The Only Sin Eater – Isaiah 25:1-8

My wife and I read a book by Francine Rivers called The Last Sin Eater.  The practice of sin eating involves one person in the community eating food onto  which the sins of a deceased person have been transferred, freeing the deceased from condemnation.  The community sin eater hopes that before he or she dies someone else will agree to become the sin eater and cover his sins.  Of course this doesn’t work.  Only God can be the true sin eater, as Isaiah alludes to in this prophecy.

O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.  For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the foreigners’ palace is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.  Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you.  For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall, like heat in a dry place.  You subdue the noise of the foreigners; as heat by the shade of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is put down.

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.  And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all   peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.  He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.  (Isaiah 25:1-8 ESV)

Isaiah praises God for His plans to defeat all of Israel’s enemies, including death.  The ruthless nations that have plagued Israel will be no more.  God’s devotion to the poor and needy, that is, those who are in utter dependence upon Him, will serve as a shelter from the storm and shade from the heat of Israel’s enemies.

On the mountain of Jerusalem, in the kingdom, Yahweh will provide for the needs of all the nations.  And the pall that death leaves over every human life will be utterly removed.  Yahweh Himself will devour death, swallow it up.

Who knew that He would do this by taking on human nature and submitting to death Himself?  But in this way He is now able to wipe away all tears from our faces, which He will do in that day when Death is finally defeated at the resurrection.  In the kingdom there will be no death and no tears.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe the last funeral you attended.
2. In what way do you think of death as an enemy?
3. In what ways are we poor and needy and need to recognize that?
4. What do you anticipate God’s rich-food banquet will be like in Jerusalem? What if you don’t like wine?
5. How does the image of God swallowing death fit what Jesus did to conquer death?
6. For whose deaths have you wept tears that God will wipe away?