Isaiah 34 commentary

Here is a prophecy of the wars of the Lord, all which are both righteous and successful. All nations are concerned. And as they have all had the benefit of his patience, so all must expect to feel his resentment. The description of bloodshed suggests tremendous ideas of the Divine judgments. Idumea here denotes the nations at enmity with the church; also the kingdom of antichrist. Our thoughts cannot reach the horrors of that awful season, to those found opposing the church of Christ. There is a time fixed in the Divine counsels for the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of her enemies. We must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time. Through Christ, mercy is exercised to every believer, consistently with justice, and his name is glorified.

Those who aim to ruin the church, can never do that, but will ruin themselves. What dismal changes sin can make! It turns a fruitful land into barrenness, a crowded city into a wilderness. Let us compare all we discover in the book of the Lord, with the dealings of providence around us, that we may be more diligent in seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness. What the mouth of the Lord has commanded, his Spirit will perform. And let us observe how the evidences of the truth continually increase, as one prophecy after another is fulfilled, until these awful scenes bring in more happy days. As Israel was a figure of the Christian church, so the Edomites, their bitter enemies, represent the enemies of the kingdom of Christ. God's Jerusalem may be laid in ruins for a time, but the enemies of the church shall be desolate for ever.

1. Draw near, ye nations. Hitherto the Prophet, intentding to comfort the children of God, preached, as it were, in the midst of them; but now, directing his discourse to the Gentiles, he pursues the same subject, but in a different manner. Having formerly shewn (Isaiah 33:6, 20) that the Lord takes such care of his people as to find out the means of preserving them, he now likewise adds, what we have often seen in earlier parts of this book, that, after having permitted wicked men to harass them for a time, he will at length be their avenger, He therefore pursues the same subject, but with a different kind of consolation; for he describes what terrible vengeance the Lord will take on wicked men who had injured his people.

Hearken, ye peoples. In order to arouse them the more, he opens the address by this exclamation, as if he were about to discharge the office of a herald, and summon the nations to appear before the judgmentseat of God. It was necessary thus to shake off the listlessness of wicked men, who amidst ease and prosperity despise all threatenings, and do not think that God will take vengeance on their crimes. Yet amidst this vehemence he has his eye principally on the Church; for otherwise he would have spoken to the deaf, and without any advantage.

Let the earth hear. He addresses the Edomites who would haughtily despise these judgments, and therefore he calls heaven and earth to bear witness against them; for he dedares that the judgment will be so visible and striking, that not only all the nations but even the dumb creatures shall behold it. It is customary with the prophets thus to address the dumb creatures, when men, though endued with reason and understanding, are stupid, as we have formerly seen. (Isaiah 1:2; Deuteronomy 32:1.)

2. For the indignation of Jehovah is on all the nations. He undoubtedly means “the nations” which were hostile to the Jews, and at the same time were contiguous to them; for, being surrounded on all sides by various nations, they had almost as many enemies as neighbors. Though this hatred arose from other causes, such as envy, yet the diversity of religion very greatly inflamed their rage, for they were exceedingly offended at having their superstitions condemned. So much stronger was the reason why God proraised that he would be a judge and avenger.

On all their army. This is added because the Jews were few in number when compared with the rest of the nations. Although, therefore, “the nations” were proud of their vast numbers, and despised the Jews because they were few, yet he declares that God will easily diminish and crush them, in order to preserve, his little flock, of which he is the guardian.

He hath destroyed them. Though he speaks of future events, yet he chose to employ the past tense, in order to place the event immediately before the eyes of those who were lying low and overwhelmed with adversity. These predictions were made, as I briefly noticed a little before, not on account of the Edomites, who paid no regard to this doctrine, but for the sake of the godly, whom he wished to comfort, because they were wretchedly harassed by their enemies.

3. Their slain shall be cast out. By this circumstance he shews that it will be a great calamity, for if a few persons are “slain,” they are committed to the earth; but when so great a multitude is slain at one time, that there are not left as many as are necessary for burying them, there is no thought of interment, and therefore the air is polluted by the stench of their carcases. Hence it is evident, that God is sufficiently powerful to lay low innumerable armies. Perhaps, also, the Prophet intended to heighten the picture of the judgment of God, because to the slaughter of the nations there will be added shame and disgrace, so that they shall be deprived of the honor and duty of burial

And the mountains shall melt on account of their blood. Another figure of speech is employed to shew more fully the extent of the slaughter, for the “blood” will flow from “the mountains,” as if the very mountains were melted, just as when the waters run down violently after heavy showers, and sweep away the soil along with them. Thus, also, he shows that there will be no means of escape, because the sword will rage as cruelly on the very mountains as on the field of battle.

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.

5. For my sword is made drunken in the heavens. He says that the “sword” of the Lord is bloody, as extensive slaughter makes the “swords” wet with gore; and, in order to give greater weight to his style, he represents the Lord as speaking. But why does he say that it is in heaven? for God does not call men to heaven to inflict punishment on them, but executes his judgments openly in the world, and by the hand of men. Nothing is more customary among Eastern poets than to employ a ‘sword drunken with blood’ to denote extensive slaughter. (Schurrer on Habakkuk 3:9.) Or, perhaps, in this verse the sword in heaven ought rather to be understood to be drunk with the divine anger, before it is let down on the earth to be glutted with the blood of enemies; in which case the following verse would fifty describe that sword as glutted with blood in the land of the Edomites.” — Rosenmuller. Here the Prophet looks at the secret decree of God, by which he appoints and determines everything before it is executed; and he does not mean the act itself, but extols the efficacy of the prediction, because the certainty of the effect is manifest from the unchangeable purpose of God; that unbelievers may know that the Lord in heaven takes account of the crimes of wicked men, although for a time they may pursue their career of iniquity without being punished, and that, although they enjoy profound peace, still the sword by which they shall be slain is even now bloody in the sight of God, when he determines to inflict punishment on them. In like manner Sodom (Genesis 19:28) was already burning in the sight of God, while it freely indulged in wine and feasting, and in satisfying its lust; and the same thing must be said of other wicked men, who, while they are wallowing in pleasures, are held as appointed by God to be slain. We ought not, therefore, to fix our attention on the present state when we see wicked men enjoy prosperity and do everything according to their wish. Though no one annoys them, still they are not far from destruction when God is angry with them and is their enemy.

