Isaiah With Training Wheels: Ch. 25

This chapter is the center, or focus of the chiasmus covering chapters 24-27. It discusses the Second Coming, referring to it as a Feast. This chapter also is paraphrased in D&C 58:8-11, which ties this feast to also the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:2-14, Luke 14:16-24).

The most important part of the structure here is:

Praise: Individual praise for Temporal salvation (v. 1-5)

Feast: God’s Richest Blessings (v. 6-8)

Praise: Communal Praise for Spiritual Salvation (v. 9-12)

25:1 O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things [in perfect faithfulness, things planned long ago].

2 For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.

3 Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee.

4 For thou hast been a [refuge] to the poor, a [refuge] to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall [or like the heat of the desert].

5 Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the [song of the ruthless shall be silenced].

6 ¶ And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts [prepare for all people a feast of rich food and a banquet of aged wines – the finest of meats and the finest of refined wines.]

7 And he will destroy in this mountain the [shroud] cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.

8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

9 ¶ And [each will say] in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation [for in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest.]

10 And Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is [trappled down in the waters of manure].

11 And [they] shall spread forth [their] hands in the midst of [it], as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: [but] he shall bring down their pride [despite the skill of their hands.]

12 And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.

Notes:

v. 1-5 This first part of the chiasmus praises the Lord for defending his people against every temporal threat or danger.

v. 1 planned is the same root word as Counsellor in Isa. 9:6 (Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace)

v. 6-8 These verses are a counterpart to 2:2-4, which showed the Ideal Jerusalem, what it was supposed to be, where all nations gathered.
To really understand, we must see the Lord as a master of understatement. His words will be fulfilled in the greatest of fashion. D&C 88:107 marks this as a moment of full theosis –“saints shall be filled with his glory, and receive their inheritance and be made equal with him.” This is a time of true transcendence and there is a certain difficulty in explaining the magnitude of what happens here.

v. 6 Wine on the lees well refined, is aged wine, where all sediments (‘lees’) have settled and been filtered out, so you only have the finest wine. Likewise with the food provided, is only the finest and richest.

v. 7 The veil should symbolically be thought of as the temple veil, separating us from the presence of God. More literally, this is the veil that separates us from the Spirit World. What will life be like when there is no separation? I truly struggle to even imagine that.

Edit: not symbolic only – see D&C 101:23

v. 8 Every disgrace, every individual tear to every disrespect we have had as a people, will be healed and blessed.

v. 9-12 Communal praise for Spiritual salvation, to complement the earlier Individual praise for Temporal salvation. First we saw the overthrow of the temporally oppressive. Now, we see the spiritual oppressive. Moab, in this context, should be understood as the Proud and Self-reliant. Self-reliance meaning those who will not rely on God, not those who obey God to store food.

v. 9 What begins the v. 10 in the KJV should properly be the end of v. 9.

v. 10 In v. 9-10, we see the hand of the Lord on Zion, but his foot on Moab. Moab is the proud, and those who resist God.  While the Righteous are blessed, they are crushed into the manure. Alternate translations could render ‘in the manure’, as ‘in the waters of manure’, which is both more disgusting, and matches better with v. 11.

v. 11 Moab supposes he is the captain of his soul, reminiscent of the poem, Invictus.

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.