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Isaiah describes a future day when God will prepare a lavish feast on Mount Zion for all people. Matthew echoes this eschatological vision in Jesus’ declaration that many from east and west will recline at table with Abraham.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 25:6
Hebrew Bible
5 like heat in a dry land, you humble the boasting foreigners. Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside, so he causes the song of tyrants to cease. 6 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine—tender meat and choicest wine. 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!
Matthew 8:11
New Testament
9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this he was amazed and said to those who followed him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel! 11 I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
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Notes and References
"... Jewish tradition depicts the messianic age, or the world to come, as a glorious banquet. Isaiah 25:6 foresees that "on this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear." From 2 Baruch, an apocalypse written after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70, comes this beautiful vision: And Behemoth will reveal itself from its place, and Leviathan will come from the sea, the two great monsters which I created on the fifth day . . . and they will be nourishment for all who are left. The earth will also yield fruits ten-thousand-fold. ..."
Levine, Amy-Jill
The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
(p. 42) Harper San Francisco, 2006
* 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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