Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary

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Isaiah 25

1The LORD, you are my God. I will exalt you! I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago, in complete faithfulness and truth.

2For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.

3Therefore a strong people will glorify you. A city of awesome nations will fear you.

4For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the dreaded ones is like a storm against the wall.

5As the heat in a dry place you will bring down the noise of strangers; as the heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the dreaded ones will be brought low.

6In this mountain, the LORD of Armies will make all peoples a feast of choice meat, a feast of choice wines, of choice meat full of marrow, of well refined choice wines.

7He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.

8He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for the LORD has spoken it.

9It shall be said in that day, “Behold, 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!”

10For the LORD’s hand will rest in this mountain. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.

11He will spread out his hands in the middle of it, like one who swims spreads out hands to swim, but his pride will be humbled together with the craft of his hands.

12He has brought the high fortress of your walls down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.

Early Christian commentary

c. 182–188 AD (historical editorial dating) | Irenaeus of Lyons

1. For as the flesh is capable of corruption, so is it also of incorruption; and as it is of death, so is it also of life. These two do mutually give way to each other; and both cannot remain in the same place, but one is driven out by the other, and the presence of the one destroys that of the other. If, then, when death takes possession of a man, it drives life away from him, and proves him to be dead, much more does life, when it has obtained power over the man, drive out death, and restore him as living unto God. For if death brings mortality, why should not life, when it comes, vivify man? Just as Esaias the prophet says, "Death devoured when it had prevailed." And again, "God has wiped away every tear from every face," Thus that former life is expelled, because it was not given by the Spirit, but by the breath.

Commentary · Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 12, section 1 · Original source · Irenaeus of Lyons; The Writings of Irenaeus, Volume II, Ante-Nicene Christian Library IX; translated by Alexander Roberts and W. H. Rambaut; T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1869. Existing transcription supplied by Wikisource contributors. · Licence · Source revision · Whitespace normalized; source pagination and footnote reference markers removed. English wording unchanged.