Ever notice how our conversations turn to eating? We reminisce about our favorite restaurants and laud our favorite foods. Taste is a beautiful gift the Lord has blessed humanity with. Beyond our five senses, God designed taste for grasping spiritual realities. O taste and see that the Lord is good! Isaiah envisions a grand feast at the end of time.
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. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 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.
Isaiah 25:6-8 ESV
Although English obscures it, a Hebrew reader would catch Isaiah’s clever wordplay on māḥâ (maw-khaw’) for “wipe away” or blot out. “The Lord God will wipe away [māḥâ] tears from all faces.” This same word appears in verse 6: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast…of rich food full of marrow [māḥâ], of aged wine well refined.” Marrow refers to the best cut of steak, nearest the bone so it’s the juiciest and most flavorful. “Full of marrow” is playfully compared to wiping away tears from all faces. As we’d enjoy a great steak, the Lord delights to wipe tears away.
A day is coming when Jesus will wipe away all tears. Since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, what He will be in the future is what He is right now. What’s different, though, is degree and amount. In the future we experience everything, now just some. We see the end here, not to speculate about future events but to make sense of our confusing present. We’re often bewildered, discouraged and made sorrowful by tears in this life. Isaiah assures us that one day He will wipe away all tears. But even now He comforts us in our afflictions to wipe away some of our tears, which satisfies Him as savory food full of marrow. Now only does the Lord weep with those who weep, He rejoices when He wipes those tears away.
Isaiah’s clever wordplay extends to “swallow up” as well.
And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever;
I’ve always taken Paul’s quotation of this verse, “Death is swallowed up in victory”(1Co 15:54), to mean death is destroyed. While it certainly does mean this, I totally missed its beautiful interplay with this feast imagery. Isaiah’s creative wordplay on “swallow”—bālaʿ (baw-lah’)—paints a mental image of the Lord feasting upon death. I don’t typically think of death as something good to eat! But what the prophet is doing is correlating the enjoyment of a wonderful feast to the satisfaction the Lord receives in devouring death from among His people. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (Jn 4:34). When He swallowed up spiritual death from the woman at the well in Samaria, this food energized Him. Anytime Jesus consumes death, in whatever form it is, it delights Him as a savory feast!
Now, death wasn’t the only menu item. The Lord also swallowed up “the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.” What’s this covering or veil? Well, a veil obscures from view. Moses put a veil over his glowing face after being with God on the holy mountain for forty days. A veil can also act as a barrier, a wall, denying entry like the one before the Holy of Holies. But in the context of Isaiah’s glorious good news, what was this veil spread over the nations?
A bit more context is needed. God’s judgments on individual nations started with chapter 13 and progressed to His ultimate judgment upon the whole earth in chapter 24. It all culminates with the Victor’s celebration on Mount Zion, when everything high and lofty has been finally humbled. When “the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth” have been punished and “gathered together as prisoners in a pit” (24:22), that is when the Lord blindingly shines forth:
Then the moon will be confounded
Isaiah 24:23 ESV
and the sun ashamed,
for the Lord of hosts reigns
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and his glory will be before his elders.
Poetically, the sun and moon feel embarrassed by their lackluster luminosity dwarfed by Jesus’ resplendent radiance. The extermination of pride lifts a veil off the supernova glory of Jesus Christ to His elders, a vision that John took and ran with—24 elders exalting the Lamb in Revelation 4 and 5. As typical of Revelation, 24 is a symbol representing God’s people (i.e., 12 tribes of Israel plus the 12 apostles of Jesus). These “elders” beholding the Lord of hosts’ glory are the same as “all peoples” invited to this feast of rich food.
Humanity’s pride originated in the Garden of Eden. The serpent’s false promise to Eve of her eyes being opened was a lie. Her eyes were shut—a veil—to seeing this glorious God as He truly was. So when all the devils’ and world’s pride has been corralled like cattle, the veil gets “swallowed up,” unveiling to all peoples Christ’s glory shining brighter than the sun and moon!
That future glory has a present foretaste. “But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (2Co 3:16 CSB). God created man in His image to enjoy His glory, the beautiful expression of who He is. Pride, to whatever degree it manifests in us, veils “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:6). When one humbles himself by turning to the Lord, what happens? “We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (3:18). The Lord delights to swallow up this veil just like we all enjoy a feast of delicious food. Every time we pray believing to see more, we’re throwing a feast for Jesus to swallow up more veil and for ourselves to feast more on His beauty and glory.
Isaiah’s revelation of Jesus here has positively impacted my prayer life. Rather than reacting with frustration or indignation over pride in others, now I’m more inclined to mourn over it as a veil obscuring our glorious Jesus from their eyes. Although I’ve been acutely aware of my neediness for the Spirit to lift the veil off Scripture, this deepens my assurance that it thrills Him to do it, more than the most fantastic dining experience on earth. And not for me only, but all His children. So I purposefully pray to remove the veil so Jesus can enjoy the pleasure of revealing Himself to others and me as He deserves. I “take the Lord out for steak” when I do this, knowing it is His great delight to swallow up the veil. May Christ’s blazing glory put to shame the sun and moon before the eyes of our hearts!
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 