25:1 In that day you will say, O Lord, thou art my God; I will extol thee by praising thy name. For with perfect faithfulness thou hast performed wonders, things planned of old. Throughout these chapters, here, we have songs of salvation, and this is an instance of one of those songs. Those who survive sings songs of salvation, as we saw in verse sixteen of the previous chapter: "From a sector of the earth we hear singing. Glorious are the righteous." Those righteous who survive, for whom the Lord provides protection, praise him, very much like the Israelites praised and glorified God after the exodus out of Egypt. We saw an instance of that in chapters eleven and twelve. Chapter eleven talks about the exodus of the Lord's people from all directions of the earth, to Zion. And chapter twelve is a song of salvation, praising God for his deliverance of the people in Zion. And so it is here; while all the destruction is going on, some are delivered out of it, and they sing a song of praise: "O Lord thou art my God." It doesn't say "our" God; it says "my" God, implying that it is only individuals that sing this song. It's only a few people, because there'll be so few righteous in that day. The earth was so wicked. It was like it was before the Flood, when the earth was destroyed, in general, and only a few individuals were saved out of it. "Thou art my God, O my covenant God. I will extol thee by praising thy name," praising—or thanking. "For with perfect faithfulness thou has performed wonders, things planned of old." This destruction of the wicked was planned of old. The cross reference there, in chapter thirty-seven, verse twenty-six, says, "Have you not heard how I ordained this thing long ago, how in days of old I planned it? Now I have brought it to pass. You were destined to demolish fortified cities, turning them into heaps of rubble." The Lord is addressing the king of Assyria, there, who caused that destruction. The wonders that the Lord performs has both a positive and a negative aspect. It is a deliverance of the righteous, but it's also the destruction of the wicked that's a wonder. The Lord is faithful to the righteous, in destroying the wicked who have been oppressing them for so long. All of this was planned of old, because the earth was not meant to remain in the kind of state that it's in today. The earth was meant to be glorified, also, and to assume a paradisiacal glory. It could not do so until the wicked were removed from the earth and there was a sizable representation of humanity, which were, in fact, righteous and deserved to live in such a beautiful place. 25:2 Thou hast made the city a heap of rubble, fortified towns a ruin—heathen mansions shall no more form cities, nor ever be rebuilt! The "city," again, is that entity of people that epitomizes the wicked. We have the wicked city versus the righteous city. The wicked city is made into a heap of rubble, which is a covenant curse. Even fortified towns are ruined. They are, in fact, the heathen. There are people that do not follow the light that was given them and chose to become alienated from God their Maker, thus becoming heathen. "Heathen mansions shall no more form cities, nor ever be rebuilt." Even the architecture of the paradisiacal glory will differ from the present architecture on the earth. Everything about the paradisiacal state will be different from what was before. 25:3 For this will powerful peoples revere thee, a community of tyrannous nations fear thee. Even the Assyrians who cause such horrendous destruction, who wielded all power in the earth for a short period of time—even those who survive of them-- will fear God and revere him who is even stronger than all the nuclear blasts and all the armies of their alliance, and all their war planes and battleships, combined. 25:4 Thou wast a refuge for the poor, a shelter for the needy in distress, a covert from the downpour and shade from the heat. During that destruction wrought by the Assyrians, the Lord provided for his poor and needy. Elsewhere, he has identified the poor and needy as his people, his covenant people. The words, "refuge" and "shelter" are used very pointedly in many places in the book of Isaiah, as referring to the cloud of glory that covers the righteous, as in chapter four, verses five and six, which says: "Over the whole site of Mount Zion, and over its solemn assembly the Lord will form a cloud by day and a mist glowing with fire, by night. Above all that is glorious shall be a canopy. It shall be a shelter from the heat of the day, a secret refuge from the downpour and rain." That's very similar to what it says, here: "Thou was a refuge for the poor, a shelter for the needy in distress, a covert form the downpour, and shade from the heat," from the Sodom and Gomorrah type of heat, from the fiery destruction. 