25:1. “O
Lord, thou art my God: I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou
hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.”
Concerning
such men as Isaiah it is written, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the
Lord, and whose hope the Lord is,” Jeremiah 17:7. Such a man will never be
disappointed, for he has the assurance that “All things work together for
good, to them that love God,” Romans 8:28. And those who rest upon this
promise emulate the prophet: they confess that God is their God, and they
exalt Him, i.e., lift Him up in testimony to others; and they continually
praise His name for the wonderful things He has done, the most wonderful
being His giving His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for the
expiation of men’s sins, all who trust Him as Savior having the assurance
that their sins, past, present, and future, have all been atoned for at
Calvary, they themselves receiving God’s pardon and gift of eternal life,
and being made “heirs, and joint heirs” with Christ of all things. The
believer’s assurance rests on the solid foundation of God’s “faithfulness
and truth.”
25:2.
“For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defended (fortified) city a
ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built
(rebuilt).”
Many exegetes
take this destroyed city to be Babylon, all that remains of it today being
grass-covered mounds; but it is to be noted that in Revelation 17-18 Babylon
is used as a synonym for Papal Rome; and as literal Babylon is now a ruin,
so also will that Romish system be destroyed by the Beast in the
Tribulation; and as the literal city was never rebuilt neither will the evil
system of Romanism be revived.
25:3.
“Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible
nations shall fear thee.”
“... strong”
is also translated “mighty”; and “terrible” means “tyrannous, barbarous,
ruthless, pitiless.” Relative to the existence of such people in the
Millennium, it is to be remembered that while that era will begin with a
population of believers only, the children born to them will be unbelievers,
some of those children becoming believers, but many remaining in unbelief,
and being allowed to live as long as their sin remains covert, but dying
when it becomes overt.
25:4.
“For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength 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.”
“... strength”
is also translated “stronghold, refuge,” and “shadow from the heat” means “a
shade from the heat.”
25:5.
“Thou shalt bring down the noise (blast) of strangers, as the heat in a dry
place, even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible
ones shall be brought low.”
“... noise, or
blast, of strangers” is rendered by Taylor as, “merciless men who are like a
driving rain that melts down an earthen wall.” God will protect His own
from their enemies, just as He uses clouds to mitigate the sun’s heat.
In the present
context “branch” means “song, noise, shout, pride, breath uproar.” God will
defeat the purposes of those who are the enemies of His people.”
25:6.
“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast
of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow,
of wines on the lees well refined.”
The mountain
is mount Zion on which Jerusalem sits, so it is Jerusalem that is designated
here; and since eating is synonymous with satisfaction, as drinking wine is
with joy, the message is that in the Millennium Jerusalem will be the center
of blessing for the whole world.
25:7.
“And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all
people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.”
25:8.
“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.”
The
Jerusalem Bible
rendering of this verse reads, “On this mountain he will remove the mourning
veil covering all peoples, and the shroud enwrapping all nations, he will
destroy Death for ever.”
Taylor has
translated it, “At that time He will remove the cloud of gloom, the pall of
death that hangs over the earth: He will swallow up death forever,” the NT
counterpart of this truth being declared in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, “...
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is
the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
This great
victory was won at Calvary when the Lord Jesus Christ, having expiated sin
by His vicarious death, said, “It is finished,” and demonstrated the reality
of His victory by emerging from the opened tomb on the resurrection
morning, as the Lord of Life.
25:9.
“And it shall be said 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.”
On that
glorious resurrection morning the weeping of His own was turned to joy as
they beheld Him alive, their rejoicing being but a sample of that which will
be on that soon coming day described in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, “For this
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are
asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in
Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
25:10.
“For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be
trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.”
Moab represents the flesh as the enemy of the spirit; and the treading
down of Moab in the Millennium speaks of the subjugation of the flesh during
that era, for as noted already, during that thousand year period overt sin
will bring instant death.
25:11.
“And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that
swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their
pride together with the spoils of their hands.”
The swimmer is
Jehovah, and as a swimmer spreads his hands to displace water and propel
himself through it, so will God spread His hands in the Millennium, and
remove those who practice the works of the flesh.
A very
unlikely hypothesis is that the swimmer is Moab.
25:12.
“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.”
It is
difficult to find in this anything to support the view of some that Moab is
the actor here. The reference is clearly to Jehovah as Moab’s Destroyer.
