Chapter Thirty-Four

1–4. The judgment on the universe. 5–17. The judgment on Edom.

Preliminary remark. Chapters 34 and 35 form the conclusion to the first part of Isaiah’s prophecy, combining the essential features of the predictions of that part concerning the times of judgment and salvation. In chapter 34, the prophet speaks of the end of the world, but he clothes the image of this final catastrophe in figures taken from the events of his time, so that the final universal judgment upon the universe takes on the character of a judgment upon a certain piece of land (Idumea). In chapter 35, the prophet depicts the reverse side of judgment upon the world – namely the final redemption of Israel and his return from foreign lands to his homeland.

Isaiah 34:1. Come near, you nations, and listen; hear, you peoples! Let the earth and all that fills it pay attention, the world and all that is born in it! All nations must hear the prophecy concerning the judgment that shall be brought upon the universe. These nations will be subjected to complete destruction, and even the sky itself will suffer from the fire of this terrible judgment. The prophet’s address to the nations and to all that is on the earth resembles his words in chapter 1, verse 2, and indicates the special importance of the speech that follows.

Isaiah 34:2. For the wrath of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury is upon all their armies. He has devoted them to destruction, has given them over to slaughter. Here the object of God’s judgment is called mankind only. Irrational nature already follows mankind. “Their armies” – this is not armies in the proper sense of the word, but crowds, masses of people (cf. verse 4).

Isaiah 11:15. “To destruction” – see Is.11:15. Isaiah 34:3. And their slain shall be scattered, and from their corpses a stench shall rise, and the mountains shall be soaked with their blood. Here we find hyperbolic expressions, and the slaughter of sinful people should indeed be recognized only as a metaphor.

Isaiah 34:4. And all the host of heaven shall decay; and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; and all their host shall fall as the leaf falls from the vine and as the withered leaf falls from the fig tree. “The host of heaven” or the stars shall decay as paper or material decays from the heat of fire. “The heavens shall be rolled up.” Heaven – in Hebrew rakiaf – is properly a vast expanse. This expanse shall become small, rolled up from the same desiccating action of fire, as paper is rolled up from heat into a tube. “Their host shall fall.” The prophet is clearly thinking again of the action of flame, which desiccates, for example, wood and causes leaves to fall from it. Why does the prophet speak of judgment on the heavenly bodies? This may be explained by the ancient belief that the heavenly bodies have great influence on human life and, therefore, are partly responsible for all their transgressions. Isa 34:5-17. From heaven, God’s judgment passes again to earth and falls upon Edom as the land most hostile to the Judean state. The inhabitants of this land will be destroyed and the entire region of Edom will be subjected to terrible desolation.

Isaiah 34:5. For my sword is sated in heaven: behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom and upon the people devoted by me to destruction. Isaiah 34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, is fattened with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat from the kidneys of rams: for there is a sacrifice of the Lord in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. Isaiah 34:7. And the wild oxen shall fall with them, and the young bulls together with the mature ones; and their land shall be saturated with blood, and their dust shall be fattened with fat. Isaiah 34:8. For the day of the Lord’s vengeance, a year of retribution for Zion. Desiring to show the inevitability of God’s judgments, the prophet depicts these judgments under the image of a sword, ceaselessly striking the people. And the Edomites he represents under the image of lambs, goats, and rams, wild oxen, young bulls, and mature ones, subjected to slaughter, desiring thereby to show that all classes of the people in Idumea will be subjected to the destructive action of God’s judgment (wild oxen and young bulls – the most prominent representatives of Idumea). “Bozrah” – the principal city of Idumea. “The day... of vengeance, a year of retribution.” Both these expressions indicate that the time has finally come when Edom must suffer for all the injuries it has inflicted upon the Jews. And this people, dwelling on high rocks where it could hide after its raids upon Judea, caused no small number of such injuries. Holy John Chrysostom warns here that God’s anger is not as men’s anger, but he acts with complete justice.

