Isaiah 63: Who Is This That Cometh from Edom?

"Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment" (63:1–3).

"For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth" (vv. 4–6).

"I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD… In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit… Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock?" (vv. 7–11).

"Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory… Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?… The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary" (vv. 15–18).

Edom and Bozrah

Edom, the land southeast of the Dead Sea, was Judah's neighbor and rival. Bozrah (modern Buseirah, Jordan) was its capital in the Iron Age; Crystal-M. Bennett's excavations (1971–1980) uncovered a large administrative and palace complex there (reported). After Jerusalem fell in 587 BC, Edom was remembered as having joined its enemies (Psalm 137:7; Obadiah 10–14; Lamentations 4:21–22), and Edomites moved into the southern Judean hills, the later Idumea. Isaiah 34 and 63 make Edom the symbol of the hostile nations. Whether 63:1–6 refers to a particular event is unknown; the poem is a vision, and Edom stands for more than itself.

The winepress

Rock-cut winepresses with a treading floor and a collecting vat are common in the hill country of Judah and Samaria. Treaders sang (Jeremiah 25:30; 48:33) and their clothing was stained red. The image of judgment as a winepress appears also in Lamentations 1:15 and Joel 3:13.

Honest reading of a violent text

The poem pictures God's victory over the nations as a slaughter and his clothes stained with their blood. Several things can be said without softening it. In the poem's setting, it is the cry of a defeated and humiliated people for God to act against their oppressors ("the year of my redeemed"), not a call for human violence: the warrior acts "alone," because no one else could or would. It belongs to a tradition of divine-warrior poetry in Israel and its neighbors (compare Deuteronomy 32:41–43; Psalm 68; the Ugaritic goddess Anat wading in the blood of warriors, reported). And its later readers have used it both as a symbol of God's justice and, at times, as license for human vengeance. The site names all three facts and leaves the moral question open (ISA-C9).

Where the texts differ

Revelation borrows Isaiah's images (the stained garment, the winepress, the lone conqueror's wrath) but changes them. The figure is named and given titles; his armies follow; his weapon is a sword from his mouth, which many interpreters take as his word; and his garment is bloody before the battle. Revelation never says "as it is written" here, and it does not claim that Isaiah 63 was a prediction of its scene; that identification belongs to later readers. Christian interpreters from Origen onward also read Isaiah 63 of Christ's passion ("I have trodden the winepress alone"), which inspired the medieval image of Christ treading the mystic winepress; and the Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861) turned the image toward the American Civil War. These are three different uses of one poem.

In all their affliction (63:9)

The written Hebrew text (ketiv) of 63:9 reads "in all their distress he was not distressed (lo), and the angel of his presence saved them"; the Masoretes' read text (qere) has lo, "to him": "in all their distress, he was distressed." The Great Isaiah Scroll spells "not." The library's Greek divides the words differently: "not an envoy nor an angel, but he himself saved them." The KJV follows the read text. Jewish and Christian theology both drew on this verse for the idea that God shares his people's suffering; the textual question shows how much rests on one letter (described from a transcription).