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Isaiah 24-27 - Apocalypse Feast and Resurrection Hope

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This narration is from a previous version of the study and may include a combined recording of multiple chapters.

Isaiah 24-27 is often called Isaiah’s apocalypse because the prophet’s vision widens beyond one nation to the whole earth, the host of heaven, death itself, and the final gathering of the scattered. The passage moves from a world shaken by covenant-breaking to a feast on the mountain, from tears to salvation, from hidden prayer to resurrection, from dragon judgment to trumpet-gathering. It is one of the deepest resurrection and Holy Week passages in Isaiah.

These chapters belong together because they form one coherent movement: chapter 24 shows the earth undone by sin and the Lord reigning from Zion; chapter 25 answers with praise, feast, and the defeat of death; chapter 26 becomes the song and prayer of the faithful city; chapter 27 completes the movement with the dragon judged, a vineyard song interrupted by siege and a cry for peace, followed by promised fruit, sin purged, and the exiles gathered by the great trumpet. What came before, Isaiah 21-23, closed the oracles against particular cities and powers. What follows, Isaiah 28-33, returns to a series of woes against pride, false refuge, and blind worship.

The spiritual center is not terror. It is hope after truthful judgment. Isaiah does not comfort by denying ruin. He comforts by showing that the Lord’s reign reaches deeper than ruin, deeper than death, and deeper than exile.

Historical and Scriptural Context

Isaiah 24-27 gathers images of worldwide judgment, Zion’s vindication, banquet fellowship, resurrection, and end-time gathering. It stands as a hinge between the nation-oracle section and the next cycle of woes. The passage teaches Judah to see the fall of nations as part of a larger truth: all creation is accountable to the Lord, and all hope must be anchored in His final reign.

The chapters also gather many biblical threads. Genesis is echoed in the curse on the earth; Exodus in hiding until wrath passes; the Psalms in the strong city and dawn-seeking soul; Daniel and Revelation in judgment and resurrection imagery; Paul in the defeat of death; and the Gospel in Christ’s Cross, tomb, and Resurrection.

Geographical Significance ⛰️

Mount Zion is the main theological geography. The mountain is where the Lord reigns, where the feast is made, where death is answered, and where scattered worshipers return. The movement from Assyria and Egypt back to the holy mountain in Isaiah 27:13 also continues Isaiah’s theme that salvation redraws old maps.

The passage also uses earth, city, sea, desert, river, Rhinocorura, Assyria, Egypt, and Jerusalem. The geography has become cosmic. The Lord is not a tribal deity defending a shrine. He is Judge of the earth and Healer of the nations.

🕯️ Light from the Word

Isaiah 24:1-13

1 Behold, the Lord is about to lay waste the world, and will make it desolate, and will lay bare the surface of it, and scatter them that dwell therein. 2 And the people shall be as the priest, and the servant as the lord, and the maid as the mistress; the buyer shall be as the seller, the lender as the borrower, and the debtor as his creditor.

3 The earth shall be completely laid waste, and the earth shall be utterly spoiled: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things. 4 The earth mourns, and the world is ruined, the lofty ones of the earth are mourning. 5 And she has sinned by reason of her inhabitants; because they have transgressed the law, and changed the ordinances, even the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore a curse shall consume the earth, because the inhabitants thereof have sinned: therefore the dwellers in the earth shall be poor, and few men shall be left. 7 The wine shall mourn, the vine shall mourn, all the merry-hearted shall sigh. 8 The mirth of timbrels has ceased, the sound of the harp has ceased. 9 They are ashamed, they have not drunk wine; strong drink has become bitter to them that drink it. 10 All the city has become desolate: one shall shut his house so that none shall enter. 11 There is a howling for the wine everywhere; all the mirth of the land has ceased, all the mirth of the land has departed. 12 And cities shall be left desolate, and houses being left shall fall to ruin.

13 All this shall be in the land in the midst of the nations, as if one should strip an olive tree, so shall they strip them; but when the vintage is done,

The earth is laid waste because its inhabitants have transgressed the law, changed ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant. Isaiah does not treat sin as a private mood. Sin disfigures creation, culture, economy, music, and joy. The wine mourns, the harp ceases, houses close, and cities decay.

The equalizing list in verse 2 is also important. Priest and people, master and servant, buyer and seller, lender and borrower all stand under the same divine judgment. Status cannot protect the soul from truth.

This is why Good Friday can hear this passage. At the Cross the world is judged, not because God hates creation, but because sin has truly wounded creation. Christ enters the judgment in order to renew the world from within death itself.

