Isaiah 34

Come near, you nations, and listen. Pay attention, you peoples. Let the earth hear, and everything in it, the world and everything that comes out of it.

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

2The LORD is angry with all the nations, and furious with all their armies. He has set them apart for destruction. He has handed them over to be slaughtered.

2For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

Note"Set apart for destruction" translates a Hebrew term (herem) for putting something permanently beyond human use by handing it over to God. In warfare it meant that nothing was to be kept as plunder; everything was to be destroyed.

3Their dead will be thrown out and left lying there. The smell will rise from their bodies, and the mountains will run with their blood.

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

NoteLeaving corpses unburied was the deepest disgrace an ancient army could inflict. Burial was considered owed even to enemies, so bodies left in the open marked total defeat.

4All the stars of the sky will dissolve, and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll. All the stars will fall the way a leaf drops off the vine, the way a shriveled fig falls from the fig tree.

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

NoteBooks at this time were scrolls, long sheets wound onto rollers. A scroll being rolled up is one being closed and put away. The King James "host of heaven" is a military word for the stars, pictured as an army drawn up in ranks.

5The LORD says, "When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, watch: it will come down on Edom, on the people I have set apart for destruction, to judge them."

5For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

NoteEdom ("Idumea" in the King James, the Greek form of the name) was the kingdom in the rocky country south-east of the Dead Sea. Its people were reckoned as descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob (Israel), which made them Israel's nearest kin and one of its most persistent enemies; later writers accuse Edom of siding with Babylon when Jerusalem fell.

6The LORD's sword is soaked with blood and coated with fat, the blood of lambs and goats, the fat from the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in the city of Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

6The 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 hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

NoteBozrah was Edom's chief city. The fat around the kidneys was the portion of a sacrificial animal reserved to be burned on the altar, so naming it turns the battlefield slaughter into the language of a sacrifice, with Edom as the animal and the LORD as the one who kills it.

7The wild oxen will go down with them, and the young bulls along with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil soaked with fat.

7And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

NoteThe King James "unicorn" renders a Hebrew word for a large, untamable wild ox (probably the aurochs, extinct in the 1600s); the single-horned creature comes from the ancient Greek and Latin translations. The oxen, young bulls and "strong ones" may stand for Edom's leaders and fighting men as well as for actual animals.

8For it is the LORD's day of payback, the year when he settles accounts for the cause of Zion.

8For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

NoteThe wording is drawn from the law courts: "the cause of Zion" is literally Zion's lawsuit, a case brought for judgment, and "recompense" is the settlement awarded. Zion is the hill of Jerusalem, used as a name for the city and its people.

9Edom's streams will be turned into tar, and her soil into sulfur. Her land will become burning pitch.

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

NoteBitumen (tar) and sulfur both occur naturally in the region around the Dead Sea. The wording deliberately recalls the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis.

10It will not be put out, night or day. Its smoke will keep rising forever. From one generation to the next it will lie in ruins, and no one will ever pass through it again.

10It 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.

11The desert owl and the screech owl will take it over, and the great owl and the raven will live there. God will stretch out over it a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of emptiness.

11But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

NoteThe Hebrew names of these four birds are uncertain and translators differ; what is clear is that they are creatures of ruins and wasteland. A measuring line and a plumb line are a builder's tools for laying out a new structure, here they are used to lay out desolation instead. The two Hebrew words behind "chaos" and "emptiness" are the same pair translated "without form, and void" in the opening lines of Genesis.

12No nobles will be left there to name a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

12They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.

NoteThe Hebrew is difficult and can be read two ways: either no nobles are left to proclaim a king, or the nobles are summoned to a kingdom that no longer exists. Edom was governed by chiefs and kings; the verse means that whole ruling class is gone.

13Thorns will grow up in her palaces, and nettles and thornbushes in her strongholds. It will become a home for jackals and a place for ostriches.

13And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

NoteThorns growing inside palaces is standard ancient imagery for a city abandoned long enough for the desert to take it back. The two creatures the King James calls "dragons" and "owls" are most likely jackals and ostriches, though the identifications are debated.

14The creatures of the desert will meet with hyenas there, and one wild goat will call to another. The night creature will also settle there and find a resting place for herself.

14The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.

NoteThe King James "satyr" translates a Hebrew word meaning "hairy ones," used both for wild goats and for goat-shaped spirits believed to haunt ruined places; the ambiguity is in the original. "Night creature" is the Hebrew word lilith, a name that later Jewish tradition attached to a night demon. Here she is simply listed among the inhabitants of the waste.

15There the owl will make her nest, lay her eggs, hatch them, and gather her young under her shadow. Birds of prey will also gather there, each one with its mate.

15There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.

NoteThe birds the King James calls "vultures" are more precisely kites, scavenging birds of prey.

16Look in the book of the LORD and read it: not one of these creatures will be missing, and not one will be without her mate. For his own mouth has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them.

16Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.

Note"The book of the LORD" is literally a scroll. What it refers to is disputed: perhaps this written collection of prophecies, perhaps a record in which the LORD's decrees are kept. The reader is told to check the list of creatures against it and see that none is missing.

17He has cast lots to assign their shares, and his hand has measured out the land for them. They will own it forever, and from one generation to the next they will live in it.

17And 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.

NoteCasting lots and measuring land with a cord are how territory was divided among the tribes of Israel, the standard vocabulary for an inheritance formally handed over and held permanently. Here the wild creatures are the ones who receive Edom as their allotted property.