So it shall come down on Edom. He expressly mentions the Edomites, who were hostile to the people of God, though related to them by blood, and distinguished by the same mark of religion; for they were, as we have formerly mentioned, Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1 p. 393. descended from Esau, (Genesis 36:8,) and were the posterity of Abraham. At the present day, in like manner, we have no enemies more deadly than the Papists, who have publicly received the same baptism with ourselves, and even profess Christ, and yet cruelly persecute and would wish utterly to destroy us, because we condemn their superstitions and idolatry. Such were the Edomites, and therefore the Prophet has chiefly selected them out of the whole number of the enemies.

On the people of my curse. By giving them this appellation he confirms the sentence which he had pronounced, for in vain would they endeavor to escape that destruction to which they were already destined and devoted. By this term he declares that they are already destroyed by a decree of heaven, as if they had been already separated and cut off from the number of living men. That it may not be thought that God has done it unjustly, he adds, to judgment; for there is nothing to which men are more prone than to accuse God of cruelty, and the greater part of men are unwilling to acknowledge that he is a righteous judge, especially when he chastises with severity. Isaiah, therefore, shews that it is a just judgment, for God does nothing through cruelty or through excessive severity.

6. The sword of Jehovah is filled with blood. He follows out the same statement, but by a different description, which places the matter in a much stronger light, in order to shake off the drowsiness of wicked men, who are wont to laugh and scoff at all doctrine, as we have formerly remarked. It is therefore necessary that the judgments of God should be set forth as in a lively picture:, that it may not only make a deep impression on their dull minds, but may encourage believers by holy confidence, when they learn that the pride and rebellion of their enemies cannot at all hinder them from being dragged like cattle to the slaughter, whenever it shall be the will of God.

He compares it to sacrifices, for animals are slain in sacririce for the worship and honor of God, and in like manner the destruction of this people will also tend to the glory of God. And here he confirms what was formerly said about judgment, for when God executes his judgments, he shews forth his glow; so that the destruction of wicked men is justly compared to “sacrifices,” which belonged to his worship. “Sacrifices,” indeed, were undoubtedly not very pleasant and agreeable to behold, for the revolting act of taking away life, the reeking blood, and the stencil of the smoke, might have a repulsive effect; and yet in these things the honor of God shone brightly. Thus, also, this slaughter was hideous to behold, and little fitted to obtain regard; but believers, in order that they may hallow the name of God in this respect, are commanded to lift up their eyes to heaven; because, in executing such punishment, God erects altars to himself for slaying sacrifices. Because they unjustly oppressed the Church of God, and, forgetful of all humane feelings, treated the children of God with cruelty, Isaiah declares that in their blood is offered a sacrifice of sweet savor, and highly acceptable to God, because he executes his judgment.

With the blood of lambs and of goats. Under this appellation he describes metaphorically the people that were to be slain, and, alluding to the various kinds of victims, includes not only all men of ordinary rank, but all the nobles, in order to intimate that the Lord will punish his enemies in such a manner that no man of any class whatever shall be exempted he mentions Bozrah, the chief city and metropolls, as it were, of the nation, where the greatest slaughter shall take place; and next, he adds, the country of Edom, through the whole of which this calamity shall take its course. “Au travers de la quelle ceste desconfiture passera sans espargner endroit quelconque.” “Across which this overthrow shall pass without sparing any place whatever.”

7. And the unicorns shall come down with them. This verse is closely connected with the former, for he adds nothing new, but proceeds with the same figure, amplifying what he had said about “rams” and “goats,” to which he adds not only bullocks but wild and savage beasts. It amounts to this, that the vengeance of heaven will be so unrelenting as to spare neither age nor rank, and to mark; for slaughter even cruel giants, notwithstanding their silly fierceness, just as if one were preparing a sacrifice which consisted indiscriminately of every kind of animals. It ought not to be thought strange that lambs are mingled with cruel beasts, for the term “lambs” is not employed in commendation of their mildness or harmlessness, but is applied comparatively to those who are feeble and who belong to the ordinary rank, which lays them under the necessity of having some appearance of modesty.

Although God may appear to be harsh in thus directing his hostility against all classes, yet, by the use of the word “sacrifice,” he claims for himself the praise of justice; and indeed no man, when he comes to the trial, will be found to be without blame, so that on good grounds all, without exception, are irrecoverably ruined. Such is the destruction which awaits all the reprobate, who of their own accord refuse to devote themselves to the service of God; irreligious hands shall offer them in sacrifice. “Ils seront sacrifiez par les mains d’aussi mecans qn’eux.” “They shall be sacrificed by the hands of persons as wicked as themselves.”

אברים (abbirim) is translated strong by some commentators; I have preferred to follow those who explain it to mean bulls, which it means also in Psalm 50:13, though in this passage the Prophet employs the word bulls to denote metaphorically those who are very strong and powerful.

8 For it is the day of vengeance of Jehovah. This verse must be viewed as closely connected with the preceding verses, for it points out the object which the Lord has in view in punishing the Edomites with such severity; and that object is, that he wishes to avenge his people and defend their cause. If, therefore, he had not also assigned this reason, the former statements might have appeared to be obscure or inappropriate; for it would, have been an uncertain kind of knowledge if we did not consider that God, in punishing wicked men, testifies his unceasing affection and care to preserve his own people.

