To participate in a sacrifice, one’s uncleanness needed to be removed. Consecration was required (see 1 Samuel 16:5). Here, however, there is no reason to understand the guests—the nations—as possessing any particular holiness. They have been simply chosen by God to attend this banquet to feed on Judah. A similar use of consecrate or sanctify is found in Isaiah 13:3 (holy ones referring to the Babylonians). It is a divinely appointed mission that they have.¹