local origin and the universal extent of the blessings promised. The sweet waters that are to pour through the world well up from a spring opened in this mountain. The beams that are to lighten every land stream out from a light blazing there. The worlds hopes for that golden age which poets have sung, and towards which earnest social reformers have worked, and of which this prophet was sure, rest on a definite fact, done in a definite place, at a definite time. Isaiah knew the place, but what was to be done, or when it was to be he knew not. You and I ought to be wiser. History has taught us that Jesus Christ fulfils the visioned good that inspired the prophets brilliant words. We might say, with allowable licence, that this mountain, in which the Lord does the good things that this song magnifies, is not so much Zion as Calvary. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The source of the world's hope
I. WHERE DOES THE WORLDS FOOD COME FROM? Physiologists can tell, by studying the dentition and the digestive apparatus of an animal, what it is meant to live upon, whether vegetables or flesh, or a mingled diet of both. And you can tell by studying yourself, what, or whom, you are meant to live upon. Look at these hearts of yours with their yearnings, their clamant needs. Will any human love satisfy the heart hunger of the poorest of us? No! Look at these tumultuous wills of ours that fancy they want to be independent, and really want an absolute master whom it is blessedness to obey. The very make of our being, our heart, will, mind, desires, passions, longings, all with one voice proclaim that the only food for a man is God. Jesus Christ brings the food that we need. In this mountain is prepared a feast . . . for all nations. Notice, that although it does not appear on the surface, and to English readers, this worlds festival, in which every want is met, and every appetite satisfied, is a feast on a sacrifice. Would that the earnest men, who are trying to cure the worlds evils and still the worlds wants, and are leaving Jesus Christ and His religion out of their programme, would ask themselves whether there is not something deeper in the hunger of humanity than their ovens can ever bake bread for.
II. WHERE DOES THE UNVEILING THAT GIVES LIGHT TO THE WORLD COME FROM? My text emphatically repeats, in this mountain. The pathetic picture that is implied here, of a dark pall that lies over the whole world, suggests the idea of mourning, but still more emphatically that of obscuration and gloom. The veil prevents vision and shuts out light, and that is the picture of humanity as it presents itself before this prophet--a world of men entangled in the folds of a dark pall that lay over their heads, and swathed them round about, and prevented them from seeing; shut them up in darkness and entangled their feet, so that they stumbled in the gloom. It is a pathetic picture, but it does not go beyond the realities of the case. There is a universal fact of human experience which answers to the figure, and that is sin. That is the black thing whose ebon folds hamper us, and darken us, and shut out the visions of God and blessedness, and all the glorious blue above us. The weak point of all these schemes and methods to which I have referred for helping humanity out of the slough, and making men happier, is that they underestimate the fact of sin. There is only one thing that deals radically with the fact of human transgression; and that is the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and its result, the inspiration of the Spirit of life that was in Jesus Christ, breathed into us from the throne itself.
III. WHERE DOES THE LIFE THAT DESTROYS DEATH COME FROM? He will swallow up death in victory. Or, as probably the word more correctly means, He will swallow up death forever. None of the other panaceas for the worlds evils even attempt to deal with that shadow feared of man that sits at the end of all our paths. Jesus Christ has dealt with it. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Needy man and his moral provision
I. HUMANITY IS MORALLY FAMISHING--CHRISTIANITY HAS PROVISIONS. A feast of fat things, etc. The feverish restlessness and the earnest racing after something not yet attained, show the hungry and thirsty state of the soul. Christianity has the provisions, which are--
1. Adequate: for all people.
2. Varied: wines and fat things full of marrow.
3. Pleasant: wines on the lees well refined.
II. HUMANITY IS MORALLY BENIGHTED--CHRISTIANITY HAS ILLUMINATION. He will destroy in this mountain, etc. Men are enwrapped in moral gloom; they have their, understanding . . . darkened Eph_4:18). The veil is upon their hearts (2Co_3:15). Physical darkness is bad enough, intellectual darkness is worse, moral darkness is the worst of all. It is a blindness to the greatest Being, the greatest obligations, and the greatest interests. Christianity has moral light. Christ is the light of the world. Indeed, Christianity gives the three conditions of moral vision:--the visual faculty; opens the eyes of conscience; the medium, which is truth; and the object, which is God, etc.
III. HUMANITY IS MORALLY DEAD--CHRISTIANITY HAS LIFE. He will swallow up death in victory. Men are dead in trespasses and sins The valley of dry bones is a picture of moral humanity. Insensibility, utter subjection to external forces, and offensiveness, are some of the characteristics of death. Christianity has life. Its truths with a trumpets blast call men up from their moral graves. Its spirit is quickening. You hath He quickened, etc.
IV. HUMANITY IS MORALLY UNHAPPY--CHRISTIANITY HAS BLESSEDNESS. There are tears on all faces. Go to the heathen world, and there is nothing but moral wretchedness. The whole moral creation groaneth: conflicting passions, remorseful reflections, foreboding apprehensions, make the world miserable. Christianity provides blessedness.
V. HUMANITY IS MORALLY REPROACHED--CHRISTIANITY HAS HONOUR. And the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth. Man morally rebukes himself; he is rebuked by his fellow man; he is rebuked by his Maker. He is under condemnation. And the rebuke is just. Christianity removes this. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. It exalts man to the highest honour. (Homilist.)
Veils removed and souls feasted
I. THE PLACE SPECIFIED. In this mountain. Mountains are often spoken of in the Scriptures, and wonderful things were done on some of them. The ark rested on a mountain; Abraham offered up his son Isaac on a mountain, etc. The Church may be compared to a mountain--
1. Because of its conspicuousness.
2. Because of its exposure to storms.
3. Because of its stability.
4. Because it is beautiful and beneficial. Mountains break the monotony of the landscape, are good for shelter, and rich with valuable substances. The Church is a thing of moral beauty, and should be rich in faith, love, and zeal.
II. THE BUSINESS TO BE DONE IN THIS MOUNTAIN. Face coverings and veils have to be destroyed. People have to be prepared for a feast: and with veiled faces and muffled mouths they can neither see nor eat. The coverings which sin has thrown over all people are--
1. Ignorance. Sin made Adam so ignorant that he tried to hide himself from the presence of an omnipresent and omniscient God by creeping among the trees in the Garden of Eden. And his children are also as ignorant of God.
2. Shame and slavish fear. This drives men from God as it did their first father.
3. Unbelief; causing men to reject Christ, and to stagger at Gods promises. From thousands of minds such coverings, thick and strong though they be, have been torn and destroyed.
