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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 25:8 and 1 Corinthians 15:54

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul quotes Isaiah 25 to describe the defeat of death through resurrection. Isaiah describes God swallowing Mot, the Canaanite god of death, and Paul reuses this to describe when the resurrection brings final victory over death.

Passages

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!”
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

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?”
55–57 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Corinthians

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) ..."
J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 137.

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 25:8 and 1 Corinthians 15:54

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