Isaiah — Chapter 27

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1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.
3 I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.
4 Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.
5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.
6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?
8 In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.
9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.
10 Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.
11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.
12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
Abrahamic Catechism
Bible Study
Isaiah — Chapter 27
◈ Zohar

• The Zohar (II, 35a) identifies the "leviathan the piercing serpent, leviathan that crooked serpent" and "the dragon that is in the sea" (27:1) as three aspects of the Sitra Achra's supreme commander: the piercing serpent is Samael's attack force, the crooked serpent is his deception apparatus, and the sea dragon is his control over the depths of the unconscious. HaShem's "sore and great and strong sword" deployed against all three is the complete Torah — Written, Oral, and Hidden — wielded as a single unified weapon.

• "In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine" (27:2) is taught in Zohar III (127a) as the restoration of the vineyard that was devastated in Chapter 5. The red wine represents the Gevurot (Judgments) that have been sweetened and transformed from instruments of destruction into instruments of joy. The Sitra Achra fed on harsh unmitigated Judgment; in the restored vineyard, Judgment is balanced with Mercy and produces only blessing.

• "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment" (27:3) is read in Zohar I (183b) as HaShem's direct personal guardianship of the restored creation, no longer delegated to angelic intermediaries who might be corrupted as they were before. The "every moment" watering indicates a continuous, unbroken flow of Ohr Ein Sof that leaves no gap through which the Sitra Achra could re-enter. Constant divine attention is the ultimate security system.

• The Zohar (II, 33b) interprets "fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle?" (27:4) as HaShem's declaration that after the final defeat of the Sitra Achra, the attribute of Wrath (Chemah) has been permanently retired. Briers and thorns — traditional symbols of the Klipot — are offered the opportunity to surrender ("let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me," 27:5). Even at the end, the Holy Side offers the option of teshuvah to whatever fragments of the Sitra Achra wish to be rectified.

• "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (27:6) is explained in the Tikkunei Zohar (Tikkun 21, 50b) as the description of Israel's ultimate mission: not merely to defeat the Sitra Achra but to fill the vacuum left by its destruction with holy fruit — mitzvot, Torah learning, acts of chesed — that saturate every corner of creation with divine Light. The cosmic war is not an end in itself but the necessary precondition for this universal planting.

✦ Talmud

• Bava Batra 74b describes the future slaying of Leviathan and the feast made from its flesh, and Isaiah 27 names this creature directly — "the Lord with His severe sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent, and He will slay the dragon in the sea." This is the Sitra Achra's apex predator, the primordial chaos beast that has terrorized creation since Genesis. Its execution is not a battle but a sentencing — God's sword is both weapon and gavel.

• Sanhedrin 97a discusses the days of the Messiah, and Isaiah's vineyard song in this chapter — "In that day, a vineyard of red wine" — reverses the failed vineyard of chapter 5. The Sitra Achra corrupted the first vineyard; God replants after Leviathan's death, and this time the vineyard produces as designed. The cosmic serpent must die before the garden can flourish.

• Berakhot 34b discusses the transformation of the world in the messianic age, and Isaiah's promise that Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit reveals the scope of restoration. The Sitra Achra contained Israel's fruitfulness to a tiny geographical strip; with Leviathan slain, Israel's spiritual productivity fills the entire earth.

• Sukkah 52a discusses the evil inclination's fate, and Isaiah's killing of Leviathan parallels the slaughter of the yetzer hara described elsewhere. The serpent in the sea is both the cosmic enemy and its internalized version — the voice within that echoes the voice without. God deals with both simultaneously: the external dragon is slain by the sword, the internal one dies with it.

• Pesachim 50a discusses the reversals of the world to come, and Isaiah 27 describes the great trumpet that gathers the exiles from Assyria and Egypt. The shofar blast that began creation now signals its restoration. The Sitra Achra scattered Israel across the empires; the trumpet reverses every diaspora. The dispersed are re-collected, and the lost are re-found.