III. THE FEAST THAT IS TO FOLLOW. The Church is not a place of amusement merely, or a lecture room, but the souls feasting place, where all the dainties of Heaven can be had. At a feast there is generally found--
1. Variety.
2. Plenty. Gods stores can never be exhausted.
3. Good company is expected. At this feast you have Gods nobility on earth, princes and princesses, kings and priests, and you are favoured with the presence of the King of kings Himself. Nowhere out of Heaven can the company be more select.
4. Here all is gratis. (V in Homilist.)
Tire marriage feast between Christ and His Church
These words are prophetical, and cannot have a perfect performance all at once, but they shall be performed gradually. I will show why Christ, with His benefits, prerogatives, graces, and comforts, is compared to a feast.
I. In regard of THE CHOICE OF THE THINGS. In a feast all things are of the best; so are the things we have in Christ. They are the best of everything. Pardon for sin is a pardon of pardon. The title we have for Heaven, through Him, is a sure title. The joy we have by Him is the joy of all joys. The liberty and freedom from sin, which He purchased for us by His death, is perfect freedom. The riches of grace we have by Him are the only lasting and durable riches.
II. There is VARIETY. In Christ there is variety answerable to all our wants. Are we foolish? He is wisdom. Have we guilt in our consciences 7 He is righteousness, and this righteousness is imputed unto us, etc.
III. There is FULL SUFFICIENCY. There is abundance of grace, and excellency and sufficiency in Christ.
IV. A feast is for COMPANY. This is a marriage feast, at which we are contracted to Christ. Of all feasts, marriage feasts are most sumptuous.
V. For a feast ye have THE CHOICEST GARMENTS, as at the marriage of the Lamb, white and flue linen (Rev_19:8).
VI. This was SIGNIFIED IN OLD TIME BY THE JEWS.
1. In the Feast of the Passover.
2. Manna was a type of Christ.
3. The hard rock in the wilderness, when it was struck with the rod of Moses, presently water gushed out in abundance, which preserved life to the Israelites; so Christ, the rock of our salvation, when His precious side was gored with the bloody lance upon the Cross, the blood gushed out, and in such a manner and such abundance, that by the shedding thereof our souls are preserved alive.
4. All the former feasts in times past were but types of this.
5. In the sacrament you have a feast, a feast of varieties, not only bread, but wine--to shew the variety and fulness of comfort in Christ.
VII. Because there can be no feast where the greatest enemy is in force, HE SWALLOWS UP DEATH IN VICTORY. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
The Gospel feast
In the single circumstance that the feast foretold by the prophet was to be a feast to all people, there is an obvious reference to the Gospel dispensation; for feasts among the Jews were more or less exclusive, and in no instance, not even on occasions of the most intense interest and joy, were they made accessible to the Gentiles by open and indiscriminate invitation. Besides, in the subsequent context, there is a prediction respecting the conquest of death by believers, which is quoted by St. Paul (1Co_15:1-58), and is directly applied by him to that most blessed and triumphant result of the death of Christ. This quotation gives to the whole prediction a New Testament aspect.
I. WHO IS REPRESENTED AS MAKING THIS FEAST. The Lord of hosts. This is one of Gods names, which calls up the majesty of His nature. He dwells amidst the bright angels, controls the stormiest tide of battle, prescribes their courses to the great lights of the firmament; yet though thus almighty, independent, supreme, He makes a feast for guilty, polluted man. Nor is it a feast in the ordinary sense of the term. As the world is now constituted, He may be said to have spread, out such a feast in the riches of that universe which He has so skilfully contrived, and so munificently adorned. There is a feast in its aspects of beauty and grandeur--in its vastness and variety--in its perfection and magnificence--in its wondrous laws and minute provisions. Still more; there is a feast in the comforts, the privileges, and pleasures of civilised life--in the means of acquiring knowledge--in the protection of righteous laws--in the blessings of the domestic constitution--in the progress of nations--and in the triumphs or reason. But far different is the feast foretold in the text. It is a spiritual feast; a feast for the undeserving; a feast which required important arrangements to be made before it could be provided.
II. THE SCENE OF ENTERTAINMENT. On this mountain. This mountain means Zion or Jerusalem, which was the select scene of Divine manifestation and worship to the chosen people. Zion came to be identified with the Church of God; and in the Old Testament it is frequently employed as synonymous with it. It is emphatically styled the mountain of the Lords house Its great distinction consisted in this--it was the scene where the Divine presence was manifested in a visible glory, and where answers were vouchsafed to the prayers of the faithful. In one sense, the feast might be said to have been prepared at the period the prediction of the text was announced. As the believing Jews waited on the spiritual services of the temple, they partook of this feast. Truths of unspeakable importance occupied their attention; their minds were elevated, comforted and soothed by them; and, as they descended from the sacred hill, again to engage in the ordinary duties and cares of life, it must have been with refreshed and joyful hearts, with conscious satisfaction, and with a settled tranquillity. The full revelation of the Gospel, however, was more appropriately and emphatically the time of festivity. Now this full revelation might be said to have been made on Zion or in Jerusalem. It was in the temple of Zion that the infant Redeemer was first recognised by aged Simeon; there He was dedicated to the Lord by His mother, Mary. From time to time, He appeared within its gates, addressing the people; while, on one memorable occasion, He asserted His authority as its master by driving forth the dove merchants and the money changers, by whom it had been recklessly profaned. There, too, it is to be remembered, was the scene of His last suffering--there He shed the blood of atonement, and there He abolished death by dying. When He had left our world, it was in Jerusalem that His apostles first began to preach; it was in an upper room there that they met with one accord, and engaged in prayer, the Spirit came plentifully down, and by means of one sermon, three thousand converts were added to the Church. Jerusalem continued to be the scene of amazing triumphs. The city of the prophets was shaken to its centre; the feast of grace was spread out; the invitation was freely announced; multitudes from distant heathen lands heard the Gospel sound, and crowded to the scene of entertainment. There is a peculiarity respecting this feast which requires to be considered. It is not, like other feasts, restricted as to time or place; it is a feast for all times and for all places.
III. THE FEAST ITSELF. It is a feast of best things. We consider this figurative language as strikingly descriptive of the peculiar blessings the Gospel offers to guilty, ruined man. This provision grows by distribution; like the miraculous loaves in the Gospel, the fragments after every participation are more abundant than the original supply.
