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25. Praise to the Lord

¹ LORD, you are my God;
   I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
   you have done wonderful things,
   things planned long ago.
² You have made the city a heap of rubble,
   the fortified town a ruin,
the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more;
   it will never be rebuilt.
³ Therefore strong peoples will honor you;
   cities of ruthless nations will revere you.
⁴ You have been a refuge for the poor,
   a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
   and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless
   is like a storm driving against a wall
    ⁵ and like the heat of the desert.
You silence the uproar of foreigners;
   as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud,
   so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

    ⁶ On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
   a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
   the best of meats and the finest of wines.
⁷ On this mountain he will destroy
   the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
    ⁸ he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
   from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
   from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.

⁹ In that day they will say,

   “Surely this is our God;
   we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
   let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

    ¹⁰ The hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain;
   but Moab will be trampled in their land
   as straw is trampled down in the manure.
¹¹ They will stretch out their hands in it,
   as swimmers stretch out their hands to swim.
God will bring down their pride
   despite the cleverness The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. of their hands.
¹² He will bring down your high fortified walls
   and lay them low;
he will bring them down to the ground,
   to the very dust.

5. As the heat in a dry place. If the Lord did not aid when violent men rush upon us, our life would be in imminent danger; for we see how great is the rage of wicked men, and if the Lord overturn walls, what can a feeble man do against him? These things therefore are added in order to magnify the grace of God, that we may consider what would become of us if the Lord did not render assistance.

Yet there are two ways in which commentators explain this passage. Some understand it to mean, that wicked men will be consumed by God’s indignation, in the same manner as the violence of the heat burns up the fields which are in themselves barren. Others render it in the ablative case, As if by heat, and make the meaning to be, “Though wicked men, relying on their power, are so violent, yet the Lord will prostrate them in a moment, as if they were overpowered ‘by heat in a dry place.’” But I consider the meaning to be different, for, after having shewn how great is the rage of wicked men against believers, he adds:

Thou wilt bring them down, O Lord. Alluding to the metaphor of the deluge, which he had formerly used, he says, “Thou wilt quench their heat, which would otherwise consume us, even as rain, or a shower, falling from heaven, quenches the heat that scorched the thirsty fields.” And thus the passage flows naturally; for the other interpretation is forced, and does violence, as the saying is, to the letter.

The noise of the strong ones will he lay low. ¹⁴⁰¹⁴⁰ {Bogus footnote} This clause is tortured in various ways. Some think that זמיר (zĕmīr) means seed; others that it means a root; as if he had said, that God will not only destroy wicked men, but will utterly root them out. This meaning would be probable, were it not opposed by the metaphor of the heat. In my opinion, therefore, it is more correctly interpreted by others to mean “singing and shouting,” or “cutting off,” although even those interpreters do not fully succeed in getting at the meaning of the Prophet. He therefore confirms the preceding statement, that the violence of wicked men, or the shouting which they haughtily and daringly set up, will presently be laid low, as the heat of the sun is overpowered by the falling rain, which is meant by the shadow of a cloud