Texts in Conversation
Paul quotes Isaiah 25 in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe the defeat of death through resurrection. While Isaiah depicts God swallowing Mot, the Canaanite god of death, Paul reuses this language to describe the future moment when the resurrection brings final victory over death.
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Isaiah 25:8
Hebrew Bible
7 On this mountain he will swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, the woven covering that is over all the nations; 8 he will swallow up death permanently. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it! 9 At that time they will say, “Look, here is our God! We waited for him, and he delivered us. Here is the Lord! We waited for him. Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!”
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Corinthians 15:54
New Testament
51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
Date: 55-57 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The permanent abolition of death implies resurrection, and Paul indeed cites Isaiah 25:8 in 1 Corinthians 15, noting that when the dead are raised, “then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:54). An echo of this picture of death’s destruction is also found in Revelation 20, which describes “Death and Hades,” after giving up the dead that are in them, being cast into the lake of fire (verses 13–14). And Revelation 21 continues to allude to Isaiah 25 when it says that in the new Jerusalem God “will wipe every tear from their eyes,” and that “Death will be no more” (verse 4) ..."
Middleton, J. Richard
A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology
(p. 137) Baker Academic, 2014
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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