IV. THE GUESTS FOR WHOM THE FEAST IS MADE. All people. There is no distinction, and there is no limit. This feast presents a striking contrast with the feasts usually made by men. When men invite to a feast, they select a class--kindred, friends, or, perhaps more frequently, rich neighbours. But the feast foretold in the text, is to be a feast for all people. The vastness of its extent strikingly illustrates the power and the mercy of the Divine Entertainer. Conclusion:--There is one question of immense importance, Have you accepted the invitation to come to this feast! (A. Bennie, M. A.)
Good cheer for Christmas
God, in the verse before us, has been pleased to describe the provisions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Other interpretations are all flat and stale, and utterly unworthy of such expressions as those before us. When we behold the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed, offered up upon the chosen mountain, we then discover a fulness of meaning in these gracious words of sacred hospitality. Our Lord Himself was very fond of describing His Gospel under the self-same image as that which is here employed.
I. THE FEAST. It is described as consisting of viands of the best, nay, of the best of the best. They are fat things, but they are also fat things full of marrow. Wines are provided of the most delicious and invigorating kind, wines on the lees, which retain their aroma, their strength, and their flavour; but these are most ancient and rare, having been so long kept that they have become well refined; by long standing they have purified, clarified themselves, and brought themselves to me highest degree of brightness and excellence.
1. Let us survey the blessings of the Gospel, and observe that they are fat things, and fat things full of marrow:
(1) Complete justification.
(2) Adoption.
(3) Every child of God is me object of eternal love, without beginning and without end.
(4) Union to Christ.
(5) Resurrection and everlasting life.
2. Changing the run of the thought, and yet really keeping to the same subject, let me now bring before you the goblets of wine. These we shall consider as symbolising the joys of the Gospel.
(1) One of the dearest joys of the Christian life is a sense of perfect peace with God.
(2) A sense of security.
(3) Communion with God.
(4) The pleasures of hope, a hope most sure and steadfast, most bright and glorious.
(5) These joys of the believer are ancient in their origin. Old wines are intended by wines well refined; they have stood long on the lees, have drawn out all the virtue from them, and have been cleared of all the coarser material.
(6) The fulness of their excellence, because the wine on the lees holds its flavour, and retains its aroma; and there is a fulness and richness about the blessings of Divine grace which endear them to our hearts.
(7) Their refined nature. Gospel joys are elevating.
(8) How absolutely peerless are the provisions of grace.
II. THE BANQUETING HALL. In this mountain. There is a reference here to three things--the same symbol bearing three interpretations.
1. Literally, the mountain upon which Jerusalem is built. The reference is here to the hill of the Lord upon which Jerusalem stood; the great transaction which was fulfilled at Jerusalem upon Calvary hath made to all nations a great feast.
2. Frequently Jerusalem is used as the symbol of the Church of God, and it is within the pale of the Church that the great feast of the Lord is made unto all nations. The mountain sometimes means the Church of God exalted to its latter day glory.
III. THE HOST of the feast. In the Gospel banquet there is not a single dish brought by man. I know some would like to bring a little with them to the banquet, something at least by way of trimming and adornment, so that they might have a share of the honour; but it must not be, the Lord of hosts makes the feast, and He will not even permit the guests to bring their own wedding garments--they must stop at the door and put on the robe which the Lord has provided, for salvation is all grace from first to last. The Lord provides sovereignly as Lord of hosts, and all-sufficiently as Jehovah. It needed the all-sufficiency of God to provide a feast for hungry sinners. If God spread the feast it is not to be despised If He provide the feast, let Him have the glory of it.
IV. THE GUESTS.
For all people. This includes not merely the chosen people, the Jews, whose were the oracles, but it encompasses the poor uncircumcised Gentiles, who by Jesus are brought nigh. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A rich feast for hungry souls
The prophets of old prophesied of the grace of Christ which should come unto us (1Pe_1:10); and of these none more than our evangelical prophet.
I. THE MAKER AND MASTER OF THE FEAST, the Lord Himself. It is a royal feast, with which the King of Zion entertains His own subjects. Particularly, it is the Lord Christ, the Son of God, who, pitying the famished condition of poor sinners, was at the expense of this costly feast for them; for the Maker of it is the same who swallows up death in victory (Isa_25:8). A warlike title is ascribed to Him, the Lord of hosts for there is a banner in Christs banqueting house; and this feast looks both backward and forward to a war.
II. THE GUESTS FOR WHOM THIS FEAST IS PROVIDED. It is made for all people. The invitation is given to all who come in its way, without distinction or exception of any sort of persons.
III. THE GUEST CHAMBER WHERE THIS FEAST IS HELD. In this mountain, namely, Mount Zion, that is, the Church.
IV. THE MATTER OF THE FEAST. A feast imports abundance and variety of good entertainment; and here nothing is wanting which is suitable for hungry souls. In this valley of the world lying in wickedness, there is nothing for the soul to feed on but carrion, nothing but what would be loathed, except by those who were never used to better: but in this mountain, there is a feast of fat things, things most relishing to those who taste them, most nourishing to those who feed on them; and these are full of marrow, most satisfying to the soul. In this valley of the world there is nothing but muddy waters, which can never quench the thirst of the soul, but must ruin it with the dregs ever cleaving to them; but here, on this mountain, are wines on the lees well refined. (T. Boston, D. D.)
The feast prepared by Jesus Christ
I. SHOW THE ABSOLUTE NEED THERE IS OF THIS PROVISION. A lost world, by Adams fall, the great prodigal, was reduced to a starving condition. The King of Heaven set down Adam, and his posterity in him, to a well-covered table in paradise, in this lower world, making a covenant of friendship with him, and with them in him. But man being drawn into rebellion against God, Adam and all his posterity were driven out of the guest chamber, the family was broken and scattered, having nothing left them.
1. In point of need, Adam left us with hungry hearts, like the prodigal Luk_15:16). Every one finds himself not self-sufficient, and therefore his soul cleaves to something without itself to satisfy it. He left us also with thirsty consciences, scorched and burnt up with heat.
2. In point of supply, he left us without any prospect, for all communication with Heaven was stopped. War was declared against the rebels, so that there could be no transportation of provisions from thence. Adams sons, abandoned of Heaven, fell a-begging at the worlds door, if so be they might find rest and satisfaction in the creature. The natural man is born weeping, lives seeking, and will die disappointed, if not brought to the feast of fat things.
II. EXPLAIN WHAT THE PROVISION IS WHICH CHRIST HAS PREPARED FOR THE SOULS OF SUCH A FAMISHED WORLD. This, in a word, is His precious self; the Maker of the feast is the matter of it.
