Isaiah 25:11
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He will spread out his hands within it, as a swimmer spreads his arms to swim. His pride will be brought low, despite the skill of his hands.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
After the threatenings of wrath in the foregoing chapter we have here, I. Thankful praises for what God had done, which the prophet, in the name of the church, offers up to God, and teaches us to offer the like (Isa 25:1-5). II. Precious promises of what God would yet further do for his church, especially in the grace of the gospel (Isa 25:6-8). III. The church's triumph in God over her enemies thereupon (Isa 25:9-12). This chapter looks as pleasantly upon the church as the former looked dreadfully upon the world.
Open source ↗25:11 Isaiah used the image of a swimmer forcibly kept under water to illustrate that Moab’s people are hopelessly doomed and their human pride will be conquered.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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And now the LORD says, “In three years, as a hired worker counts the years, Moab’s splendor will become an object of contempt, with all her many people. And those who are left will be few and feeble.”
This is the plan devised for the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations.
We have heard of Moab’s pomposity, his exceeding pride and conceit, his overflowing arrogance. But his boasting is empty.
The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.
Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lay like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.
I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.
All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Moab will be destroyed as a nation because he vaunted himself against the LORD.