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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 63

1 Who is this who comes from Edom, dressed in bright red, coming from Bozrah? Who is this one wearing royal attire, who marches confidently because of his great strength? “It is I, the one who announces vindication, and who is able to deliver!” 2 Why are your clothes red? Why do you look like someone who has stomped on grapes in a vat?⁠ 3 “I have stomped grapes in the wine press all by myself; no one from the nations joined me. I stomped on them in my anger; I trampled them down in my rage.⁠ Their juice splashed on my garments and stained all my clothes.⁠ 4 For I looked forward to the day of vengeance, and then payback time arrived. 5 I looked, but there was no one to help;⁠ I was shocked because there was no one offering support. So my right arm accomplished deliverance; my raging anger drove me on. 6 I trampled nations in my anger; I made them drunk in my rage; I splashed their blood on the ground.”⁠ 7 I will tell of the faithful acts of the Lord, of the Lord’s praiseworthy deeds. I will tell about all the Lord did for us, the many good things he did for the family of Israel, because of his compassion and great faithfulness. 8 He said, “Certainly they will be my people, children who are not disloyal.” He became their deliverer. 9 Through all that they suffered, he suffered too. The messenger sent from his very presence delivered them.⁠ In his love and mercy he protected them; he lifted them up and carried them throughout ancient times.⁠ 10 But they rebelled and offended his Holy Spirit, so he turned into an enemy and fought against them.⁠ 11 His people remembered the ancient times. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea, along with the shepherd of his flock? Where is the one who placed his Holy Spirit among them,⁠ 12 the one who made his majestic power available to Moses, who divided the water before them, gaining for himself a lasting reputation,⁠ 13 who led them through the deep water? Like a horse running through the wilderness they did not stumble.⁠ 14 As an animal that goes down into a valley to graze, so the Spirit of the Lord granted them rest.⁠ In this way you guided your people, gaining for yourself an honored reputation.⁠ 15 Look down from heaven and take notice, from your holy, majestic palace!⁠ Where are your zeal and power? Do not hold back your tender compassion! 16 For you are our father,⁠ though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us. You, Lord, are our father; you have been called our Protector from ancient times.⁠ 17 Why, Lord, do you make us stray from your ways and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your inheritance! 18 For a short time your special nation possessed a land, but then our adversaries knocked down your holy sanctuary. 19 We existed from ancient times, but you did not rule over them; they were not your subjects.

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.3 II:27 and Isaiah 63:3

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah 63 shares the Baal Cycle's image of Anat covered in an enemy's blood, using the grape harvest to make God's defeat of hostile nations a picture of severe judgment.

Passages

KTU 1.3 II:27

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
but she was not sated with her fighting in the vale, her battling between the two cities. She arranged chairs for the warriors, she did arrange tables for the soldiers, stools for the heroes. Anat fought hard and looked, she battled and surveyed the scene; her liver swelled with laughter, her heart was filled with joy, the liver of Anat with triumph, as she plunged her knees in the blood of the guards, her skirts in the gore of the warriors, until she was sated with fighting in the house, with battling between the tables. The blood of the guards was wiped from the house
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Isaiah 63:3

Hebrew Bible
1 Who is this who comes from Edom, dressed in bright red, coming from Bozrah? Who is this one wearing royal attire, who marches confidently because of his great strength? “It is I, the one who announces vindication, and who is able to deliver!” 2 Why are your clothes red? Why do you look like someone who has stomped on grapes in a vat? 3 “I have stomped grapes in the wine press all by myself; no one from the nations joined me. I stomped on them in my anger; I trampled them down in my rage. Their juice splashed on my garments and stained all my clothes. 4 For I looked forward to the day of vengeance, and then payback time arrived. 5 I looked, but there was no one to help; I was shocked because there was no one offering support. So my right arm accomplished deliverance; my raging anger drove me on.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

References

“... Third, the battle produces heaps of corpses (Isa. 34:2) or skulls (Deut. 32:43; Ps. 110:6). The image of harvest appears in Anat’s “gleaning” and in some biblical scenes of divine war (Joel 3:13; Rev. 14:14-20; cf. secular examples in Judg. 8:1-2; 20:44-46; Jer. 6:9; cf. Jer. 49:9; Obadiah 5). Fourth, like the second part of the Ugaritic passage given above, the aftermath of war is described as a feast, a feature attested in Isaiah 34:6-7, 49:26 and perhaps presupposed in the sacrificial language of Deuteronomy 32:43. This feast includes feeding on the flesh of captives (Deut. 32:42), drinking the blood of the victims (Isa. 49:26; LXX Zech. 9:15; cf. Num. 23:24), called “captives” in Deuteronomy 32:42 (as in KTU 1.3 II), and wading in the blood of the vanquished (Pss. 58:11; 68:24). Isaiah 49:26 alters the motif of feeding on the captives. In this verse, the enemies will cannibalize themselves: “I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.” The image of wading in the blood may be related to the theme of the battle as bloody harvest. Because of its blood red color, the image of the wine harvest appears in biblical descriptions of divine war (Deut. 32:42-43; Isa. 49:26; 63:3; Ezek. 39:19; Joel 4:13; Lam. 1:15; Rev. 19:15). ...”
Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd ed., The Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), PDF 116.

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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KTU 1.3 II:27 and Isaiah 63:3

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