Isaiah 24:14-23

14 these shall cry aloud; and they that are left on the land shall rejoice together in the glory of the Lord: the water of the sea shall be troubled. 15 Therefore shall the glory of the Lord be in the isles of the sea; the name of the Lord shall be glorious.

16 O Lord God of Israel, from the ends of the earth we have heard wonderful things, and there is hope to the godly: but they shall say, Woe to the despisers, that despise the law. 17 Fear, and a pit, and a snare, are upon you that dwell on the earth. 18 And it shall come to pass, that he that flees from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that comes up out of the pit shall be caught by the snare: for windows have been opened in heaven, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken, 19 the earth shall be utterly confounded, and the earth shall be completely perplexed. 20 It reels as a drunkard and one oppressed with wine, and the earth shall be shaken as a storehouse of fruits; for iniquity has prevailed upon it, and it shall fall, and shall not be able to rise.

21 And God shall bring his hand upon the host of heaven, and upon the kings of the earth. 22 And they shall gather the multitude thereof into prisons, and they shall shut them into a strong hold: after many generations they shall be visited. 23 And the brick shall decay, and the wall shall fall; for the Lord shall reign from out of Sion, and out of Jerusalem, and shall be glorified before his elders.

In the middle of shaking, songs are heard from the ends of the earth: “there is hope to the godly.” That line must be allowed to shine. Isaiah’s apocalypse is not darkness without witness. Even as fear, pit, and snare fall on the earth, the remnant hears wonderful things.

The judgment reaches the host of heaven and the kings of the earth. No visible or invisible power is outside God’s reign. The chapter ends not with chaos, but with the Lord reigning out of Zion and Jerusalem.

Brenton ends with the brick decaying and the wall falling before the Lord’s reign, not with sun and moon. Jerome, using a sun-and-moon wording in Against the Pelagians 2.24, turns such judgment toward humility before the Judge.1 His warning can sharpen repentance without becoming a paraphrase of this English verse: even our strongest constructed defenses cannot displace the Lord who reigns from Zion.

Isaiah 25:1-12

1 O Lord God, I will glorify thee, I will sing to thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things, even an ancient and faithful counsel. So be it. 2 For thou hast made cities a heap, even cities made strong that their foundations should not fall: the city of ungodly men shall not be built for ever. 3 Therefore shall the poor people bless thee, and cities of injured men shall bless thee. 4 For thou hast been a helper to every lowly city, and a shelter to them that were disheartened by reason of poverty: thou shalt deliver them from wicked men: thou hast been a shelter of them that thirst, and a refreshing air to injured men.

5 We were as faint-hearted men thirsting in Sion, by reason of ungodly men to whom thou didst deliver us. 6 And the Lord of hosts shall make a feast for all the nations: on this mount they shall drink gladness, they shall drink wine: 7 they shall anoint themselves with ointment in this mountain. Impart thou all these things to the nations; for this is God’s counsel upon all the nations. 8 Death has prevailed and swallowed men up; but again the Lord God has taken away every tear from every face. He has taken away the reproach of his people from all the earth: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. 9 And in that day they shall say, Behold our God in whom we have trusted, and he shall save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, and we have exulted, and will rejoice in our salvation.

10 God will give rest on this mountain, and the country of Moab shall be trodden down, as they tread the floor with waggons. 11 And he shall spread forth his hands, even as he also brings down man to destroy him: and he shall bring low his pride in regard to the thing on which he has laid his hands. 12 And he shall bring down the height of the refuge of the wall, and it shall come down even to the ground.

Chapter 25 answers judgment with praise. The Lord shelters the poor, humbles the city of ungodly men, makes a feast for all nations, and removes tears from every face. Verses 6-7 give wine, gladness, anointing, and the command to impart these gifts to the nations. This English witness does not speak here of removing a veil. Cana can illuminate the messianic abundance without replacing Isaiah’s mountain: the Lord supplies wine at a Galilean wedding, an initial sign rather than the completion of the nations’ feast. See The Wedding at Cana.

Verse 8 first names death’s terrible action: it has prevailed and swallowed people. Then the Lord answers with every tear removed and His people’s reproach taken away. Paul receives Isaiah’s promise in the victory formulation of 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, where death is swallowed up in victory. That apostolic reception grounds the Christian Paschal hope, but it must not be substituted for Brenton’s first clause. The Lord’s answer is heard more deeply when we first admit what death has done.