III. CONSIDER WHAT SORT OF A FEAST IT IS.
1. It is a feast upon a sacrifice (1Co_5:7-8).
2. It is a covenant feast (Heb_13:20-21).
3. It is a marriage feast (Mat_22:1-4). The Lord Christ is the Bridegroom, and the captive daughter of Zion the bride.
4. It is a feast which has a respect to war. The Lord of hosts made it. It looks backward to that terrible encounter which Christ had with the law, with death, with hell, and the grave, upon the account of His ransomed ones, and that glorious victory which He obtained over them, by which He wrought the deliverance of His people. It is provided for and presented to His people to animate and strengthen them for the spiritual warfare against the devil, the world, and the flesh; and none can truly partake of it, but those who are resolved on that battle, and are determined to pursue it, till they obtain the complete victory at death.
5. It is a weaning feast. There is a time prefixed in the decree of God, at which all who are His shall, by converting grace, be weaned from their natural food.
IV. CONFIRM THAT ALL PEOPLE WHO WILL COME, MAY COME, AND PARTAKE OF THIS FEAST.
1. Christ invites all without distinction, even the worst of sinners, to this spiritual feast.
2. For what end does Jesus send out His messengers with a commission to invite all to come, if they were not welcome? (Mat_22:9).
3. He takes it heinously amiss when any refuse to come.
V. PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT. (T. Boston, D. D.)
The Gospel feast
In this sacred feast there is--
I. VAST ABUNDANCE. The unsearchable riches, and all the fulness, that it hath pleased the Father should dwell in Jesus Christ. Here the saints receive large measures of knowledge; such degrees of holiness as shall gradually carry them forward to be perfect as their Father in Heaven is perfect; and such plentiful consolations as shall fill them with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
II. RICH VARIETY. Pardon of sin, etc. The Holy Spirit to renew, sanctify, comfort, etc.; strength for the performance of duty, support under affliction, etc. Here is the milk of the Word for babes, strong meat for them whose senses are exercised to discern both good and evil, the water of life for such as are thirsty, the bread of life for those that are hungry, and the choicest fruits for them that are weak and languishing.
III. MOST EXCELLENT PROVISION. Fat things, full of marrow, etc.
IV. These are joined with GREAT FESTIVITY AND JOY among those who partake of the feast. (R. Macculloch.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v6 Isa_25:6-8. And in this mountain, &c.
THE GOSPEL FEAST
Isa_25:6-8. And in this mountain, &c.
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The blessings of the Gospel are, with wise adaptation to our views and feelings, often compared to the objects in which men naturally take most delight; and here, as in other places, they are compared to a costly entertainment bestowed by the Sovereign of the universe on the children of His love. It was the custom of Oriental monarchs on great occasions to make rich feasts on a scale of magnificence, of which we in the West can form scarcely any idea (Est_1:3-7) [1048] At these entertainments wise men were often assembled, and important questions in morals and literature were discussed: hence the benefits of knowledge and wisdom were often exhibited under the image of a great feast (Pro_9:1-5). The prophet, as our Lord Himself afterwards (Mat_22:1-3.; Luk_14:16-24), speaks in accordance with the habits of thinking common in his time, when he sets forth the blessings of the Gospel under the image of a great feast.
[1048] Alexander gave a feast after his return from India of five days’ continuance, when ninety marriages were celebrated and nine thousand guests assembled. Diodorus Siculus describes the festivities with which Antisthenes, a rich citizen of Agrigentum (B.C. 414), celebrated the marriage of his daughter: all the citizens of Agrigentum were entertained at his expense on tables laid for them at their own doors, besides a great number of strangers. The festivities, as in the parable of the Ten Virgins, took place in the evening, and the whole city was one blaze of light. The Roman and Egyptian banquets were proverbial for their costliness and splendour. In Persia still, royal banquets are prolonged for many weeks; and a Chinese emperor used frequently to make a feast that lasted a hundred and twenty days.—Thodey.
I. A BANQUET OF GRACE AND SALVATION SPREAD FOR THE NEEDY (Isa_25:6).
1. It is a feast worthy of its Founder (Est_1:7). He who studies it most closely, will be most struck by the vastness of the resources and the magnificence of the generosity of Him who spread it.
2. It is eminently a feast of reconciliation and restored friendship. The feasts of the ancients were often connected with sacrificial rites, were employed to confirm covenants, and to celebrate the reconciliation of those who had been estranged and at enmity with each other. We have an interesting illustration of all this in what we are told of Jacob and Laban (Gen_31:43-55). When Joseph was about to reveal himself in love to his brethren, and to unite them all in a new bond of peace, he made a feast for them (Gen_43:31-34). So did the father of the prodigal, to testify the perfectness of his reconciliation to his guilty but penitent child (Luk_15:23). The feast of which our text speaks, is a feast founded upon a sacrifice; it is a feast of reconciliation effected by means of sacrifice; it is the sublime and glorious realisation of the ancient symbol of the feast that followed upon the presentation of the peace-offering (Lev_7:11-16). It is the fact that it is a feast of reconciliation that gives sweetness and preciousness to all the sweet and precious things of which it is composed, just as it was the fact that they symbolised his restoration to his place in his father’s home and heart that made the ring, and the robe, and all the choice viands before him, delightful to the pardoned prodigal (chap. Isa_12:1; Rom_5:1-2; Rom_5:11).
3. Its magnificence and its delightfulness are heightened by the number of those who partake of it. The rich provisions of the Gospel are as widely spread as they are widely needed. This is a joy to the Christian, for to a noble mind happiness multiplied is happiness heightened.
II. ILLUMINATION FOR THE IGNORANT (Isa_25:7). There was a symbolical fulfilment of this prophecy in the hour of our Saviour’s death (Mat_27:51); that which had hidden the Holy of Holies from the sight of men was rent in twain. A spiritual fulfilment of it is the need of the world and of each individual: by a veil of ignorance and prejudice men are hindered from beholding the truths which it would be to their highest interest to see clearly. This is declared concerning the Jews (2Co_3:15), but it is just as true of the majority of the Gentiles: they also see no desirableness in Christ, no preciousness in the salvation He offers them. But this destructive veil has been taken away from the hearts of millions, and shall yet be removed from the heart of a vaster multitude—by the diffusion of God’s Word, the preaching of the Gospel, and the accompanying agency of the Holy Spirit. The preliminary fulfilment of this prophecy at the day of Pentecost (Act_2:5; Act_2:41) shall have still more glorious counterparts in the not distant future.
