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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 LXX Isaiah 25:8

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Isaiah 25 promises that God will swallow up death forever. The Greek Septuagint misunderstands the ancient Near Eastern reference and reverses the language so that death swallows people, turning God’s defeat of death into death’s victory over them.

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

LXX Isaiah 25:8

Septuagint
7 In this mountain impart all these things to the nations; for this is God's counsel upon all the nations. 8 Death has prevailed and swallowed men up; but again God has taken away every tear from every face. He has taken away the reproach of his people from all the earth: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. 9 And in that day they shall say, Look at our God, in whom we have trusted, and we have exulted, and will rejoice in our salvation.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

... This results in the translation: “Death swallowed [them]” (κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος), which makes death appear at the feast, threatening to devour the food and drink God has prepared, the guests, or even God himself. The appearance of death at the feast, no doubt, was theologically problematic to the translators. The Septuagint resolves the problem by making death’s destructive activity penultimate to the ultimate graciousness of God. The Septuagint of verse 8a reads: “Death, having prevailed, swallowed them up, but God has again taken away every tear from every face” (κατέπιεν ὁ θάνατος ἰσχύσας, καὶ πάλιν ἀφεῖλεν ὁ θεὸς πᾶν δάκρυον ἀπὸ παντὸς προσώπου; Isaiah 25:8a, New English Translation of the Septuagint). That God’s grace trumps death’s momentary threat is the point. ...
Paul Kang-Kul Cho and Janling Fu, “Death and Feasting in the Isaiah Apocalypse,” in Formation and Intertextuality in Isaiah 24–27, ed. J. Todd Hibbard and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, AIL 17 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 118–119.

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 LXX Isaiah 25:8

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