What was formerly said about the Edomites must undoubtedly be extended to the enemies of the Church, for all of them were included by the Prophet under a particular class; and, therefore, in adversity our hearts ought to be supported by this consolation:, that the attacks which we now suffer shall come into judgment before God, who justly claims for himself this office. The Prophet does not only mean that it is in his power to punish wicked men whenever he thinks proper, but, that he reigns in heaven, in order to punish every kind of injustice at the proper time.

But we must attend to the words day and year, by which he reminds us that God does not sleep in heaven, though for a little time he does not come forth, but delays his vengeance till a fit season, that believers may in the meantime “possess their souls in patience,” (Luke 21:19,) and may leave him to govern according to his inscrutable wisdom.

9. And its streams shall be turned into pitch. What the Prophet now adds contains nothing new, but describes more fully this desolation. We have formerly explained the reason wily the prophets employ these lively pictures in representing the judgments of God. It is for the purpose of leading men to view them as actually present, and of compelling them to acknowledge those things which their eyes and minds do not discern, or which, as soon as they are beheld and known, are immediately forgotten. But it ought also to be observed that the Prophets spoke of things which were dark and secret, and which were generally thought to be incredible; for many persons imagined that the Prophets uttered them at random. It was, therefore, necessary to add many confirmations, such as those which he employs in this and in other passages; and thus he denotes a horrible change, which shall destroy the whole face of Judea.

Moreover, he alludes to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, (Genesis 19:24,) as the prophets very frequently do. In that destruction, as Jude informs us, we have a perpetual representation of the wrath of God against the reprobate, (Jude 7;) and it is not without good reason that the prophets call it to our remembrance, that all may learn to dread the judgments of God. To the same purpose is what he adds, —

10. By night and by day it shall not be quenched. The Prophet’s language is undoubtedly hyperbolical; but the Lord is compelled to act towards us in this manner, for otherwise plain words would produce no impression on us. When he declares that the wrath of God against the Edomites will resemble a fire that burns continually, he cuts off from them all hope of pardon, because, having never ceased to provoke God, they find that he is implacable; and Malachi also pronounces this expression of reprobation, that the curse of God will for ever rest on that nation. (Malachi 1:4.) The contrast must be supplied, because some mitigation is always held out to the people of God for their comfort. But this does not need a lengthened interpretation. It is enough that we understand the meaning and design of the Prophet.

11. Therefore the pelican and the owl shall possess it. As to these animals there are various opinions, and Hebrew commentators are not agreed about them; but the design of the Prophet is evident, which is, to describe a desert place and an extensive wilderness. He undoubtedly mentions dreadful beasts and hideous monsters, which do not dwell with men, and are not generally known by them, in order to shew more fully how shocking will be this desolation. The former clause therefore is plain enough, but the latter is attended by some difficulty.

He shall stretch over it the cord of emptiness. Some view the phrase “an empty cord” as bearing an opposite sense, and apply it to the Jews; but I take a more simple view, and think that, like all the preceding statements, it must relate to the Edomites. Anti to make it more clear that this is Isaiah’s natural meaning, we read the same word in the Prophet Malachi, who lived a long time afterwards. That passage may be regarded as an approbation of this prophecy.

“If Edom shall say, We have been diminished, we shall therefore return and rebuild the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of Hosts, They shall indeed build, but I shall pull down, and they shall call them the borders of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord is angry for ever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, Let the Lord be magnified on the borders of Israel.” — (Malachi 1:4, 5.)

What Isaiah had foretold more obscurely, Malachi explains with greater clearness. The latter declares that “the Edomires shall build in vain,” and the former that “they shall stretch an empty cord.” As if he had said, “In vain shall the masterbuilders bestow their exertions on rebuilding the cities;” for builders make use of cords and plummets in all their measurements. He therefore shews that the efforts of those who shall intend to restore the land of Edom will be fruitless; for his meaning is, that they shall be destroyed in such a manner that they cannot at all recover from that destruction, though God usually alleviates other calamities by some consolation.

And hence we ought to draw a very profitable doctrine, that when cities are in some measure restored after having been thrown down, this arises from the distinguished kindness of God; for the efforts of builders or workmen will be unavailing, if he do not put his hand both to laying the foundation and to carrying forward the work. Fruitless and unprofitable also will their work be, if he do not conduct it to the conclusion, and afterwards take it under his guardianship. In vain shall men bestow great expense, and make every possible exertion, if he do not watch over and bless the work. It is only by the blessing of God, therefore, that we obtain any success; and hence also it is said that “his hands have built Jerusalem.” (Psalm 147:2; Isaiah 14:32.) What Isaiah threatens in this passage against the Edomites, the Holy Spirit elsewhere declares as to the house of Ahab, meaning that it shall be razed to the very foundation. (2 Kings 21:13.)

12. They shall call her nobles without a kingdom. This passage has received various interpretations, which I do not quote, because it would be tedious to refute them. One of the most probable is, “They shall call his nobles to reign, but in vain.” As if he had said, “In their wretched condition none will be found willing to rule over them, and to undertake the charge of the commonwealth.” A statement of the same kind is found elsewhere, and we have formerly (Isaiah 3:6,7) seen one that is almost alike; but the words do not correspond. When the Prophet speaks thus, “They shall call her nobles, and they shall not be there,” he employs, I doubt not, witty raillery to censure the pride of that nation which had been cherished by longcontinued peace and abundance. When the Edomites, therefore, out of their mountains breathed lofty pride, the Prophet declares that they shall be disgracefully cast down, so that they shall have no nobility and no government; just as, when a kingdom has been overturned, government is taken away, so that the general mass of the people resembles a maimed or disfigured body, and there is no distinction of ranks. To those stately nobles who vaunted themselves so much, he says in mockery, that they shall be princes without subjects.

And all her princes shall be nothing. The meaning of the former clause is still more evident from this second clause, in which he adds for the sake of explanation, that her princes “shall be reduced to nothing.’ It amounts to this, that the land of Edom shall resemble a mutilated body, so that nothing shall be seen in it but shocking confusion. This is the utmost curse of God; because, if men have no political government, they will hardly differ at all from beasts. Indeed, their condition will be far worse, for beasts can dispense with a governor, because they do not make war against their own kind; but nothing call be more cruel than man, if he be not held by some restraint, for every one will be driven by the furious eagerness of his own passions to every kind of vicious indulgence.