III. CONSOLATION FOR THE SORROWING AND LIFE FOR THE DYING (Isa_25:8).
This glorious prophecy is in the course of fulfilment all around us; but to us individually it may be as if God had not been faithful to His word. We may have no appetite for spiritual enjoyments, no craving for spiritual blessings (Col_2:18-19). In this case, so far as we are concerned, this feast will have been spread in vain (Luk_14:18). If any man is conscious that for him the Gospel has no attractions, if he can listen to this prophecy without a glow of thankful joy, let him cry mightily to God for that new heart without which all that God’s wonderful compassion has moved Him to do for our race will leave him still unblessed (H. E. I., 4090).—Samuel Thodey.
This beautiful passage may be taken as presenting some of the principal aspects of the establishment of Christ’s kingdom upon the earth. It expresses in a most lively manner the feelings of hope and joy which the Gospel is naturally fitted to call forth, and it unfolds the Saviour’s work to us under the ideas of a feast, a revelation, and a victory.
I. The Gospel speaks to men of a feast. It assumes that they are spiritually destitute, in actual danger of perishing, and it tells them of a feast.
1. A feast provided for all (Isa_25:6). Christ came not for the exclusive benefit of Jew or Gentile; He came for man (Luk_19:10). He invites all to share in the blessings He has provided (Luk_14:16), and declares that that invitation will not be given in vain (Mat_8:11).
2. A feast of the best things. Suggested here by the richness and flavour of wines long preserved. We are apt to miss the truth that the blessings which the Gospel offers are of the richest quality and of the highest value conceivable; we act as if it required us to give up a certain good for a doubtful and visionary one. This accounts for the eagerness with which men seek first “the world,” regarding “the kingdom of God” as something to be made room for after all else has been obtained (H. E. I., 5006, 5007).
II. The Gospel is a revelation to men of God’s gracious purposes (Isa_25:7). A thing may be a mystery to us in two ways: because it is beyond all human comprehension; or, because though it is comprehensible a veil rests upon it. In the former case the mystery must ever remain what it is; in the latter, the covering has only to be removed, and the mystery is at an end. The morning dispels the mystery of the night. So the Gospel discloses eternal truths of which man had no suspicion (Eph_3:2-12). The central, supreme revelation of the Gospel is Christ; and this is so because in Him God, who had dwelt in thick darkness, stands manifestly before us (Joh_14:9; 1Ti_3:16.; H. E. I., 855–857, 2241–2243). In Him, too, man is for the first time disclosed to himself; for the first time he catches a glimpse of his nature, of his relation to God, of his glorious possibilities.
III. The Gospel speaks to man of an eternal victory. “He will swallow up death in victory;” or, “He shall utterly destroy death for ever.” Here we have suggested to us the crowning work of Christ (2Ti_1:10; Heb_2:14). In Him the believer has the promise and pledge of a final and glorious triumph.
1. How great, then, should be our confidence even in the midst of the deepest affliction! Doubts, fears, temptations threaten to destroy us; but with Christ strengthening us, our conflict leads to certain victory. He who has conquered will make us “more than conquerors.”
2. With what assurance, therefore, should we approach the hour of death itself! By Him who leads us on, death has been vanquished and captured. Hence death is one of our possessions (1Co_3:21-23). Death, as in the old time men thought of it, no longer exists; for the Christian it is swallowed up in victory (H. E. I., 1611–1614).—William Manning.
The parable of the Great Supper (Mat_22:1-14) illustrates this prophecy. Consider—
I. The Founder of this feast: “the Lord of hosts.” Hosts—all creatures in the universe, rational and irrational; subject to His inspection; under His control; designed for His glory. What think you of the Founder of this feast? What feast ever had such a Founder? It is a feast worthy of its Founder. How wonderful that He should condescend to provide a feast for the world!
II. The nature of the feast. Not only the best, but the best of the best; bountiful supply; rich variety.
III. The persons for whom this feast has been prepared. All may partake of it; only those are excluded who exclude themselves.
1. Are you making excuses? Will your excuses stand the test of the day of judgment? You must partake, or perish! Delay not; for, as far as you are concerned, the feast will soon be over. Not now too late; “yet there is room.”
2. Are you participants? What present blessings; what future glories! Bless the Founder’s Name. Seek to bring others to the feast.—Henry Creswell.
I. THE AUTHOR OF THIS FEAST. Not a prodigal, squandering the fruits of the industry of others. Not a conqueror, satiating admirers with spoils unjustly acquired. Not a pompous Ahasuerus, whose only design is to set forth his own grandeur. God, moved with compassion for rebels against His authority, spreads a rich feast that they may not perish.
II. THE SITE OF THIS FEAST. “In this mountain.” It is in the everlasting Gospel this entertainment is prepared. In coming to Christ for the pardon of our sins and the salvation of our souls, we come “unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” The figure of a “mountain” denotes the elevation, security, and publicity of the Gospel feast.
1. Its elevation. In coming to it, we leave all that is debasing behind.
2. Its security. In coming to it, we reach a place where we may rejoice without fear (Luk_1:71-75).
3. Its publicity. It is our own fault if we do not see it and reach it.
III. THE RICHNESS OF THIS ENTERTAINMENT. “A feast of fat things, of fat things full of marrow.” Carnal images that set forth spiritual truths. In the Gospel, and in the Gospel alone, is found that which satisfies the hunger of the soul and fills it with delight.
IV. THE GLADNESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT. “A feast of wines on the lees, of wines on the lees well refined.” A figure founded on the influence of wine on the human system (Psa_104:15). The Gospel, when rightly understood and cordially embraced, makes a heavy heart light. What can raise men’s spirits so high, or make them so truly cheerful, as a sense that all their sins are forgiven them? The joy of a literal “feast of wines” is transient, and after the midnight revel come days of unpleasant reflection, reproach, and melancholy. But the joy of the Gospel is pure and permanent.
V. THE EXTENSIVENESS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT. It is “unto all people.” Other entertainments may be confined to the rich, the great, and the noble; here all such distinctions are done away. Christianity is a universal religion, designed to redeem and gladden the whole world. Its invitations are extended to all (Pro_9:1-5; Rev_22:17).—William Reeve, M.A., Miscellaneous Discourses (pp. 229–237).
