Isaiah 34

1 Come close, you nations, and listen! Pay close attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and everything in it; the world, with all it produces.

2 For ADONAI is angry at every nation, furious with all their armies; he has completely destroyed them, handed them over to slaughter.

3 Their slain will be thrown out, the stench will rise from their corpses, the mountains will flow with their blood.

4 The whole host of heaven will decompose, the heavens themselves be rolled up like a scroll; all their array will wither away like a withering grape-leaf that falls from a vine or a withered fig from a fig tree.

5 "For my sword has drunk its fill in heaven; now it descends on Edom to judge them, the people I have doomed to destruction."

6 There is a sword that belongs to ADONAI. It is filled with blood, gorged with fat, filled with the blood of lambs and goats, gorged with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For ADONAI has a sacrifice in Botzrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7 The wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong, mature ones. Their land will be drunk with blood and their dust made greasy with fat.

8 For ADONAI has a day of vengeance, a year of requital for fighting with Tziyon.

9 Its streams will be changed to tar, its dust to sulfur, its land burning tar

10 that will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. In all generations it will lie waste; no one will pass through it ever again.

11 Horned owl and hawk will possess it, screech owl and raven will live there; he will stretch over it the measuring line of confusion and the plumbline of the empty void.

12 Of its nobles, none will be called to be king, and all its princes will be nothing.

13 Thorns will overgrow its palaces, nettles and thistles its fortresses; it will become a lair for jackals, an enclosure for ostriches.

14 Wildcats and hyenas will meet there; and billy-goats call to each other; Lilit [the night monster] will lurk there and find herself a place to rest.

15 There the hoot owl will nest, lay her eggs, hatch and gather her young in its shade. There the vultures will assemble, every one with its mate.

16 Consult the book of ADONAI and read it: not one of these will be missing, none will be lacking a mate. For by his own mouth he gave the order, and by his Spirit he brought them together.

17 It is he who cast the lot for them, his hand measured out their shares. They will possess it forever, and live there through all generations.

Isaiah 34 Commentary

Chapter 34

God's vengeance against the enemies of his church. (1-8) Their desolation. (9-17)

Verses 1-8 Here is a prophecy of the wars of the Lord, all which are both righteous and successful. All nations are concerned. And as they have all had the benefit of his patience, so all must expect to feel his resentment. The description of bloodshed suggests tremendous ideas of the Divine judgments. Idumea here denotes the nations at enmity with the church; also the kingdom of antichrist. Our thoughts cannot reach the horrors of that awful season, to those found opposing the church of Christ. There is a time fixed in the Divine counsels for the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of her enemies. We must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time. Through Christ, mercy is exercised to every believer, consistently with justice, and his name is glorified.

Verses 9-17 Those who aim to ruin the church, can never do that, but will ruin themselves. What dismal changes sin can make! It turns a fruitful land into barrenness, a crowded city into a wilderness. Let us compare all we discover in the book of the Lord, with the dealings of providence around us, that we may be more diligent in seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness. What the mouth of the Lord has commanded, his Spirit will perform. And let us observe how the evidences of the truth continually increase, as one prophecy after another is fulfilled, until these awful scenes bring in more happy days. As Israel was a figure of the Christian church, so the Edomites, their bitter enemies, represent the enemies of the kingdom of Christ. God's Jerusalem may be laid in ruins for a time, but the enemies of the church shall be desolate for ever.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 34

This chapter is a prophecy of the destruction of all the antichristian nations of the world, and particularly of Rome, signified by Idumea; which is introduced with a call to a general attention to it, it being a very awful and solemn affair, Isa 34:1 utter and universal destruction is declared, as the effect of God's wrath, Isa 34:2 which is expressed by a dreadful scene of blood, to the melting of the mountains with it, and by the dissolution of the heavens, and the hosts of them, Isa 34:3,4 particularly the destruction of Idumea is denounced by the sword of the Lord being on it, and bathed with the blood, both of the common people, and of their princes, signified by various sorts of creatures, Isa 34:5-7 the cause of which is the Lord's vengeance for the controversy of his church and people, injured by Edom or Rome, Isa 34:8 whose desolate and calamitous state is represented as being like that of Sodom, Isa 34:9,10 and should be no more inhabited by men, nor governed by princes, but be the dwelling of wild beasts and unclean birds, Isa 34:11-15 all which is confirmed by the word and Spirit of God, Isa 34:16,17.