13. In her palaces she shall bring forth thorns. He pursues the same subject; for he describes a frightful desolation, by which splendid houses and palaces are levelled to the ground, or reduced to a state so wild that they are of no use to men, but produce only briers, thorns, and nettles; which is more disgraceful than if they had been turned into fields and meadows. In this manner does the Lord punish the insolence of those who built lofty and magnificent houses and costly palaces, that the remembrance of them might be handed down to the latest posterity. Having banished men, he turns those dwellings into nests of birds and dens of wild beasts, that, instead of being, as they expected, the trophies of their name and renown, they may stand as monuments of foolish ambition. Thus the place of men is nearly supplied by beasts, which represent the dispositions of those who reared those goodly edifices. This overthrow of order is likewise a sad token of the wrath of God, when the earth, which was created for the use of man, beholds its natural lords banished, and is compelled to admit other inhabitants; for then, undoubtedly, it is cleansed from the defilements with which it was polluted.

14. And the wild beasts shall meet with the satyrs. “Les bestes sauvages (assavoir Ziim avec Iim,) s’y rencontreront.” “The wild beasts (that is, the Ziim with the Iim) shall meet there.” These animals are thought by some commentators to mean fauns, by others screechowls or goblins, and by others satyrs; and it is not fully agreed what is the exact meaning of the Hebrew words; but it would serve no good purpose to give ourselves much uneasiness about them, for it is quite enough if we understand the meaning and design of the Prophet. He draws a picture of frightful desolation, as if he had said that Idumea shall be destroyed so as to be without inhabitants, and instead of men it shall be inhabited by frightful beasts. This reward is most justly reaped by the ambition of those who built costly palaces to be, as we have already said, monuments of their name and reputation. Yet this is also a punishment threatened against the cruelty of a wicked nation, which was eagerly bent on the oppression of neighbours and brethren.

Though we cannot absolutely determine whether the Prophet means witches, or goblins, or satyrs and fauns, yet it is universally agreed that these words denote animals which have the shape of men. We see also what various delusions are practiced by Satan, what phantoms and hideous monsters are seen, and what sounds and noises are heard. But of these we have already spoken under the thirteenth chapter. Commentary on Isaiah, vol 1, p. 429.

The sin which God punished so severely in a single nation, is common to almost every nation; for hardly ever are those splendid buildings reared without committing much violence and injustice against the poor, and giving great and numerous annoyances to others; so that the lime, and stones, and timber, are filled with blood in the sight of God. Therefore, as Habakkuk says,

“the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall bear witness to it.” (Habakkuk 2:11.)

Let us not wonder, therefore, at those dreadful changes, when ambition lays hold on plunder and wicked extortions, but let us contemplate the righteous judgments of God.

16. Inquire at the book of Jehovah. By “the book of the Lord” some understand this prophecy, as if he had enjoined them to read attentively this prediction; for not even in the minutest point will it fail at the appointed time, as he will afterwards add. Others explain it more ingeniously as denoting the eternal decree of God; “inquire if such be not the purpose of God;” but this exposition is not sufficiently natural. I willingly interpret it as denoting the Law itself, which by way of eminence is called “the book of the Lord;” for from the Law, as from its source, the Prophets drew their doctrine, as we have frequently remarked.

Lest the strangeness of the event should prevent the prediction from being believed, Isaiah says that the Jews had been warned of it long before; and thus he indirectly censures the unbelief of those who stared at the announcement, as. if it had been something uncommon. He appropriately brings them back to the Law, in which God frequently declares that he will take care of his people, and that he will punish the wicked and reprobate. Moses having long ago spoken in this manner, the Prophet says that there is no reason why it should be difficult to believe what he foretells, since he brings forward nothing new, but only confirms now what Moses declared and testified. Such appears to me to be the natural meaning of the Prophet, and by these words he intended to fortify the Jews, patiently to look for what the Lord promised, and fully to believe that all that had. been foretold about the Edomites and the other adversaries of the Church would at length be actually fulfilled, since Moses was a credible witness, that God would always be the avenger of his people. Besides, it was proper that they should be reminded of this, in order that, when these things should befall the Edomites, they might not think that they had happened by chance, but might know that they were brought about by the judgment of God. Such is the rebellion of men, that they do not believe God when he forewarns them, and what afterwards takes place by the judgment of God is ascribed by them to fortune. Isaiah therefore meets this, and bids them inquire at Moses, whose authority they all revered.

Not one of those; that is, of the animals; for the Hebrew writers employ these terms, איש (ish) and אשה, (ishshah,) not only for men and women, but for males and females of any species.

For his mouth hath commanded. He confirms what he formerly said; for although the works of God are sufficiently plain, yet by his mouth, that is, by the word, he makes them plainer to us, that we may see them more clearly. And this is the true contemplation of the works of God, when we keep our eye fixed on the mirror of the word; for otherwise our boldness is carried to excess, and we tke greater liberty than is proper, if heavenly doctrine do not guide us like a lamp. This ought therefore to restrain the boldness and rashness of men, who, despising the doctrine of the word, wish to dispute and form opinions about the judgments of God and all his worlds. If they “inquired at the book,” and asked at the mouth of the Lord, we should see greater piety and religion among them.

Yet by “the mouth of the Lord” the Prophet intended to confirm the vengeance which he had foretold, because nothing that has come out of God’s holy mouth can fail of its effect. Isaiah affirms that what God has once decreed, and published in his own name, cannot be reversed. By this shield he thus wards off all the doubts which quickly arise, whenever the promises of God go beyond our senses. Sometimes, indeed, he threatens conditionally, as he threatened the Ninevites, (Jonah 1:2,) Pharaoh, (Genesis 12:17,) and Abimelech, (Genesis 20:3,) whom he spared, because they repented; but when he has once determined to revenge and punish, he gives actual proof that he is not less true and powerful than when he promised salvation to his people. The agreement of the words Mouth and Spirit makes it still more evident.

