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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 25

1 O Lord, you are my God! I will exalt you in praise, I will extol your fame. For you have done extraordinary things, and executed plans made long ago exactly as you decreed. 2 Indeed, you have made the city into a heap of rubble, the fortified town into a heap of ruins; the fortress of foreigners is no longer a city, it will never be rebuilt. 3 So a strong nation will extol you; the towns of powerful nations will fear you. 4 For you are a protector for the poor, a protector for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm, a shade from the heat. Though the breath of tyrants is like a winter rainstorm, 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!⁠ 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!” 10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain23.⁠ Moab will be trampled down where it stands, as a heap of straw is trampled down in a manure pile.⁠ 11 Moab will spread out its hands in the middle of it, just as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim; the Lord will bring down Moab’s pride as it spreads its hands. 12 The fortified city (along with the very tops of your walls) he will knock down, he will bring it down, he will throw it down to the dusty ground.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 25:10 and Jonathan Isaiah 25:10

Hebrew Bible · Targum

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Summary

Isaiah 25 describes the “hand of the Lord” resting on a mountain. The Aramaic translation in Targum Jonathan rewrites this with abstract language, following a common practice in the Targums that avoids describing God with human features.

Passages

Isaiah 25:10

Hebrew Bible
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!” 10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain23. Moab will be trampled down where it stands, as a heap of straw is trampled down in a manure pile. 11 Moab will spread out its hands in the middle of it, just as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim; the Lord will bring down Moab’s pride as it spreads its hands.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Jonathan Isaiah 25:10

Targum
9 And one will say at that time, “Surely this is our God; this is He for whom we have hoped, and He will save us; this is the LORD, for His Memra we have hoped; we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation.” 10 For the power of the LORD of hosts will be revealed on this mountain; and the Moabites will be trampled underfoot, as straw is trampled in the clay. 11 And He will stretch out the stroke of His power among them, as a swimmer stretches himself out to swim; and He will bring low their pride, together with the schemes of their hands.
200–300 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jonathan Isaiah

References

"... the Targums are not uniform in the ways they avoid figurative speech about God. Nor do they always agree on which instances call for paraphrase. (In Genesis 1:4, Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan translate the Hebrew literally as “God saw the light,” while Neofiti says that it was “manifest before him”) The parts of God’s “body” are also resolved into more literal speech. The “hand of the Lord” becomes his “power” or a “smiting” ... This tendency, too, is not carried out consistently (compare Exodus 13:9 in the various Targums). Much more could be said on this topic; let it suffice to say that the general, but not universal, tendency in the Targums is to avoid attributing bodily actions to God by recasting the words of Scripture at a higher level of abstraction ..."
Edward M. Cook, “The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 92–117.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 25:10 and Jonathan Isaiah 25:10

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