I. THE FEAST. The blessings of the Gospel are compared—
1. To “fat things full of marrow.” What are they? Complete justification, adoption, the sustaining confidence of being an object of God’s everlasting love—a love which had no beginning and shall have no end, union with Christ (and all that great truth implies), the doctrine of resurrection and everlasting life. These are a few of the “fat things full of marrow” which the King of kings has set before His guests.
2. To “wines on the lees well refined”—symbols of the joys of the Gospel; such as a sense of perfect peace with God, the sense of security, communion with God, the pleasures of hope, of hope that falls far short of the reality. The description of the wines—“wines on the lees well refined”—reminds us that the joys of the believer are ancient in their origin [1051] that they are most excellent in their flavour and aroma, and that they are pure and elevating in their nature. The joys of grace are not fantastical emotions, or transient flashes of meteoric excitement; they are based on substantial truth, are reasonable, fit and proper, and make men like angels (H. E. I., 1082, 3052, 3053).
[1051] Old wines are intended by “wines well refined;” they have stood long on the lees, have drawn out all the virtue from them, and have been cleared of all the coarser material. In the East, wine will be improved by keeping even more than the wines of the West! and even so the mercies of God are the sweeter to our meditations because of their antiquity. From old eternity, or ever the earth was, the covenant engagements of everlasting love have been resting like wines on the lees, and to-day they bring to us the utmost riches of all the attributes of God.—Spurgeon.
II. THE BANQUETING HALL. “In this mountain.” There is a reference here to three things, the same symbol bearing three interpretations:—
1. The mountain on which Jerusalem is built. On a little knoll of that mountain—Calvary—that great transaction was fulfilled which made to all nations a great feast.
2. The Church. Frequently Jerusalem is used as a symbol of the Church of God, and it is within the pale of the Church that the great feast is made unto all nations.
3. The Church of God exalted to the latter-day glory. Then shall the glory of the Gospel be unveiled more clearly and enjoyed more fully than at present.
III. THE HOST OF THE FEAST. “The Lord of hosts.”
1. The Lord makes it, and makes it all. It is utterly improper for us to bring anything of our own to it; the Lord provides even the wedding-garment in which we are to sit at it, and no other will be allowed.
2. Only the Lord of hosts could have provided what man needed. But He has done it, and done it effectually.
3. As the Lord of hosts has provided the feast, it is not to be despised. To despise it will show our folly, and involve us in great guilt.
4. As He has provided all the feast, let Him have all the glory.
IV. THE GUESTS. “For all people.” For all, irrespective of national, social, intellectual, or even moral differences. The declaration, “for all people,” gives hope for all who wish to come. Between the covers of the Bible there is no mention of one person who may not come, no description of one person who may not trust in Christ. To him who trusts Christ the whole feast is open, there is not a blessing of which he may not partake.—C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 846.
THE TRIUMPHS OF CHRIST
Isa_25:8. He will swallow up death in victory, &c.
It is important at the very outset that we should clearly recognise the Person and the dignity of the Person of whom all these things are declared. Otherwise it will be impossible for us to look for the fulfilment of these marvellous promises. We have the authority of St. Paul for declaring that the Person is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. To HIM he ascribes the victory over death (1Co_15:54). Thus St. Paul authorises the most exalted conceptions we can form of the dignity of our Lord; for the work which he declares will be fulfilled by Christ is in our text ascribed to Jehovah: “The Lord God will wipe away,” &c. It is of “the Lord of hosts” that Isaiah speaks throughout (Isa_25:6-8). Thus we have here one of the invaluable incidental proofs with which Scripture abounds of the deity of our Lord. If He is “the Lord of hosts,” then we can believe all the things here declared of Him.
I. The deliverance of Christ’s people from death. “He will swallow up death in victory”—as the rods of the magicians were swallowed up by the rod of Aaron; as the hosts of Pharaoh were swallowed up by the waters of the Red Sea; as the darkness of the night is swallowed up in the brightness of the morning. True, God’s people must depart hence, like other people; but in regard to them Christ “has swallowed up death in victory.”
1. By imparting to them a spiritual life and blessedness which are not touched by the dissolution of the union of body and soul.
2. By sustaining and comforting them while that mysterious process is being accomplished. How often has the deathbed of the believer been a scene of triumph!
3. By utterly changing the character of death in regard to them. To them it is not a curse but a blessing (H. E. I., 1571–1594, 1594–1643).
4. By the promises which on the morning of the resurrection He will surely fulfil. “THEN,” &c. (1Co_15:54; H. E. I., 4334–4354).
II. The deliverance of Christ’s people from sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces,”—tears of sorrow for sin; of mourning under affliction, trials, and bereavements; of grief caused by the wickedness of men and the injury done to the cause of truth and righteousness: all shall be wiped away, every cause of sorrow brought to an end.
III. The deliverance of Christ’s people from the shame and contempt of the world.—Samuel Thodey.
A SORROWLESS WORLD
Isa_25:8. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.
The vision presented is that of a sorrowless world; a vision which has haunted the imagination of man in every age. The Bible declares that that which has been merely a bright but disappointing dream shall be a glorious fact.
I. Look at sorrow as a fact. How early we become acquainted with it. How our experience of it increases with every year of life. How numerous are it sources. How inevitable it is (H. E. I., 47–50). But the profoundest, heaviest, most oppressive, and most enduring sorrow of which we are capable is the sorrow of the soul which is caused by consciousness of guilt. Unlike all other sorrows, in the thought of death it finds no relief; by that thought it is unspeakably aggravated (H. E. I., 1334–1341; P.Q, 1664, 1668).
II. Proceed to look at God removing sorrow. “The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” How great the enterprise! Yet how sufficient, though unexpected and startling, is the agency He employs: on this mission of mercy He has sent His own Son. God, as His manner is, works from within outwards; He not only wipes off all tears, He removes their cause. That cause is sin. But how does He destroy sin in the human soul?
1. By revealing it, by showing its essential hideousness—one of the revelations of the cross of Christ. It is not until we perceive the costliness of the atonement of sin, that we begin to suspect its terribleness and hatefulness.
2. By showing that sin can be conquered. This is the glorious message and proclamation of the life of the Man Christ Jesus.
3. By furnishing a motive that shall stimulate us to the conflict with sin which will end in victory. That motive is found in the love for Christ which springs up in the soul when we view Him dying on the cross in our stead.
