Isaiah 25:8

He will swallow up … victory Rather: He hath abolished death for ever. Cf. 2 Timothy 1:10. The A.V. follows the rendering of St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:54 (κατεπόθη ὁ θάνατος εἰς νῖκος), but "swallow up" is needlessly literal, and "in victory" comes from the apostle's familiarity with Aramaic. The sense, of course, is correctly given. The words contain the clearest expression of the hope of immortality to be found in the prophetic writings. The special contribution of prophecy to that doctrine is reached through the conception of the abolition of death as a hindrance to the perfect blessedness of the Messianic age. Although the prophets rarely touch on this theme, we can see that it was only by degrees and at a late period that the idea of immortal life became an element in their conception of the kingdom of God. The first step towards it was the anticipation of a great extension of human life, as in Zechariah 8:4; Isaiah 65:20; Isaiah 65:22. From this to the belief in an absolute annihilation of death is no doubt a great advance, but the advance is made in the passage before us. It might be questioned if the resurrection of those who had fallen asleep before the advent of the Messianic kingdom is here contemplated; but since that doctrine is clearly taught in the next chapter (Isaiah 26:19), the question has little importance.

and the Lord God will wipe away tears the traces of past sorrow. "When Jehovah removes the veil he sees the tears and wipes them away" (Duhm). Perhaps no words that ever were uttered have sunk deeper into the aching heart of humanity than this exquisite image of the Divine tenderness; cf. Revelation 21:4.

the rebuke(render, reproach) of his people … earth a reversal of the doom pronounced in Deuteronomy 28:37. The later Jews keenly felt their accumulated national misfortunes as a religious disgrace, a reflection on the power of their God; Joel 2:17; Psalms 44:14 ff; Psalms 79:10, &c. Comp. with this passage, Zephaniah 3:18 ff.