And his Spirit hath gathered them. Although “the breath of the mouth” often means the same thing as “speech,” and although it is customary with the Hebrew writers to repeat the same thing twice, yet here he alludes elegantly to the breath, from which the words proceed, and by which they are formed; as if he had said that this prediction is abundantly powerful, because the same God who by his voice commanded the brute animals to possess the land of Edom, will bring them by merely breathing. He speaks of a secret influence; and we ought not to wonder that the slightest expression of the will of God causes all the animals to assemble, as happened at the flood, (Genesis 7:15,) and likewise at the very creation of the world, when, as Moses relates, all the animals were gathered together, by the command of God, to the first man, that they might be subject to his authority. (Genesis 2:19.) And undoubtedly they would have continued to be subject and obedient to him, had not his own rebellion deprived him of that power and authority; but when he revolted from God, the animals at the same time began to refuse subjection and to attack him.

17. And he hath cast the lot for them. He says that to those wild beasts and monsters there hath been granted a secure and permanent habitation, from which they cannot be easily banished or driven out; because God hath allotted it to them as.their portion by inheritance. This means that the whole of Idumea is at the disposal of the Lord, to drive out the inhabitants, and to grant possession of it to whomsoever he pleases, either wild beasts, or birds, or monsters.

Hence infer that it is vain for men ever to promise themselves a permanent abode, unless so far as every person has obtained his place “by lot,” and on the express condition that he shall instantly leave it, whenever God calls. We lead a dependent life wherever he supports us; and either on our native soil, or at a distance from our fatherland, we are strangers. If he shall be pleased to give us a peaceable habitation for a long time in one place, it will only be by his special favor that we shall dwell there; and as soon as he thinks proper, he will constrain us to change our abode. Besides, if we acknowledge that a residence in this or that country has been appointed to us by God, we may dwell in it with safety and composure; for if he keeps wild beasts in possession of the place which he has allotted to them, how much more will he preserve men, for whose sake he created heaven, earth, the seas, and all that they contain?

CHAPTER 35

Isaiah 35:1-10

1. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

1. Laetabuntur solitudo et desertum; exultabit locus squalidus, et florebit quasi lilium.

2. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the execellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.

2. Florens florebit, et exultabit adhuc (vel, etiam) exultatione, at. que jubilabit; gloria Libant dabitur ei, decor Carmel et Saron. Ipsi videbunt gloriam Iehovae, majestatem Dei nostri.

3. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

3. Confortate manus remissas, genua labantia roborate.

4. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

4. Dicite eis qui trepidi sunt corde: confortemini, ne timeatis. Ecce Deus vester cum ultione veniet; cum retributione Deus (vel, Dei) ipse veniet, et salvabit nos.

5. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped:

5. Tunc aperientur oculi caecorum, et antes surdorum aperientur.

6. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

6. Tunc saliet instar cervi claudus, clare personabit lingua muti; quoniam effodientur in deserto aquae, et flumina in solitudine.

7. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with reeds and rushes.

7. Vertetur locus aridus in stagnum, et regio siticulosa in scaturigines aquarum; in habitaculo draconum, cubili, inquam, ejus locus erit arundini et junco.

8. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

8. Et erit illic semita et via, et via suncta vocabitur. Per cam non transibit immundus; et erit illis ambulans in via, ut stulti non errent.

9. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

9. Non erit illic leo, nec fera bestia ascendet per eam, neque ibi invenietur, ut redempti ambulent.

10. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

10. Itaque redempti Jehovae redibunt, et venient in Sion cum exultatione; et gaudium perpetuum erit super caput eorum; et apprehendent gaudium et laetitiam, fugientque tristitia et gemitus.

CHAPTER 34

Is 34:1-17. Judgment on Idumea.

The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters form one prophecy, the former part of which denounces God's judgment against His people's enemies, of whom Edom is the representative; the second part, of the flourishing state of the Church consequent on those judgments. This forms the termination of the prophecies of the first part of Isaiah (the thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters being historical) and is a kind of summary of what went before, setting forth the one main truth, Israel shall be delivered from all its foes, and happier times shall succeed under Messiah.

1. All creation is summoned to hear God's judgments (Eze 6:3; De 32:1; Psa 50:4; Mi 6:1, 2), for they set forth His glory, which is the end of creation (Re 15:3; 4:11).

that come forth of it--answering to "all that is therein"; or Hebrew, "all whatever fills it," Margin.

2. utterly destroyed--rather, "doomed them to an utter curse" [Horsley].

delivered--rather, "appointed."

3. cast out--unburied (Is 14:19).

melted--washed away as with a descending torrent.

4. (Psa 102:26; Joe 2:31; 3:15; Mt 24:29).

dissolved--(2Pe 3:10-12). Violent convulsions of nature are in Scripture made the images of great changes in the human world (Is 24:19-21), and shall literally accompany them at the winding up of the present dispensation.

scroll--Books were in those days sheets of parchment rolled together (Re 6:14).

fall down--The stars shall fall when the heavens in which they are fixed pass away.

fig tree--(Re 6:13).

5. sword--(Jr 46:10). Or else, knife for sacrifice for God does not here appear as a warrior with His sword, but as one about to sacrifice victims doomed to slaughter [Vitringa]. (Eze 39:17).

bathed--rather "intoxicated," namely, with anger (so De 32:42). "In heaven" implies the place where God's purpose of wrath is formed in antithesis to its "coming down" in the next clause.

