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Isaiah 34

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Call to Witness Universal Judgment 1–4

1
Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye peoples: let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all things that come forth from it. ​
2
For Jehovah hath indignation against all the nations, and wrath against all their host: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. ​
3
Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies shall come up; and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
4
And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fade away, as the leaf fadeth from off the vine, and as a fading leaf from the fig-tree. ​

Judgment Focused on Edom (Idumea) 5–8

5
For my sword hath drunk its fill in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. ​
6
The sword of Jehovah is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Jehovah hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ​
7
And the wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls: and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
8
For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. ​

The Eternal Desolation of the Land 9–15

9
And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. ​
10
It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
11
But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he will stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. ​
12
They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.
13
And thorns shall come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.
14
And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest. ​
15
There shall the dart-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shade; yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate.

The Certainty of God's Word 16–17

16
Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah, and read: no one of these shall be missing, none shall want her mate; for my mouth, it hath commanded, and his Spirit, it hath gathered them. ​
17
And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

Study Notes for Isaiah 34

Verse 1

Come near, ye nations — The summons uses two words for the nations, goyim and leom, and widens to 'the earth' and 'the world' (tebel, the inhabited earth), as in Isa 1:2, 'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth'. They are called to hear a verdict on 'all nations' (v.2) that falls in particular on Edom (v.5). 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof' (1 Cor 10:26).

Verse 2

utterly destroyed them — Charam is to put under the ban, to devote wholly to destruction, the verb used of Jericho, where everything in the city was 'utterly destroyed' (Josh 6:21). 'Indignation' (qetseph) and 'fury' (chemah) are the LORD's, and 'slaughter' is tebach, the word for an animal killed for the table or the altar, which prepares the sacrifice of v.6.

Verse 4

rolled together as a scroll — 'Dissolved' is maqaq, to melt or rot away, and 'rolled together' is galal, the rolling up of a sepher, a scroll. Revelation takes the figure whole: 'the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together' (Rev 6:14), with stars falling 'as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs' (6:13), as the leaf and fig fall here.

Verse 5

my sword shall be bathed in heaven — Ravah is to drink one's fill: the sword is satisfied in heaven before it comes down. 'Idumea', the Greek form of Edom, is in the KJV only here, in v.6, in Ezek 35:15; 36:5 and in Mark 3:8. 'The people of my curse' is literally the people of my cherem, the ban of v.2. Mal 1:4 calls Edom the people against whom the LORD has 'indignation for ever'.

Verse 6

a sacrifice in Bozrah — The vocabulary is the altar's: zebach, sacrifice, with lambs, goats and rams, and 'the fat of the kidneys' (Lev 3:4). The offering is a people in Bozrah, a city of Edom (Jer 49:13). Isa 63:1 shows the one who comes 'from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah'.

Verse 8

the day of the LORD'S vengeance — Naqam is vengeance and shillum repayment. The 'controversy of Zion' (riv) is Zion's legal cause: Edom said of Jerusalem 'Rase it, rase it' (Ps 137:7). Isa 61:2 pairs 'the acceptable year of the LORD' with 'the day of vengeance', and Christ, reading it in Nazareth, stopped at 'the acceptable year' (Luke 4:19).

Verse 9

the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch — Zepheth, pitch (asphalt), and gophrith, brimstone, make the land a burning waste. The picture is Sodom's: 'the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning' (Deut 29:23), and the cities of the plain 'are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire' (Jude 7).

Verse 11

the line of confusion — Tohu and bohu, 'confusion' and 'emptiness', are the pair of Gen 1:2, 'without form, and void', found together elsewhere only in Jer 4:23. The 'line' (qav) and 'stones' recall the builder's tools of 2 Kgs 21:13, 'the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab'. Four birds possess the land.

Verse 14

the satyr shall cry to his fellow — Sair is a shaggy he-goat, the word rendered 'devils' in Lev 17:7. Tsiyyim, desert beasts, and iyyim, howlers (KJV 'of the island'), are creatures of waste places, as in Isa 13:21–22. Lilith, 'screech owl', a night creature, occurs only here in Scripture, and it finds 'a place of rest' (manoach) in the ruins.

Verse 16

Seek ye out of the book of the LORD — Sepher, 'book', is the same word as the 'scroll' of v.4: the heavens roll up, but this writing stands. 'Seek' (darash) is the verb of inquiring of God. Nothing named will lack 'her mate': 'my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them', and Mal 1:3 records Esau's mountains laid waste.