Isaiah 34:7

7 And unicorns shall go down with them, and bulls with them that be mighty (And wild oxen shall go down with them, and bulls with other mighty beasts); the land of them shall be filled with blood, and the earth of them with [the] inner fatness of fat beasts;

Isaiah 34:7 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 34:7

And the unicorns shall come down with them
With the lambs, goats, and rams; that is, either the rhinoceros, as some, there being no such creature as the unicorn; or the buffaloes, as F13 others; these "shall fall", as the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions render it, they shall be slain, as well as the rest; meaning, that along with the common soldiers, and inferior officers, the general officers should fall; and so the Targum,

``and the mighty shall be slain with them.''
R. Abraham Seba says F14 he read in a certain book, that the word here should not be read (Mymar) , "unicorns", but (Myymwr) , "the Romans shall come down": and the bullocks with the bulls:
or, as the Targum,
``and the rulers with the princes;''
the same with the kings, captains, and mighty men in ( Revelation 19:18 ) : and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat
with fatness;
Or, "their land shall be inebriated" F15, or made drunk, with blood; and the dust thereof thickened by it, and made clods of with it, as the parched earth is watered with a plentiful shower, and the dust laid with it: this is a just retaliation to the whore of Rome, who has been made drunk with the blood of the saints, and now blood shall be given her to drink, even her own, with which she shall be filled, and welter and wallow in the clods of it, ( Revelation 17:6 ) ( 16:6 ) .
FOOTNOTES:

F13 So Gussetius understands it of a larger sort of oxen, Comment. Ebr. p. 783.
F14 Tzeror Hammor, fol. 47. 3.
F15 (htwrw) "et inebriabitur", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator.

Isaiah 34:7 In-Context

5 For my sword is filled in heaven; lo! it shall come down on Idumea, and on the people of my slaying, to doom. (For my sword is made ready in heaven; lo! it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people whom I will kill, for their doom/in judgement.)
6 The sword of the Lord is filled of blood, it is made fat of the inner fatness of the blood of lambs and of bucks of goats, of the blood of rams full of marrow (The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, and it is made fat with inner fatness, yea, with the blood of lambs and of goat bucks, and with the fat from the kidneys of rams); for why the slain sacrifice of the Lord is in Bozrah, and great slaying is in the land of Edom.
7 And unicorns shall go down with them, and bulls with them that be mighty (And wild oxen shall go down with them, and bulls with other mighty beasts); the land of them shall be filled with blood, and the earth of them with [the] inner fatness of fat beasts;
8 for it is a day of vengeance of the Lord, a year of yielding of the doom of Zion. (for it is a day of the vengeance of the Lord, a year of yielding the justice, or the judgement, of Zion.)
9 And the strands thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the earth thereof into brimstone; and the land thereof shall be into burning pitch, night and day. (And its streams shall be turned into pitch, and its land into brimstone; yea, its land shall become burning pitch, day and night.)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.