Idumea--originally extending from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea; afterwards they obtained possession of the country east of Moab, of which Bozrah was capital. Petra or Selah, called Joktheel (2Ki 14:7), was capital of South Edom (see on Is 16:1). David subjugated Edom (2Sa 8:13, 14). Under Jehoram they regained independence (2Ch 21:8). Under Amaziah they were again subdued, and Selah taken (2Ki 14:7). When Judah was captive in Babylon, Edom, in every way, insulted over her fallen mistress, killed many of those Jews whom the Chaldeans had left, and hence was held guilty of fratricide by God (Esau, their ancestor, having been brother to Jacob): this was the cause of the denunciations of the prophets against Edom (Is 63:1, &c.; Jr 49:7; Eze 25:12-14; 35:3-15; Joe 3:19; Am 1:11, 12; Ob 8, 10, 12-18; Mal 1:3,4). Nebuchadnezzar humbled Idumea accordingly (Jr 25:15-21).

of my curse--that is, doomed to it.

to judgment--that is, to execute it.

6. filled--glutted. The image of a sacrifice is continued.

blood ... fat--the parts especially devoted to God in a sacrifice (2Sa 1:22).

lambs ... goats--sacrificial animals: the Idumeans, of all classes, doomed to slaughter, are meant (Zep 1:7).

Bozrah--called Bostra by the Romans, &c., assigned in Jr 48:24 to Moab, so that it seems to have been at one time in the dominion of Edom, and at another in that of Moab (Is 63:1; Jr 49:13, 20, 22); it was strictly not in Edom, but the capital of Auranitis (the Houran). Edom seems to have extended its dominion so as to include it (compare La 4:21).

7. unicorns--Hebrew, reem: conveying the idea of loftiness, power, and pre-eminence (see on Job 39:9), in the Bible. At one time the image in the term answers to a reality in nature; at another it symbolizes an abstraction. The rhinoceros was the original type. The Arab rim is two-horned: it was the oryx (the leucoryx, antelope, bold and pugnacious); but when accident or artifice deprived it of one horn, the notion of the unicorn arose. Here is meant the portion of the Edomites which was strong and warlike.

come down--rather, "fall down," slain [Lowth].

with them--with the "lambs and goats," the less powerful Edomites (Is 34:6).

bullocks ... bulls--the young and old Edomites: all classes.

dust--ground.

8. recompenses for the controversy of Zion--that is, the year when God will retaliate on those who have contended with Zion. Her controversy is His. Edom had thought to extend its borders by laying hold of its neighbor's lands and has instigated Babylon to cruelty towards fallen Judah (Psa 137:7; Eze 36:5); therefore Edom shall suffer the same herself (La 4:21, 22). The final winding up of the controversy between God and all enemies of Him and His people is also foreshadowed (Is 61:2; 63:4; 66:14-16; Mal 4:1, 3; 2Th 1:7, 8, 9; Re 11:18; 18:20; 19:2).

9. Images from the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (Ge 19:24-28; so De 29:23; Jr 49:17, 18).

10. It--The burning pitch, &c. (Is 34:9).

smoke ... for ever--(Re 14:11; 18:18; 19:3).

generation to generation--(Mal 1:4).

none ... pass through--Edom's original offense was: they would not let Israel pass through their land in peace to Canaan: God recompenses them in kind, no traveller shall pass through Edom. Volney, the infidel, was forced to confirm the truth of this prophecy: "From the reports of the Arabs, southeast of the Dead Sea, within three days' journey are upwards of thirty ruined towns, absolutely deserted."

11. cormorant--The Hebrew is rendered, in Psa 102:6, "pelican," which is a seafowl, and cannot be meant here: some waterfowl (katta, according to Burckhardt) that tenants desert places is intended.

bittern--rather, "the hedgehog," or "porcupine" [Gesenius] (Is 14:23).

owl--from its being enumerated among water birds in Le 11:17; De 14:16. Maurer thinks rather the heron or crane is meant; from a Hebrew root, "to blow," as it utters a sound like the blowing of a horn (Re 18:2).

confusion--devastation.

line ... stones--metaphor from an architect with line and plummet-stone (see on Is 18:2; Is 28:17); God will render to it the exact measure of justice without mercy (Jas 2:13; 2Ki 21:13; La 2:8; Am 7:7, 8).

emptiness--desolation. Edom is now a waste of "stones."

12. Rather, "As to her nobles, there shall be none there who shall declare a kingdom," that is, a king [Maurer]; or else, "There shall be no one there whom they shall call to the kingdom" [Rosenmuller] (Is 3:6, &c.). Idumea was at first governed by dukes (Ge 36:15); out of them the king wan chosen when the constitution became a monarchy.

13. dragons--(See on Is 13:21; Is 13:22).

court for owls--rather, "a dwelling for ostriches."

14. wild beasts of the desert ... island--rather, "wild cats ... jackals" (Is 13:21).

screech owl--rather, "the night specter"; in Jewish superstition a female, elegantly dressed, that carried off children by night. The text does not assert the existence of such objects of superstition, but describes the place as one which superstition would people with such beings.

15. great owl--rather, "the arrow snake," so called from its darting on its prey [Gesenius].

lay--namely, eggs.

gather under her shadow--rather, "cherishes" her young under, &c. (Jr 17:11).

16. book of the Lord--the volume in which the various prophecies and other parts of Scripture began henceforward to be collected together (Is 30:8; Da 9:2).

Seek--(so Is 8:16, 20; Joh 5:39; 7:52).

no one ... fail--of these prophecies (Mt 5:18).

none shall want ... mate--image from pairing of animals mentioned, Is 34:15 ("mate"); no prediction shall want a fulfilment as its companion. Or rather, "none of these wild animals (just spoken of) shall be wanting: none shall be without its mate" to pair and breed with, in desolate Idumea.

my ... his--Such changes of person are frequent in Hebrew poetry.

them--the wild beasts.

17. cast ... lot--As conquerors apportion lands by lot, so Jehovah has appointed and marked out ("divided") Edom for the wild beasts (Nu 26:55, 56; Jos 18:4-6).

