Isaiah 34:1-9

1 Come near, ye Gentiles, to hear; and hearken, ye peoples; let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world and all things that come forth of it.

2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all the Gentiles, and his fury upon the entire army of them; he shall destroy them and deliver them to the slaughter.

3 Their slain shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

4 And all the host of heavens shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls off from the vine and as the leaf falls from the fig tree.

5 For in the heavens my sword shall become drunk; behold, it shall come down in judgment upon Idumea or Edom and upon the people of my anathema.

6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood; it is made fat with fatness and with the blood of lambs and goats with the fat of the kidneys of rams, for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

7 And the unicorns shall fall with them, and the bulls with the calves; and their land shall become drunk with blood, and their dust shall be greased with fatness.

8 For it shall be the day of the LORD’s vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.

9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into sulphur, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

Isaiah 34:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

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.