Feast (מִשְׁתֶּה mišteh)

Feast (מִשְׁתֶּה mišteh), this noun comes from the root šth, which means the act of drinking. It is worth noting that in the Old Testament, unlike the rest of the Middle East, only animate creatures drink, in the literal or metaphorical sense: people, animals and plants. The noun מִשְׁתֶּה (mišteh) means “drink” only in the late period, and its commonly accepted meaning is “feast”. It can often be used figuratively as “happy life.”

In today’s first reading (Is 25:6-10), Isaiah, in a prophetic speech, uses the noun מִשְׁתֶּה (mišteh) to describe universal salvation: “And the Lord of hosts will cause all the peoples on this mountain to feast on fatness, to feast on wine, a fatness full of marrow, a purified wine.” (v. 6). It is worth noting that all nations will participate in this unique feast without formal invitation.

The Lord Jesus, in today’s Gospel (Mt 22:1-10), puts emphasis on the invitation to the feast and tells about the fate of those invited who, rejecting the invitation, turned out to be unworthy of the invitation, ignored it and instead of the feast went “one to his field, the other to his merchant, and others took his servant (the one who invited him) and, having insulted him, killed him.” Then the king, from Jesus’ parable, invites all random people, “bad and good.” And it was they who became the guests at the feast. Often in our lives we can notice that to participate in the feast we need a little detachment from ourselves, a breath of fantasy and delight, so that the feast becomes thanksgiving, i.e. the Eucharist. Leopold Staff wrote: “How can I thank You for giving me so much that I am in life like a random guest who was invited to a wedding unexpectedly and did not go away hungry” (Poem “Joy”).