Isaiah 34 Study Notes

34:1 God is not just the God of Israel. He is the God of the whole world, so he calls on all the nations to hear him when he speaks.

34:2-3 God’s anger is directed toward the armies of the nations. While he used some of them for his own purposes, they were only thinking of their desires for empire. Not only will they be defeated and killed, but they will suffer indignities such as lack of burial.

34:4 God’s warring activity has cosmic implications. The nations thought of the stars as representing their gods. This language points to the fact that their gods, who are not gods at all, will suffer defeat at the hands of the true God.

34:5 Victory over heavenly forces (v. 4) is followed by a description of one representative nation, Edom. This nation was south of Moab in the region southeast of the Dead Sea. Set apart for destruction translates a single Hebrew verb (cherem) that is used frequently in Joshua to indicate that every man, woman, and child would be killed. It also describes the death of the enemy as a type of sacrifice to God.

34:6-7 The language of sacrifice is explicit in these verses. Bozrah was the capital of ancient Edom.

34:8 Edom had a reputation for taking advantage of Israel whenever Israel was weak (Ps 137:7; Lm 4:22; Ezk 35:15; Ob 10-14).

34:9-10 God would punish Edom with the same type of punishment (pitch . . . sulfur . . . burning pitch) that he had brought against Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 19:24-28), though those cities are not explicitly mentioned. Earlier Isaiah had described the punishment on God’s people as devastating but not as bad as that on Sodom (Is 1:9). In the pronouncement against Babylon, though, its punishment is said to be equivalent (13:19). Interestingly, Jeremiah used similar language in his pronouncement against Edom (Jr 49:7-22), linking its destruction to those infamous cities (Jr 49:18).

34:11 This verse describes animals that lived in ruins and desolate places. Owls were considered unclean (Lv 11:15-16). For similar use of the word in contexts of judgment, see Is 34:13; Jr 50:38; Mc 1:8. God’s judgment will be premeditated and extensive. While the measuring line and the plumb line were normally used in construction, God will use them to plan for the destruction of Edom.

34:12 Edom’s kingship was ancient, preceding that of Israel (Gn 36:31-43), but God will bring that institution to an end since he is bringing the nation itself to a close.

34:13-15 The theme of this verse is that of a city becoming a wilderness. Not only will the public buildings of the nation be overgrown out of neglect, but wild animals—a number of which were considered unclean (Lv 15)—will make their homes among the ruins.

34:16-17 The meaning of the scroll of the Lord is unknown. It may be a reference to a heavenly scroll, but if so, it is difficult to know how the hearer could refer to this document. The appeal to the scroll could be a rhetorical device to emphasize the certainty of Edom’s destruction and its transformation into a haunt for wild animals.