What Does Isaiah 25:6 Mean?
And in this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines kept on their lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines kept on their lees, well strained.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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 KEY
The feast binds richness to preservation: it is a table of full food and wine held until it is ready.
THE MEANING
The LORD makes a feast for all peoples on this mountain: abundance reaches beyond a single circle. Rich food and wine kept on its lees, then well refined, join fullness with clarity. The invitation meets the reader now as open and abundant, not rationed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s table has room for only one favored people: the verse names all peoples as its guests.
THE ROOT
שְׁמָרִים
shemarim
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
Keep, guard, watch; שְׁמָרִים names wine lees or sediment.
“wines kept on their lees” in this verse is shemarim. English calls these simply lees, but shemarim belongs to the keeping and guarding family. The wine is presented through the language of what is kept with it, making preservation part of the feast’s abundance.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: Keep, guard, watch
שָׁמַר
This verb supplies the keeping within shemarim, so the wine’s lees carry more than a description of sediment.
mishmeret: A duty or trust that is kept
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch names what is entrusted to be watched over, echoing the wine held with its lees.
שְׁמָנִים
shemanim
GROWS FROM
שמן
sh-m-n
Grow fat, become rich or oily; shemanim names rich foods.
“fat things” in this verse is shemanim. The word for rich foods shares its root with oil, giving the feast a word-family of richness and oiliness. Its close sound beside שְׁמָרִים (shemarim, lees) links rich food and kept wine by echo, though שמן and שמר are distinct roots.
ALSO GROWS
shemen: Oil or fat
שֶׁמֶן
This branch carries the same root’s sense of richness into the feast’s food.
yishman: Grow fat or become robust
יִשְׁמַן
The same seed describes fullness as something embodied, deepening the sense of an abundant table.
THE PATTERN
God’s abundance is pictured as provision whose invitation crosses boundaries and whose cup overflows.
Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters, and whoever has no silver, come, break open and eat. Yes, come, break open wine and milk, without silver and without price.You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.And I say to you, that many will come from the rising and the setting, and will recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the governance of the heavens.THE THREAD
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.The verse’s “lees” is שְׁמָרִים (shemarim, lees), from שמר (shamar, keep or guard), the same root behind Psalm 121’s “preserve.” The shared root opens the kept wine into a picture of you being kept from evil: the abundance of the feast sits within care.
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