Isaiah 25 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 25:3, 25:5, 25:7, 25:8
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Chapter 25
The feast, removed death and the fall of Moab
Verse 25:1 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:1 YHWH, You are my God. I will exalt You; I will thank Your name, for You have done a wonder, plans from long ago in sure faithfulness.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:1 Lord my God, I will glorify You and sing Your name, because You have done wondrous things, an ancient, true plan. May it be so, Lord!
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: The praise for ancient, faithful divine purpose agrees. Greek has a singular plan and adds a closing petition, may it be so, Lord, where Hebrew closes with intensified faithfulness.
Verse 25:2 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:2 For You have made a city a heap, a fortified town a ruin, a foreigners' palace no city; it will never be rebuilt.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:2 For You have made cities a mound, fortified cities so that their foundations fall. The ungodly's city will certainly never be rebuilt.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew a city, fortified town and foreigners' palace become Greek plural cities, falling foundations and the ungodly's city. The permanent rebuilding prohibition agrees; Hebrew the palace/no-city phrase is elliptical.
Verse 25:3 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:3 Therefore a strong people will honor You; a city of ruthless nations will fear You.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:3 Therefore the poor people will bless You, and cities of wronged people will bless You.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew strong and ruthless peoples become Greek poor and wronged peoples. Honoring and fearing becomes repeated blessing; the social identity of those responding is reversed.
Verse 25:4 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:4 For You have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from heat, for the ruthless ones' blast is like a storm against a wall.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:4 For You became a helper to every lowly city and a shelter to those discouraged by want. You will rescue them from evil people, a shelter for the thirsty and a breath for wronged people.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew poor individuals become Greek every lowly city and discouraged needy people. Greek adds explicit rescue, replaces storm and heat shelter with thirst shelter, and makes the breath belong to the wronged rather than ruthless attackers.
Verse 25:5 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:5 Like heat in a dry place, You will subdue the foreigners' din; like heat under a cloud's shade, the ruthless ones' cutting down will be answered in song.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:5 They will bless You like fainthearted people thirsting in Zion because of ungodly people, to whom You handed us over.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew subduing foreigners amid heat-and-cloud imagery becomes Greek blessing by fearful, thirsty people in Zion, with explicit divine handing over to the ungodly. Rabbinic: cutting down and answering song follows Rashi's reading of zamir and ye‘aneh; the alternative is a tyrants' song subdued [RASHI25].
Verse 25:6 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:6 YHWH of hosts will prepare for all peoples on this mountain a feast of fat things, a feast of wine lees—marrow-filled fat things, refined lees.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:6 The Lord Sabaoth will act for all the nations upon this mountain. They will drink gladness, drink wine and anoint themselves with perfume.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew feast foods and repeated lees become Greek drinking gladness and wine, with added perfumed anointing. Rabbinic: Rashi reads the lees as judgment upon attackers, contrasted with their expected ease; the alternative metonymy is well-aged, filtered wine [RASHI25].
Verse 25:7 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:7 On this mountain He will swallow up the face of the covering that covers all peoples, and the ruling power that rules over all nations.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:7 On this mountain, hand all these things over to the nations, for this plan concerns all the nations.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew destroying a covering and ruling power becomes Greek a command to hand things to nations and an explanation about the plan. Rabbinic: ruling power follows Rashi on massekha; a woven covering spread over nations is another construal [RASHI25].
Verse 25:8 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:8 He will swallow up death forever. The Lord YHWH will wipe tears from every face and remove His people's disgrace from all the earth, for YHWH has spoken.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:8 Death swallowed, having prevailed; and again God removed every tear from every face. He removed the people's reproach from all the earth, for the Lord's mouth has spoken.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew death is swallowed; Greek death is the swallowing subject. Greek lacks forever, adds again and the divine mouth, and reports removal as past. Rabbinic: Rashi explains death's permanent concealment from Israel [RASHI25]. New Testament: First Corinthians fifteen fifty-four has passive death swallowed in victory, differing from this declared Greek Isaiah reading [NA281CO15]; its wording is not substituted here. Revelation twenty-one four combines the wiping of every tear with the end of death in its new-creation vision [NA28REV21]. Cyril, Catechetical Lecture twelve fifteen, uses death’s swallowing and the wiping of tears in his account of Christ overcoming death [CYRILCAT12].
Verse 25:9 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:9 On that day it will be said, “Look, this is our God! We waited for Him, that He might save us. This is YHWH; we waited for Him. Let us exult and rejoice in His salvation.”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:9 On that day they will say, “Look, our God, in whom we hoped and exulted; and we will rejoice in our salvation.”
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Greek lacks the explicit that-He-save-us clause, repeated this-is-YHWH and second waiting clause. Hebrew His salvation becomes Greek our salvation, with past exultation and future joy rather than shared invitations.
Verse 25:10 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:10 For YHWH's hand will rest on this mountain, and Moab will be trampled in his place as straw is trampled in the dung water.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:10 For God will give rest upon this mountain, and Moab's land will be trampled as people tread a threshing floor with wagons,
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew resting divine hand becomes Greek God granting rest. Moab as straw in dung water becomes Moab's land as a wagon-trodden threshing floor. Hebrew retains the declared written water form; the separately checked reading tradition has in the dung or mire [RASHI25].
Verse 25:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:11 He will spread his hands in its midst as a swimmer spreads them to swim; He will humble his pride together with the cunning of his hands.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:11 and he will release his hands, just as he himself brought low for destruction; he will bring low his insolence over what he laid his hands on,
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew the swimmer's spread hands becomes Greek released hands and lowering for destruction; Greek then names things seized by his hands. Both mention humbled pride. The subjects and possessive referents in these compressed clauses are uncertain; English does not insert Moab or God as newly stated names.
Verse 25:12 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
25:12 The fortified height of your walls He has brought down, lowered, made reach the earth, down to the dust.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
25:12 and he will bring low the height of your wall's refuge, and it will descend to the ground.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: The elevated fortification is brought to ground in both. Hebrew plural walls and three lowering verbs become Greek one wall-refuge and its descent; Greek lacks the final dust term.