25:4–5 When the blasts of tyrants beat down like torrents against a wall, or like scorching heat in the desert, thou didst quell the onslaughts of the heathen: as burning heat by the shade of a cloud, thou subduest the power of tyrants. that is, the Assyrian attack, a nuclear war, or whatever form it takes, "thou didst quell the onslaughts of the heathen: as burning heat by the shade of a cloud, thou subduest the power of tyrants." The shade of the cloud is the cloud of glory, which no amount of destructive force can penetrate. It will provide a protection for the elect, for the holy ones and the valiant ones. No matter how fiery the destruction that is wrought by the Assyrians, it cannot have power over the elect. The downpour, the blasts, and the heat are all storm imagery. And that, again, indicates the day of judgment. 25:6 In this mountain will the Lord of Hosts prepare a sumptuous feast for all peoples, a feast of leavened cakes, succulent and delectable, of matured wines well refined. We would say from other scriptures, such as in the New Testament, that this is the marriage supper of the Lamb, to which the elect, or the wise virgins are invited, those who knew the Lord. And those who didn't know him could not come to the feast. They were left in outer darkness. So, the marriage supper of the Lamb is like the cloud of glory resting over Zion. It is a special provision made for the elect, through that time period. So it will not be just them somehow eking out an existence during the time of destruction, but the fact that they'll be well-provided for. And it says, "for all peoples," because all peoples will be invited to it. Of course, not all peoples will come. Only certain individuals will come, who repent and who keep covenant with the Lord. And while the wicked don't have anything to eat, or almost nothing, these will be well-provided for. It will actually be a supper, a single feast, as well as being an allegory for people who live through that time period, in general, the elect. 25:7–8 In this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the shroud that shrouds all nations, by abolishing Death forever. Death, here, is called a veil, or shroud. And if death was done away with now, we would be able to distinguish the righteous from the wicked, because of the light that would emanate from us. Right now we kind of all look the same. Mortality will be done away. 25:8 My Lord the Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the reproach of his people from throughout the earth. The Lord has spoken it. The reproach of his people comes because they were they were oppressed by their enemies. But also, while they, themselves, the more righteous people of the earth, were oppressed by the wicked, when the veil of mortality is done away people will appear for who they really are. And it will be clearly seen that those who are more righteous will be more glorious that those who are not so righteous. So death will be done away in that Millennial age, and people will no more die as they have hitherto done. 25:9 In that day you will say, This is our God, whom we expected would save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us joyfully celebrate his salvation! "Our God," meaning our covenant God. So there's a group of people singing a song of salvation, as we saw earlier. "In that day," or the day of judgment, among those who survived, we expected that he would save us. In other words we relied upon that. We didn't rely upon Egypt, or the arm of flesh, or on anybody else. Our hearts didn't faint, even though there was temptation to do so and the odds seemed overwhelming. We relied upon God, steadily, exercising might faith in him. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. One of the great motifs throughout the book of Isaiah, among the people who survive into the Millennium, is this motif of waiting for the Lord. "Let us joyfully celebrate his salvation," or let us joyfully celebrate him, because he personifies Salvation. He's it, he's come, now. That's very similar to chapter twelve, which is cross- referenced there to the song of Salvation that is sung there, after the exodus out of all the world: "In that day you will say, I will praise thee, O Lord. Though thou has been angry with me, thy anger is turned away and thou hast consoled me. In the God of my salvation I will trust. The Lord was my strength and my song when he became my Salvation," chapter twelve, verses one and two. 25:10 For in this mountain rests the hand of the Lord, and under him Moab shall be trampled down as straw is trampled in a dung pit. 25:11 For when he stretches his hands into the midst of it, as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim, he will pull down his pride in the attempt. 25:12 Your highly walled fortifications he will lay low by razing them to the ground, even with the dust. The wicked city, the fortified town of the wicked, will be laid low in the dust. The whole wicked world goes into the ground, or even with the dust; it ceases to exist. Moab signifying pride, as we saw earlier, tries to grasp at what he can, to survive, but cannot survive. Moab is trampled down. The king of Assyria does the trampling down, in the book of Isaiah. He treads people underfoot, like mud in the street, as we read in chapter ten. Straw and dust are chaos motifs, indicating that Moab or any other prideful entity is reduced to nothing. No matter how powerful they may seem to appear, God will pull down his pride, in the attempt.