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34. Judgment Against the Nations

¹ Come near, you nations, and listen;
   pay attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
   the world, and all that comes out of it!
² The LORD is angry with all nations;
   his wrath is on all their armies.
He will totally destroy The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them; also in verse 5. them,
   he will give them over to slaughter.
³ Their slain will be thrown out,
   their dead bodies will stink;
   the mountains will be soaked with their blood.
⁴ All the stars in the sky will be dissolved
   and the heavens rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
   like withered leaves from the vine,
   like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

    ⁵ My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
   see, it descends in judgment on Edom,
   the people I have totally destroyed.
⁶ The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood,
   it is covered with fat—
the blood of lambs and goats,
   fat from the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah
   and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷ And the wild oxen will fall with them,
   the bull calves and the great bulls.
Their land will be drenched with blood,
   and the dust will be soaked with fat.

    ⁸ For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
   a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.
⁹ Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,
   her dust into burning sulfur;
   her land will become blazing pitch!
¹⁰ It will not be quenched night or day;
   its smoke will rise forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
   no one will ever pass through it again.
¹¹ The desert owl The precise identification of these birds is uncertain. and screech owl The precise identification of these birds is uncertain. will possess it;
   the great owl The precise identification of these birds is uncertain. and the raven will nest there.
God will stretch out over Edom
   the measuring line of chaos
   and the plumb line of desolation.
¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,
   all her princes will vanish away.
¹³ Thorns will overrun her citadels,
   nettles and brambles her strongholds.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
   a home for owls.
¹⁴ Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
   and wild goats will bleat to each other;
there the night creatures will also lie down
   and find for themselves places of rest.
¹⁵ The owl will nest there and lay eggs,
   she will hatch them, and care for her young
   under the shadow of her wings;
there also the falcons will gather,
   each with its mate.

¹⁶ Look in the scroll of the LORD and read:

   None of these will be missing,
   not one will lack her mate.
For it is his mouth that has given the order,
   and his Spirit will gather them together.
¹⁷ He allots their portions;
   his hand distributes them by measure.
They will possess it forever
   and dwell there from generation to generation.

4. And all the armies of heaven shall fade away. Isaiah employs an exaggerated style, as other prophets are accustomed to do, in order to represent vividly the dreadful nature of the judgment of God, and to make an impression on men’s hearts that were dull and sluggish; for otherwise his discourse would have been deficient in energy, and would have had little influence on careless men. He therefore adds that “the stars” themselves, amidst such slaughter, shall gather blackness as if they were ready to faint, and he does so in order to show more fully that it will be a mournful calamity. In like manner, as in a dark and troubled sky, the clouds appear to be folded together, the sun and stars to grow pale and, as it were, to faint, and all those heavenly bodies to totter and give tokens of ruin; he declares that thus will it happen at that time, and that everything shall be full of the saddest lamentation.

These statements must be understood to relate to men’s apprehension, for heaven is not moved out of its place; but when the Lord gives manifestations of his anger, we are terrified as if the Lord folded up or threw down the heavens; not that anything of this kind takes place in heaven, but he speaks to careless men, who needed to be addressed in this manner, that they might not imagine the subject to be trivial or a fit subject of scorn. “You will be seized with such terror that you shall think that the sky is falling down on your heads.” It is the just punishment of indifference, that wicked men, who are not moved by any fear of God, dread their own shadow, and tremble “at the rustling of a falling leaf,” (Leviticus 26:36,) as much as if the sun were falling from heaven. Yet it also denotes a dreadful revolution of affairs, by which everything shall be subverted and disturbed.