4. In the same marvellous spectacle we see that which alone can pacify conscience, and which does pacify it. Believing, our fears and our sorrows flee away; our mourning is turned into joy. The supreme need of the soul is met in reconciliation with God. A sorrowless life is begun. But that is not all. Having destroyed—in destroying sin in the soul, God implants righteousness (chap. Isa_32:17). He creates as well as destroys. He introduces into our thoughts, words, actions, a Divine order, and therefore a Divine beauty and blessedness. All sorrow springs from infractions of this order; this is seen in national, social, individual life. In proportion as it is restored, tears are wiped away. The great Agent by whom this work is accomplished is His own Spirit; but He works by means, and the chief instruments He employs are those who, in various ways, are promoting the knowledge and practice of the will of God in the world. In this work we may share; this possibility is the glory of our life. By the progress of Christian truth, how many tears have been already wiped away! In spite of every obstacle, the glorious work shall proceed, with ever-accelerating rapidity, with ever-accumulating triumphs. There is a better day dawning for our race (H. E. I., 3421–3423). Nothing can bring it in but the Gospel. All other agencies—commerce, education, literature, art, legislation—have been tried and have failed. He who loves humanity will consecrate himself to the furtherance of the Gospel; and he who does so shall share in that joy of redeeming the world from sin and sorrow by the hope of which Christ was sustained amid the sufferings He endured for this great end.—Thomas Neave.
THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOSPEL
(Missionary Sermon.)
Isa_25:6-8. And in this mountain, &c.
What the spirit of prophecy has here recorded is the testimony of Jesus and of His salvation, the subject presented to our view being the blessings of the Gospel of the Son of God. They are described in their general nature, in their unrivalled excellence, and in their universal extent.
I. The blessings of the Gospel are here described in their general nature, as including instruction for the ignorant, consolation for the sorrowful, and life for the dead. They thus correspond to the state of man without the Gospel, which is a state of darkness, misery, and death.
1. The natural state of fallen man is a state of moral darkness. A veil is upon him, by which those things which make for his peace and essentially affect his well-being are hidden from his eyes. It is a triple veil.
(1.) There is the fold of native ignorance. The merely natural man is totally ignorant of God and eternity. He knows not whence he came or whither he is going. He is altogether “sensual, having not the Spirit,” and cannot know those things of the Spirit of God which are only spiritually discerned. Hence, ever since the Fall, darkness has covered the earth and gross darkness the people.
(2.) There is the yet thicker fold of moral corruption. Sin has exactly the same tendency in each particular case as in the case of Adam. It darkens the understanding by its deceitfulness, as well as hardens the heart by its malignity. It tends to extinguish that candle of the Lord which shines in the conscience, and to render useless and unavailing those other means which God has provided for delivering us from the night of Nature. Those in whom it reigns choose the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (cf. Eph_4:17-18).
(3.) There is the fold of Satanic infatuation. “The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” He rules in the hearts of all the children of disobedience; and his kingdom is the kingdom of delusion and darkness. He beguiled Eve through his subtilty, and he still labours to corrupt and darken the minds of men (2Co_4:4).
All this is true of all the unregenerate, however diversified may be their external condition and local circumstances. Hence multitudes even of nominal Christians are fit objects of our compassionate care and exertion. But the description of the text is still more applicable to the case of heathen nations not yet visited by the Gospel. They have not the light which nominal Christians do not allow to shine into them; in general, they have no effectual light. Over them is cast the veil not merely of ignorance and sin, but of superstition and false religion, than which nothing can be more fatally opposed to the entrance of light and the operation of Divine grace. Their very systems of religion are the means of perpetuating folly and vice, instead of reclaiming them to wisdom and righteousness. In many cases that “religion” sanctions and prescribes the most cruel of sacrifices and the most licentious of rites. In Christendom men may be superstitious and wicked, licentious and cruel, but it is because they neglect their religion. In heathen and Mohammedan countries, they are so because they attend to their religion. They breathe its genuine spirit and exemplify its proper tendency. All that is deemed sacred and authoritative in the name of religion unites with all the ignorance and depravity of fallen man, and with all the subtilty and power of the Prince of Darkness to produce and perpetuate a system of error and iniquity. False religion may pretend to be a sun which enlightens, but it is really a veil which darkens all who come under its power—a veil much more effectual to favour the ravages of sin, misery, and death than even any of the coverings previously mentioned.
2. Man is described in the text as the child not only of darkness and error, but also of misery and death. For ignorance is the mother, not of devotion, but of sin, in all its multiplied forms. And sin is invariably linked to misery! The wretchedness of men bears an exact correspondence to their ignorance and wickedness (Rom_3:16-17).
If this statement be true of natural men in general, it is still more awfully verified in the condition of the heathen world in particular. Infidel travellers who have cheated the public from time to time by highly-coloured pictures of the happiness of pagans, ought not on such a point to be believed. It cannot be that in the dark places of the earth, the habitations of cruelty, no groans should be heard, no tears be seen. The fact is, that while heathenism leaves its votaries to the unmitigated operation of all those natural and moral causes of distress which are common to man in general, it opens many new sources of misery, inflicts many additional desolations, creates many forms of terror, suffering, and destruction, which are peculiar to itself. All men are born to tears, because born in sin; but the tears of pagans are often tears of blood. Every groan they heave is big with double wretchedness.
The Gospel, in its provision of blessings for the human race, adapts itself to that state of darkness, wretchedness, and mortality which I have faintly described.
1. It removes darkness. It reveals to us the existence, character, and will of God, our own origin, immortality, and accountableness, the way of salvation and the path of duty; and, used by the Holy Spirit as His great instrument, it changes the heart of those who receive it, and delivers them from the delusions and dominion of Satan. In these several ways does the Gospel become the instrument of illumination. By it, and in connection with it, God destroys the covering which is naturally on men’s faces, and the veil that is spread over their understandings and hearts. The consequence is, in instances innumerable, that “beholding as in a glass,” with unveiled face, “the glory of the Lord, they are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
The glorious diffusion of light and purity which results from Christianity is still more striking when it obtains access to heathen nations. In proportion to the deeper gloom of their former ignorance is the splendour of the new illumination, when the Sun of righteousness arises upon them with healing in His beams. On such occasions, it may be said with peculiar emphasis, “The entrance of Thy Word giveth light,”—a light which is able to penetrate and destroy even the thickest veil of false religion.
2. It wipes away tears. This is here declared to be a part of its design, and experience proves it to be one of its actual operations (Psa_89:15-16). It leads to repentance, and so to pardon, purity, and genuine peace. It comforts in sorrow. It cheers in death.
