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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 27

1 At that time the Lord will punish with his destructive, great, and powerful sword Leviathan the fast-moving serpent, Leviathan the squirming serpent; he will kill the sea monster.⁠ 2 When that time comes, sing about a delightful vineyard! 3 “I, the Lord, protect it; I water it regularly. I guard it night and day, so no one can harm it. 4 I am not angry. I wish I could confront some thorns and briers! Then I would march against them for battle; I would set them all on fire, 5 unless they became my subjects and made peace with me; let them make peace with me.” 6 The time is coming when Jacob will take root; Israel will blossom and grow branches. The produce will fill the surface of the world. 7 Has the Lord struck down Israel as he did their oppressors? Has Israel been killed like their enemies? 8 When you summon her for divorce, you prosecute her; he drives her away with his strong wind in the day of the east wind. 9 So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: They will make all the stones of the altars like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. 10 For the fortified city is left alone; it is a deserted settlement and abandoned like the wilderness. Calves graze there; they lie down there and eat its branches bare. 11 When its branches get brittle, they break; women come and use them for kindling. For these people lack understanding, therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them; the one who formed them has no mercy on them. 12 At that time the Lord will shake the tree, from the Euphrates River to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. 13 At that time a large trumpet will be blown, and the ones lost in the land of Assyria will come, as well as the refugees in the land of Egypt. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 27:13 and Matthew 24:31

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

In Matthew, Jesus describes angels gathering the elect at the sound of a trumpet, echoing Isaiah 27 where a trumpet signals the return of exiles from Assyria and Egypt. Matthew reshapes Isaiah’s vision of Israel’s restoration into a universal narrative.

Passages

Isaiah 27:13

Hebrew Bible
10 For the fortified city is left alone; it is a deserted settlement and abandoned like the wilderness. Calves graze there; they lie down there and eat its branches bare. 11 When its branches get brittle, they break; women come and use them for kindling. For these people lack understanding, therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them; the one who formed them has no mercy on them. 12 At that time the Lord will shake the tree, from the Euphrates River to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. 13 At that time a large trumpet will be blown, and the ones lost in the land of Assyria will come, as well as the refugees in the land of Egypt. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Matthew 24:31

New Testament
27 For just like the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. 29 “Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... What we can say with some confidence is that Matthew certainly does not regard the crucifixion of Jesus as signifying the final rejection of Israel or the end of God’s concern for his people. One indicator of this is that Matthew leads his readers to understand the risen Jesus as “the Son of Man,” the glorious figure from Daniel 7 who represents Israel’s eschatological vindication and triumph over oppressive foreign powers (Matt 26:64; see also the use of imagery from Dan 7:13-14 in the Gospel’s final resurrection appearance, 28:16-20). And in the great apocalyptic discourse of Matthew 24, Jesus tells the disciples that when the glorious Son of Man appears, coming on the clouds of heaven, “he will send out his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” ... Matthew’s direct allusion to the trumpet of Isaiah 27 emphatically drives home the point that Jesus is prophesying a final regathering of the people of Israel who have previously been in exile, and the final restoration of right worship in Jerusalem ..."
Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 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 27:13 and Matthew 24:31

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