Fr Bishoy Kamel, a modern Coptic pastoral witness, reads the feast through the Cross, the prodigal son’s welcome, and the living water given to the Samaritan woman. His reflection uses a different English wording of Isaiah 25:7-8, including the veil and death’s defeat. It is a Christian pastoral reception, not a replacement for the displayed anointing and death-swallowing clauses. Its gift is to help the ashamed approach Christ’s mercy rather than stay away from the feast.2

Isaiah 26:1-11

1 In that day they shall sing this song in the land of Judea; Behold a strong city; and he shall make salvation its wall and bulwark. 2 Open ye the gates, let the nation enter that keeps righteousness, and keeps truth, 3 supporting truth, and keeping peace: for on thee, O Lord, 4 they have trusted with confidence for ever, the great, the eternal God; 5 who hast humbled and brought down them that dwell on high, thou shalt cast down strong cities, and bring them to the ground. 6 And the feet of the meek and lowly shall trample them.

7 The way of the godly is made straight: the way of the godly is also prepared. 8 For the way of the Lord is judgment: we have hoped in thy name, and on the remembrance of thee, 9 which our soul longs for: my spirit seeks thee very early in the morning, O God, for thy commandments are a light on the earth: learn righteousness, ye that dwell upon the earth. 10 For the ungodly one is put down: no one who will not learn righteousness on the earth, shall be able to do the truth: let the ungodly be taken away, that he see not the glory of the Lord. 11 O Lord, thine arm is exalted, yet they knew it not: but when they know they shall be ashamed: jealousy shall seize upon an untaught nation, and now fire shall devour the adversaries.

The faithful city sings after the shaken city falls. Salvation becomes wall and bulwark. The gates open for the nation that keeps righteousness and truth. The soul seeks God early in the morning because His commandments are light on the earth.

This is one of Isaiah’s strongest texts for disciplined hope. The city is not secure because its walls are thick. It is secure because salvation itself is its wall. The believer is not stable because life is calm. The believer is stable because remembrance of God becomes morning desire.

The Bright Saturday service order includes Isaiah’s strong-city song in Midnight Praises. Beside the tomb, salvation as a wall and the soul seeking God early become words of patient hope, not a promise that the faithful control their circumstances.

Isaiah 26:12-21

12 O Lord our God, give us peace: for thou hast rendered to us all things. 13 O Lord our God, take possession of us: O Lord, we know not any other beside thee: we name thy name.

14 But the dead shall not see life, neither shall physicians by any means raise them up: therefore thou hast brought wrath upon them, and slain them, and hast taken away every male of them. Bring more evils upon them, O Lord; 15 bring more evils on the glorious ones of the earth.

16 Lord, in affliction I remembered thee; thy chastening was to us with small affliction. 17 And as a woman in travail draws nigh to be delivered, and cries out in her pain; so have we been to thy beloved. 18 We have conceived, O Lord, because of thy fear, and have been in pain, and have brought forth the breath of thy salvation, which we have wrought upon the earth: we shall not fall, but all that dwell upon the land shall fall. 19 The dead shall rise, and they that are in the tombs shall be raised, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew from thee is healing to them: but the land of the ungodly shall perish. 20 Go, my people, enter into thy closets, shut thy door, hide thyself for a little season, until the anger of the Lord have passed away. 21 For, behold, the Lord is bringing wrath from his holy place upon the dwellers on the earth: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall not cover her slain.

The song turns into prayer. “O Lord our God, take possession of us.” This is the opposite of false refuge. The faithful ask not merely to receive help, but to belong to God.

Verses 14-15 must be faced before the consolation of verse 19. The prayer says the dead will not see life and physicians cannot raise them. It speaks of God’s wrath, their being slain, and every male taken away, then asks for more evils upon them and the glorious ones of the earth. Verse 19 then promises that the dead and those in tombs will rise. The identity and scope of every referent in the earlier judgment are not clear enough here to resolve the tension simply by naming them all hostile powers. The passage places a severe verdict beside God’s life-giving promise. No physician can confer resurrection, but that limit does not disparage medicine or excuse neglect of the sick. Nor does the imprecation authorize us to curse the ill or diagnose their guilt. We seek their healing while entrusting judgment to God.

The birth in verses 17-18 is painful but not merely futile. The people say they have brought forth the breath of God’s salvation upon the earth and that they shall not fall, in contrast to the fall of those dwelling upon the land. This severe corporate contrast is not permission to pronounce judgment on a sick neighbor. Resurrection in verse 19 enlarges that confession beyond what their labor could secure: even the tomb does not exclude a person from the Lord’s healing dew.

