Yesaya 25:8

25:8 he will swallow up death permanently. ¹ 

The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face,

and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.

Indeed, the Lord has announced it! ² 

Efesus 5:14

5:14 For everything made evident is light, and for this reason it says: ³ 

“Awake, ⁴  O sleeper! ⁵ 

Rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you!” ⁶ 

[25:8]  ¹ sn The image of the Lord “swallowing” death would be especially powerful, for death was viewed in Canaanite mythology and culture as a hungry enemy that swallows its victims. See the note at 5:14.

[25:8]  ² tn Heb “has spoken” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[5:14]  ³ sn The following passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Grk “Rise up.”

[5:14]  ⁵ tn The articular nominative participle ὁ καθεύδων (Jo kaqeudwn) is probably functioning as a nominative for vocative. Thus, it has been translated as “O sleeper.”

[5:14]  ⁶ sn A composite quotation, possibly from Isa 26:19, 51:17, 52:1, and 60:1.