1 O LORD, you are my God;
I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
2 For you have made the city a heap,
the fortified city a ruin;
the foreigners’ palace is a city no more;
it will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
cities of ruthless nations will fear you. – Comment: Chapter 24 was mainly about the future, a future which is still ahead of us today! Temporarily Isaiah has returned to the present, and acknowledges something that God has done in presumably the recent past. He gives thanks in v2 above that God has delivered His people and shattered their conquerors!
4 For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
5 like heat in a dry place.
You subdue the noise of the foreigners;
as heat by the shade of a cloud,
so the song of the ruthless is put down. – Comment: I have been into Sub-Sahara Africa and been caught in both the heat and a raging sandstorm. Isaiah uses weather examples of shade and protection, which are necessary and give relief to illustrate how God has been the protection needed for the poor and needy!
6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. – my kids still hate eating marrow apart from the sweets type eg cantaloupe!
7 And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations. – A question -what covering? Maybe ignorance; possibly rebellion. The illustration is based, I think, on that in those days in mourning they apparently used to cover their faces with a veil.
8 He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the LORD; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” – Comment: Surely this in a Biblical context must refer to the Resurrection and the second coming of the Messiah!
10 For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain,
and Moab shall be trampled down in his place,
as straw is trampled down in a dunghill.
11 And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it
as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim,
but the LORD will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands.
12 And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down,
lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.
Comment: At first reading this end portion sounds vindictive and nasty. Fancy swimming in sewerage thickened by trodden-in straw! I will ask Isaiah when I meet him in the hereafter exactly what he was alluding to. I can imagine that Moab is poetically a representative of all the people who ignore or hate God and His Sovereign role in the whole earth and the cosmos. This thinking is absolutely repulsive to God, as I think swimming through sewerage would be! When Jesus returns that attitude towards God will be no more!
Proverbs 24: 19-20 – Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
Prayer: I thank You God that You are the Righteous Judge. Please help me to be discerning but not judgemental.
As I read it! 