Hearken "Attend unto me" - A MS. adds in this line the word אלי ali, unto me, after לאמים leummim; which seems to be genuine.

And all the host of heaven See note on Isa 24:21, and De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum, Prael. ix.

For my sword shall be bathed in heaven "For my sword is made bare in the heavens" - There seems to be some impropriety in this, according to the present reading: "My sword is made drunken, or is bathed in the heavens; "which forestalls, and expresses not in its proper place, what belongs to the next verse: for the sword of Jehovah was not to be bathed or glutted with blood in the heavens, but in Botsra and the land of Edom. In the heavens it was only prepared for slaughter. To remedy this, Archbishop Secker proposes to read, for בשמים bashshamayim, בדמם bedamim; referring to Jer 46:10. But even this is premature, and not in its proper place. The Chaldee, for רותה rivvethah, has תתגלי tithgalli, shall be revealed or disclosed: perhaps he read תראה teraeh or נראתה nirathah. Whatever reading, different I presume from the present, he might find in his copy, I follow the sense which he has given of it.

The Lord hath a sacrifice "For Jehovah celebrateth a sacrifice" - Ezekiel, Eze 39:16, Eze 39:17, has manifestly imitated this place of Isaiah. He hath set forth the great leaders and princes of the adverse powers under the same emblems of goats, bulls, rams, fatlings, etc., and has added to the boldness of the imagery, by introducing God as summoning all the fowls of the air, and all the beasts of the field, and bidding them to the feast which he has prepared for them by the slaughter of the enemies of his people: - "And thou, son of man,

Thus saith the Lord Jehovah,

Say to the bird of every wing,

And to every beast of the field:

Assemble yourselves, and come;

Gather together from every side,

To the sacrifice which I make for you,

A great slaughter on the mountains of Israel.

And ye shall eat flesh and drink blood:

The flesh of the mighty shall ye eat,

And the blood of the lofty of the earth shall ye drink;

Of rams, of lambs, and of goats,

Of bullocks, all of them the fat ones of Bashan;

And ye shall eat fat, till ye are cloyed,

And drink blood, till ye are drunken;

Of my slaughter, which I have slain for you."

The sublime author of the Rev 19:17, Rev 19:18, has taken this image from Ezekiel, rather than from Isaiah.

The unicorns shall come down - ראמים reemim, translated wild goats by Bishop Lowth. The ראם reem Bochart thinks to be a species of wild goat in the deserts of Arabia. It seems generally to mean the rhinoceros.

With blood "With their blood" - מדמם middamam; so two ancient MSS. of Kennicott's the Syriac, and Chaldee.

The year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion "The year of recompense to the defender of the cause of Zion" - As from דון dun, דין din, a judge; so from רוב rub, ריב rib, an advocate, or defender; Judici Sionis: Syriac.

The cormorant - קאת kaath, the pelican, from the root קיא ki, to vomit, because it is said she swallows shell-fish, and when the heat of her stomach has killed the fish, she vomits the shells, takes out the dead fish, and eats them.

The bittern - קפד kippod, the hedge-hog, or porcupine.

The owl - ינשוף yanshoph, the bittern, from נשף nashaph, to blow, because of the blowing noise it makes, almost like the lowing of an ox. My old MS. Bible renders the words thus: - The foule in face like an asse, and the yrchoun, and the snyte (snipe.)

The line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness "The plummet of emptiness over her scorched plains" - The word חריה choreyha, joined to the 12th verse, embarrasses it, and makes it inexplicable. At least I do not know that any one has yet made out the construction, or given any tolerable explication of it. I join it to the 11th verse, and supply a letter or two, which seem to have been lost. Fifteen MSS. five ancient, and two editions, read חוריה choreyha; the first printed edition of 1486, I think nearer to the truth, חור חריה chor choreyha. I read בחרריה becharereyha, or על חרריה al chorereyha; see Jer 17:6. A MS. has חדיה chodiah, and the Syriac reads חדוה chaduah, gaudium, joining it to the two preceding words; which he likewise reads differently, but without improving the sense. However, his authority is clear for dividing the verses as they are here divided. I read שם shem, as a noun. They shall boast, יקראו yikreu; see Pro 20:6.

And thorns shall come up in her palaces - ועלו בארמנותיה vealu bearmenotheyha; so read all the ancient versions.

A court for owls - יענה yaanah, the ostrich, from ענה anah, to cry, because of the noise it makes. "They roar, "says Dr. Shaw, "sometimes like a lion - sometimes like a bull. I have often heard them groan as if in the utmost distress."

The weld beasts of the desert - ציים tsiyim, the mountain cats. - Bochart.

Wild beasts of the island - איים aiyim, the jackals.

The satyr - שעיר seir, the hairy one, probably the he-goat.

The screech owl - לילית lilith, the night-bird, the night-raven, nyctycorax, from ליל layil, or לילה lailah, the night.

The great owl - קפוז kippoz, the ακοντιας, or darter, a serpent so called because of its suddenly leaping up or darting on its prey. Probably the mongoose or ichneumon may be intended.

The vultures - דיות daiyoth, the black vultures. My old MS. Bible renders these names curiously: And ageyn cumen schul devylis: the beste, party of an asse, and party of a mam: and the wodwose, the tother schal crien to the tother. There schal byn lamya, that is, thrisse, or a beste, havynge the body liic a woman, and hors feet. Ther hadde dichis, the yrchoun, and nurshide out littil chittis. There ben gadred kiitis, the top to the top. What language!

Every one with her mate - A MS. adds אל el after אשה ishshah, which seems necessary to the construction; and so the Syriac and Vulgate. Another MS. adds in the same place את eth, which is equivalent.

My mouth "For the mouth of Jehovah" - For הוא hu, five MSS., (three ancient), read יהוה Jehovah, and another is so corrected; so likewise the Septuagint. Two editions have צום tsivam; and so the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, with the edition of 1486, and a MS. has קבצם kebatsam, with the masculine pronoun instead of the feminine: and so in the next verses it is להם lahem, instead of להן lahen, in fourteen MSS., six of them ancient. - L. To see the importance of these various readings, the Hebrew Bible must be consulted.