To the heathen it is peculiarly valuable and welcome. It opens to them, in common with others, the sources of spiritual enjoyment and the hopes of eternal bliss. And besides, it abolishes pagan cruelties and diffuses principles of humanity and kindness. Hence result the amelioration of their civil institutions, the increase of domestic happiness, and the improvement of social life (H. E. I. 1122–1133).
3. It swallows up death in victory. It delivers every believer from the fear of death (Heb_2:14-15; H. E. I. 1109–1111, 1589, 1594). God will most gloriously swallow up death in victory when He shall actually recover from the territories of the grave, by His almighty power, those spoils which death has won.
In proportion to its progress in heathen countries, the Gospel will not merely extract the sting of death, but arrest and diminish its most awful ravages. The waste of human life in many pagan lands is incalculable. As true religion increases, even in Christian countries, wars, which it has already rendered less sanguinary, will be less frequent too (chap. Isa_2:4).
II. The unrivalled excellence of the blessings of the Gospel. “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.” Variety! richness! abundance! (See pp. 253–256.) Who does not recognise, in the unrivalled excellence of the blessings the Gospel conveys, the most powerful arguments for missionary exertion? Who can think of the Gospel feast, in contrast with the famine of the heathen, without wishing that they also might be bidden to the heavenly entertainment?
III. The universal extent of the blessings of Christianity. “The Lord of hosts shall make unto all people a feast of fat things.”
1. They are adapted to all people.
2. They are sufficient for all people.
3. They were designed for all people.
4. The wide world shall, sooner or later, partake of them.
One result of this universal spread and triumph of Christianity is stated in the text: “The rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth.”
1. By the successful exertions of God’s people to evangelise the world, the reproach, which is at present too well-founded, of neglecting to care for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, shall become no longer just and applicable.
2. In consequence of the general spread and influence of Christianity, the reproach of Christ, the scandal of the Cross, shall cease; and the Church, formerly despised and laughed to scorn, shall be held in great honour and reputation (chap. Isa_60:13-16).
3. The particular reproach of spiritual barrenness—the reproach founded on the paucity of her converts, and the small number of her children—shall then for ever cease. At present “Jacob is small,” and the flock of Jesus is, comparatively, a little flock. This fact has been converted by infidels into matter of attack upon Christianity itself. They have tauntingly urged the narrow extent of our religion as an argument against its divinity. That argument admits, even now, of solid refutation. But in due season the fact itself shall be altered, and no shadow of plausibility be left for the reproach (chap. Isa_54:1-5).
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
1. The text should teach you your personal obligations and privileges in reference to the Gospel. The feast is spread out before you; to you are the blessings of it freely offered (chap. Isa_55:1-3).
2. The text teaches you the ground of missionary exertions. To partake of the feast ourselves is our first duty; but, while we “eat the fat and drink the sweet,” shall we not “send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared?” Can any duty be more obviously founded in reason and justice, humanity and piety, than that of sending the bread of life to our perishing fellow-creatures? The most hateful and inexcusable of all monopolies is the monopoly of Christian truths and consolations.
3. There are great encouragements to such labour.
(1.) The certainty of Divine approbation.
(2.) The certainty of consequent success (H. E. I. 1166–1168). But remember, if you would share in the triumphs of the Gospel, you must share in the labour and expense of their achievement.—Jabez Bunting, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 453–483.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv6–8
Isaiah
‘IN THIS MOUNTAIN’
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THE FEAST ON THE SACRIFICE
Isa 25:6.
There is here a reference to Sinai, where a feast followed the vision of God. It was the sign of covenant, harmony, and relationship, and was furnished by a sacrifice.
I. The General Ideas contained in this Image of a Feast.
We meet it all through Scripture; it culminates in Christ’s parables and in the ‘Marriage Supper of the Lamb.’
In the image are suggested:-
Free familiarity of access, fellowship, and communion with Him.
Abundant Supply of all wants and desires.
Festal Joy.
Family Intercommunion.
II. The Feast follows on Sacrifice. We find that usage of a feast following a sacrifice existing in many races and religions. It seems to witness to a widespread consciousness of sin as disturbing our relations with God. These could be set right only by sacrifice, which therefore must precede all joyful communion with Him.
The New Testament accepts that truth and clears it from the admixture of heathenism.
God provides the Sacrifice.
It is not brought by man. There is no need for our efforts-no atonement to be found by us. The sacrifice is not meant to turn aside God’s wrath.
Communion is possible through Christ.
In Him God is revealed.
Objective hindrances are taken away.
Subjective ones are removed.
Dark fears-indifference-dislike of fellowship-Sin-these make communion with God impossible.
At Sinai the elders ‘saw God, and did eat and drink’ Here the end of the preceding chapter shows the ‘elders’ gazing on the glory of Jehovah’s reign in Zion.
III. The Feast consists of a Sacrifice.
Christ is the food of our souls, He and His work are meant to nourish our whole being. He is the object for all our nature.
The Sacrifice must be incorporated with us. It is not enough that it be offered, it must also be partaken of.
Now the Sacrifice is eaten by faith, and by occupation with it of each part of our being, according to its own proper action. Through love, obedience, hope, desire, we may all feed on Jesus.
The Lord’s Supper presents the same thoughts, under similar symbols, as Isaiah expressed in his prophecy.
Symbolically we feast on the sacrifice when we eat the Bread which is the Body broken for us. But the true eating of the true sacrifice is by faith. Crede et manducasti-Believe, and thou hast eaten.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v6 On this mountain
On this mountain
This refers to Jerusalem or Mount Zion.
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Yahweh of hosts
See how you translated this in Isaiah 1:9.
a feast of fat things
Here "fat things" means the best food.
a feast on the lees
"the oldest wine." This means the best wine.
the covering over all peoples, the web woven over all the nations
Death, suffering, and sadness are spoken of as if they were a dark cloud or web that covers everyone on the earth. (See: Metaphor and Parallelism)
He will swallow up death forever
Yahweh causing people to live forever is spoken of as if he would swallow death. (See: Metaphor)
the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth
Yahweh causing the people to never be ashamed again is spoken of as if disgrace were an object that Yahweh would take away. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Yahweh of hosts
people group
feast
wine
nation
die
eternity
Lord Yahweh
people of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 8 25:6-8 The banquet is a symbol of God’s providing…
25:6-8 The banquet is a symbol of God’s providing richly for all those who will receive his gracious invitation (Rev 3:20-21; 19:9).
25:6 In Jerusalem: Literally On this mountain—that is, the mountain of the Lord (see 2:2; 24:23): This does not refer to a geographical city but to Zion, the eternal city of God (see 1:8, 27).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.