St. Irenaeus cites Isaiah 26:19 as a promise of joy at the resurrection of the just.3 That bounded witness need not import his surrounding temporal-kingdom framework. St. Cyril of Jerusalem makes the bodily point explicit: “Heed not those who say that this body is not raised; for it is raised: and Esaias is witness, when he says: The dead shall arise, and they that are in the tombs shall awake: and according to Daniel, Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame.”4 His sentence includes biblical citations from Isaiah and Daniel. He goes on to distinguish resurrection, common to all, from the judgment each receives. Christian hope concerns the whole person, not escape from the body.

The command to enter the closets and hide for a little season gives fear a place to pray rather than a demand to explain everything. Fr Bishoy Kamel connects this hiddenness with the protection of Christ’s Cross.2 Hidden prayer is not an order to isolate from medical help, trustworthy people, or protection from violence. Christ’s freely chosen Passion never requires a sufferer to stay where another person can harm them.

Isaiah 27:1-6

1 In that day God shall bring his holy and great and strong sword upon the dragon, even the serpent that flees, upon the dragon, the crooked serpent: he shall destroy the dragon. 2 In that day there shall be a fair vineyard, and a desire to commence a song concerning it. 3 I am a strong city, a city in a siege: in vain shall I water it; for it shall be taken by night, and by day the wall shall fall. 4 There is no woman that has not taken hold of it; who will set me to watch stubble in the field? because of this enemy I have set her aside; therefore on this account the Lord has done all that he appointed. 5 I am burnt up; they that dwell in her shall cry, Let us make peace with him, let us make peace, 6 they that are coming are the children of Jacob. Israel shall bud and blossom, and the world shall be filled with his fruit.

The Lord brings His holy, great, and strong sword against the dragon, the fleeing and crooked serpent. In Scripture’s wider canon, the serpent is not merely a mythic monster. The Church reads this in the light of Christ’s victory over Satan, death, and the powers that enslave.

St. Athanasius gives the Paschal key in On the Incarnation 29: “Now if by the sign of the Cross, and by faith in Christ, death is trampled down, it must be evident before the tribunal of truth that it is none other than Christ Himself that has displayed trophies and triumphs over death, and made him lose all his strength.”5 Isaiah’s dragon is slain by the Lord’s sword; in the fullness of the Gospel, death is trampled by the Cross.

The vineyard song does not move straight into serene tending. Verses 3-5 speak of a besieged city, watering in vain, a wall falling by day, and the cry that it is burnt up. The woman clause in verse 4 remains difficult; it cannot fairly become a judgment on women as a class. Out of this broken-city movement the inhabitants cry to make peace, and verse 6 promises Jacob’s blossoming and fruit for the world. Hope is not the claim that the siege was harmless. It is that ruined self-preservation does not have the last word: peace with the Lord and fruitfulness are still promised.

Isaiah 27:7-13

7 Shall he himself be thus smitten, even as he smote? and as he slew, shall he be thus slain? 8 Fighting and reproaching he will dismiss them; didst thou not meditate with a harsh spirit, to slay them with a wrathful spirit? 9 Therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be taken away; and this is his blessing, when I shall have taken away his sin; when they shall have broken to pieces all the stones of the altars as fine dust, and their trees shall not remain, and their idols shall be cut off, as a thicket afar off. 10 The flock that dwelt there shall be left, as a deserted flock; and the ground shall be for a long time for pasture, and there shall flocks lie down to rest. 11 And after a time there shall be in it no green thing because of the grass being parched. Come hither, ye women that come from a sight; for it is a people of no understanding; therefore he that made them shall have no pity upon them, and he that formed them shall have no mercy upon them.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day that God shall fence men off from the channel of the river as far as Rhinocorura; but do ye gather one by one the children of Israel. 13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that they shall blow the great trumpet, and the lost ones in the land of the Assyrians shall come, and the lost ones in Egypt, and shall worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

The final movement explains the aim of God’s discipline: “the iniquity of Jacob” is taken away, altars of idolatry are broken, and the lost are gathered one by one. The great trumpet sounds, and those perishing in Assyria and exiled in Egypt come to worship on the holy mountain.

This ending matters after everything that came before. Egypt and Assyria appeared as threats, temptations, and objects of judgment. Now the lost from those lands come to worship. The Lord’s final work is not only to punish the dragon, but to gather scattered worshipers.

