He will swallow up death in victory,.... Or, "for ever" . This is to be understood, not of a spiritual death, which is swallowed up in conversion, and of which those that are quickened shall never die more; nor of the conversion of the Jews, which will be as life from the dead; nor of the civil death of the witnesses, and of their rising, who afterwards will never die more, in that sense; but of a corporeal death: this Christ has swallowed up in victory, by dying on the cross, both with respect to himself, who will never die more, and with respect to his people, from whom he has abolished it as a penal evil; but it chiefly respects the resurrection state, or the personal coming of Christ, when the dead in him shall rise first, and shall never die more, there will be no more death, neither corporeal, spiritual, nor eternal to them; on them death shall have no power, in any shape: and then will this saying be brought about or fulfilled, as the apostle has interpreted it, 1Co 15:54 so the Jews interpret it of the future state, when those that live again shall die no more, and there will be no death; and of the days of the Messiah, when the dead will be raised :and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; there are many things now that cause tears to fall from the saints, as their own sins, indwelling sin, unbelief, carnality, leanness, backslidings, &c.
and the sins of others, the temptations of Satan, the hiding of God's face, afflictions of various sorts, and the persecutions of men; but these will be no more in the New Jerusalem state; and therefore God is said to wipe them away, having removed the cause of them, Re 7:17 Re 21:4 the allusion is to a tender parent, that takes a handkerchief, and wipes the face of its child, when it has been crying, and quiets and comforts it:and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; all the reproaches and calumnies which have been cast upon them, and all misrepresentations of them, shall be taken away from them everywhere, and they will no longer lie under them, but stand clear of all false charges and accusations: or all persecution shall now cease; there shall be none to hurt them in all the holy mountain, Isa 11:9:for the Lord hath spoken [it]; and it shall be done.
The Targum is,"for by the word of the Lord it is so decreed.'' xunl "in sempiternum", Munster, Pagninus, Montanus; "in aeternum", Piscator. Gloss. in T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 94. Misna, Moed Katon, c.
3. sect. 9. Midrash Kohelet, fol. 61. 2. Zohar in Gen. fol. 73. 1. Shemot Rabba, sect. 20. fol. 131.