Isaiah 34:9. And their rivers shall turn into pitch, and their dust into sulfur, and their land shall become burning pitch; Isaiah 34:10. it shall not be extinguished day or night; its smoke shall ascend forever; it shall remain desolate from generation to generation; no one shall pass through it forever and ever; Isaiah 34:11. and the pelican and the hedgehog shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell in it; and he shall stretch a line of confusion over it and a plumb line of desolation. In depicting the future desolation of Idumea, the prophet used the knowledge which the Jews at that time had of this land. Namely, from the book of Genesis they knew the fate that once befell the land neighboring Idumea (Gen 19), the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and other cities of the plain, situated to the south of the Dead Sea. The Jews knew that Idumea is also rich in extinct volcanoes, and the prophet here quite understandably tells his countrymen that these volcanoes will in time open again and their lava will flood the entire land, and this lava, with its sulfurous odor, will penetrate along the beds of the rivers of Idumea. It is clear that in such a suffocating atmosphere no one would want to live, and only some desert birds and hedgehogs will find refuge there. “The pelican” – properly a water bird; therefore here it is better to understand the word kaat as an expression meaning an owl. “The hedgehog” – the usual dweller of deserts; “Owls and ravens” – likewise. “The line of confusion.” Desiring to show that Idumea in no way will avoid its sorrowful fate, the prophet says that a rope or cord will be stretched over it, such as builders usually used in the construction of new buildings and in the destruction of a whole series of houses in cities. Nothing, therefore, in Idumea will be saved from destruction and ruin. The Lord will precisely mark all the limits of the land upon which the desolation is to extend.

Isaiah 34:12. No one shall remain there of her nobles, whom one could proclaim king, and all her princes shall be nothing. Isaiah 34:13. And her palaces shall be overgrown with thornbushes, nettles and thistles shall fill her fortifications; and she shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a haunt of ostriches. Isaiah 34:14. And desert creatures shall meet with hyenas, and the wild goat shall call to his brother; there the night creature shall rest and find for herself a place of rest. Isaiah 34:15. There the flying serpent shall nest, lay eggs, hatch them and gather them under its shadow; there also the kites shall gather one to another. There will remain no aristocrats in Idumea, true descendants of Esau, from among whom kings were chosen in Idumea. Royal power there was not hereditary – and the other aristocrats remaining in it will lose all significance (“shall be nothing”). Naturally, the forsaken palaces of Idumea will become overgrown with weeds and only unclean birds and beasts will live in their ruins. Moreover, unclean spirits will also settle there. “Jackals..., ostriches..., desert creatures..., hyenas..., wild goats...” – of all this the prophet spoke in his discourse about the destruction of Babylon (see Isa 13:21). “The night creature” – from Hebrew lilith. Ancient interpreters saw here an allusion to the belief of the Jews in a demon woman who at night sucks blood from people; modern translators render this word, derived from the word lail – night, simply as “nocturnal,” and understand here the night bird, i.e. the owl. “The flying serpent” – this is such a serpent which from somewhere high, for example from a high tree, throws itself at its victim and strikes it with a bite. “The kites” love desolate, isolated places and it will suit them as well as possible to rear chicks in the ruins of the palaces of Idumea.

Isaiah 34:16. Seek in the book of the Lord and read: not one of these shall be missing, and one shall not be without the other. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded it, and his spirit has gathered them. Isaiah 34:17. And he himself has cast the lot for them, and his own hand has divided the land for them by measure; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation they shall dwell in it. Since the wicked Edomites, upon whom God’s wrath will be poured out, might ascribe all their misfortunes to mere chance, the prophet in advance points future readers of his book to the possibility of being convinced that the judgment which will fall upon Idumea is the work of God. For this it is necessary only to read attentively what was said of Idumea in the book of the Lord, i.e. in the first part of the prophet Isaiah’s book, which the prophet, in his conviction of the divine origin of the revelations communicated to him and transmitted in this part, boldly calls the book of the Lord himself! The Lord, who commanded the beasts and birds of the wilderness to occupy the palaces of Idumea, shall himself gather them and will never take from them the possession given to them. Against the authenticity of chapters 34 and the following chapter 35, criticism raises serious objections, but still these objections do not have binding force. It is said, namely, that the hatred of Edom, with which chapter 34 is permeated, presupposes already the participation of the Edomites in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Lam 4:21-22). But it must be said that even earlier prophets than Isaiah also proclaimed God’s wrath upon the Edomites for their enmity toward the Jews (Amos 1:11; Amos 9:12; Joel 3:19). It is pointed out that chapter 35 presupposes already the carrying away of the Jews to Babylon, if the prophet there directly speaks of the return of the Jews to their homeland. But such a prophecy already exists in Isaiah in chapter Isa 29:22-23 and Isa 30:29. Chapter 34 is divided into stanzas as follows: 1st stanza – verses 1–4 – (3, 2, 2) 2nd stanza – verses 5–7 – (3, 2, 2) 3rd stanza – verses 8–17 – (3, 2, 2, 2; 2, 2, 2, 3) * * * In the Slavonic translation from the LXX – “many birds and hedgehogs.” Editor’s note.