The phrase “one by one” is pastorally beautiful. The Lord gathers nations without losing persons. His salvation is cosmic, but never anonymous.

The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖

These Coptic appointments come from distinct witnesses: the Lenten cycle with retained Matins supplements, the Bright Saturday service order, and consulted Pascha working tables. The latter are not fresh confirmations of current app usage.

  • Isaiah 24:1-13: Good Friday, First Hour, fifth Old Testament reading, in the consulted Pascha working table.
  • Isaiah 25:1-12: Tuesday of the fourth week of Great Lent in the cycle; also Bright Saturday, Midnight Praises, Second Prayer of Isaiah, in the service order.
  • Isaiah 26:1-8: Tuesday of the fourth week of Great Lent, in the cycle.
  • Isaiah 26:1-9: Bright Saturday, Midnight Praises, Third Prayer of Isaiah, in the service order.
  • Isaiah 26:9-20: Bright Saturday, Midnight Praises, First Prayer of Isaiah, in the service order.
  • Isaiah 26:21-27:9: Wednesday Matins of the fourth week of Great Lent, in the cycle and retained Matins witness.
  • Isaiah 27:11-28:15: Great Thursday Eve, Eleventh Hour, first Old Testament reading, in the consulted Pascha working table. The appointment spans the chapter boundary.

The complete Good Friday First Hour table includes Wisdom 2:12-22 and the Gospel hearings of the innocent Christ. That setting checks the temptation to call every sufferer guilty: the righteous One freely enters the world’s violence to save, not to justify it. Wednesday’s Lenten Matins prophecies include Exodus 7:14-8:19, Joel 2:28-32 (LXX Joel 3:1-5), and Job 1:1-22 alongside Isaiah. Job’s undeserved affliction prevents us from equating all injury with the ungodly land. These are spiritual connections drawn from the actual companions, not a single compulsory account of the compilers’ intention.

Bright Saturday’s Midnight Praises includes the prayers of Isaiah within a larger company of prophetic prayers, including those of Jonah and Daniel and the praise of Mary. Lament, repentance, deliverance, and praise belong together beside the tomb. Fr Bishoy Kamel’s Cross-centered reading is one useful modern pastoral companion to this hope, not the exclusive interpretation of every difficult clause.2

Iconography Connection 🖼️

This guide pairs naturally with icons of the Crucifixion, the burial of Christ, the Harrowing of Hades, the Anastasis, the banquet of the Kingdom, and the heavenly Jerusalem. For teaching, the most powerful visual sequence is Good Friday earth-shaking, Bright Saturday hidden hope, and Paschal resurrection.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

1. Let judgment become repentance, not curiosity

Isaiah’s cosmic language is not there to feed speculation. It is there to sober the heart before the Lord who reigns from Zion.

2. Receive the feast as mercy, not entitlement

The feast is made for all peoples, but it is received by those who trust the Lord. Come hungry, not proud.

3. Seek God early in the morning

Isaiah 26 gives the fasting soul a prayer: “my spirit seeks thee very early in the morning.” Begin the day by belonging to God before belonging to noise.

4. Hold resurrection as bodily hope

Irenaeus and Cyril of Jerusalem use Isaiah 26:19 to speak of real resurrection.34 Christian hope is not escape from the body. Pray for the departed by name and care for the bodies of the living, including through sound medical care.

5. Hide in Christ for the little season

There are seasons when faithfulness includes quiet hidden prayer. Receive that shelter without making it isolation: ask for help, seek needed treatment, and leave danger. Waiting in Christ need not mean waiting alone.

6. Trust that God gathers one by one

The trumpet gathers nations, but God does not gather in bulk. He calls the lost personally, even from Assyria and Egypt.

Scripture text

Patristic source pages

Geography and visual context

Coptic lectionary provenance

  • Lenten, Bright Saturday, and Pascha witnesses retain their exact boundaries and distinct service contexts.

Footnotes

  1. St. Jerome, Against the Pelagians 2.24: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/30112.htm. His Isaiah wording differs from Brenton’s brick and wall. ↩

  2. Fr Bishoy Kamel, The Journey through Lent with Isaiah, Fourth Week, feast of the Cross and following reflections; author-attributed pastoral booklet. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.34.1: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103534.htm. Cited narrowly for resurrection, not the surrounding temporal-kingdom interpretation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 4.31: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310104.htm. The quotation includes his citation of Isaiah 26:19. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 29.1: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm. ↩

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