All nations - Not only upon the Assyrians, but on all enemies of my people.

Cast out - Into the fields.

Dissolved - The sun, moon, and stars. So great shall be the confusion and consternation of mankind, as if all the frame of the creation were broken into pieces. It is usual for prophetic writers, both in the Old and New Testament, to represent great and general calamities, in such words and phrases, as properly agree to the day of judgment; as on the contrary, the glorious deliverances of God's people, in such expressions, as properly agree to the resurrection from the dead.

Bathed - In the blood of these people. Heaven - Where God dwells; in which this is said to be done, because it was there decreed and appointed. Idumea - Upon the Edomites, who, tho' they were nearly related to the Israelites, yet were their implacable enemies. But these are named for all the enemies of God's church, of whom they were an eminent type. The people - Whom I have cursed, and devoted to utter destruction, as the word properly signifies.

The sword - The metaphor is taken from a great glutton, who is almost insatiable. Rams - By lambs, and goats, and rams, he means people of all ranks and conditions, high and low, rich and poor. Bozrah - A chief city of Edom, and a type of those cities which should be most opposite to God's people.

The unicorns - It is confessed, this was a beast of great strength and fierceness; and it is used in this place to signify their princes and potentates, who shall be humbled and cast down. Them - With the lambs, and goats, and rams. Fatness - With the fat of the slain sacrifices, mingled with it.

For - This is the time which God hath fixed, to avenge the cause of his persecuted people.

The land - Idumea shall be dealt with, as Sodom and Gomorrah were.

For ever - It shall remain as a spectacle of God's vengeance to all succeeding ages.

Dwell - It shall be entirely possessed by those creatures which delight in deserts and waste places. Stretch - He shall use the line, or the stone or plummet joined to it, not to build them, but to mark them out to destruction, as workmen commonly use them to mark what they are to pull down.

None - They shall not find any willing to undertake the government. Nothing - Shall have no courage or strength left in them.

Seek - When this judgment is executed, if you pursue this prophecy, you will find, that all things exactly come to pass, as I have told you. His - My spirit, (such sudden changes of persons being frequent here) hath brought all these creatures together, as he formerly brought the creatures to Adam, and to Noah, by an instinct which he put into them.

Divided - He hath divided the land to them, as it were by lot and line, as Canaan was divided among the Israelites.

1. COme 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 .

Let the People of all Nations take notice of what I am about to say and do, as that wherein they are generally concerned, and by the consideration whereof, they may, if they will, be instructed, and so delivered from the Calamity here denounced.

Heb. All the off-springs of it: Either 1. all the Trees and Fruits, and other productions of it: For it is usual with the Prophets, by a Figure, to turn his Speech to these senseless Creatures. Or 2. all the Inhabitants of the World, as the Chaldee and other Ancients restrain and understand this general Expression; which also is Emphatical, and admonisheth the proud and insolent Sons of Men, of their mean and obscure Original, that how great and glorious soever they may seem to themselves or others; yet in truth, they are but a better sort of Mushromes springing out of the Earth, for Dust they are, and unto dust they must return, as was said, Gen. 3. 19.

Marginal references: Heb the fulness thereof.

2. For 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.

Not onely upon the Assyrians, and those Nations which were Confederate with them in this Expedition, but upon all other Enemies of my People whatsoever.

He will infallibly Destroy all of them.

3. Their 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 .

Into the Fields, where they shall lie unburied, and be left for a prey to all ravenous Birds and Beasts: Whereby he implies, either the vast Numbers which shall be Slain, so as they could not have time or place to Bury them: Or the curse of God upon them, and the Peoples contempt and abhorrency of them.

About Ierusalem, where they are supposed to be gathered to Fight against Ierusalem, as the Assyrians now were, and as other Enemies afterward would be, Zech. 12. 2. & 14. 2.

Shall be filled with their Blood, which shall run down abundantly from the Mountains with great force, and dissolve and carry down part of the earth of the Mountains with it, as great showers of Rain frequently do.

Marginal references: Joel. 2. 20.

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 fall down as the leaf that falleth off from the vine , and as a falling fig from the fig-tree.

The Sun, and Moon, and Stars, which frequently come under this name in Scripture, as Deut. 4. 19. and 17. 3. and elsewhere.

Shall seem to be dissolved. So great shall be the confusion and consternation of Man-kind, as if all the frame of the Creation were broken into pieces. Some understand this of the general Judgment; which some passages here following will not permit. But it is a very usual thing for Prophetical Writers, both in the Old and New-Testament, to represent great and general Calamities, in such words and phrases, as properly agree to the Day of Judgment; as on the contrary, The glorious Deliverances of God's People are set forth in such Expressions, as properly agree to the Resurrection from the Dead. See Ezek. 37. 7. Ioel. 2. 31. & 3. 15. Revel. 6. 12, 13.

Heb. as a book; for Books were then written in Scroles, which they usually rolled up together; and when they were so, no Man could [illegible: 1+ letters]ead any word in it; and no more shall any Man be able to see those goodly Lights of Heaven, for they shall all be obscured and confounded. This Phrase is used also, Isa. 8. 1. & Revel. 6. 14.

When it is withered.

Which falleth, either through great Maturity, or being thrust out by green Figs coming▪ forth, or by any other accident.

Marginal references: Rev. 6. 14.; Rev. 6. 13.

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

In the Blood of these People. Heb. Is or shall be made drunk.

Either 1. in my Church, which is called Heaven, Dan. 8. 10. Revel. 4. 1. & 12. 1. in and against which, these Enemies are said to be gathered together. Or 2. in the highest Heaven, where God dwells; in which this is said to be done, because it was there decreed and appointed to be done.

Upon the Edomites, who, though they were nearly related to the Israelites, and were Circumcised as well as they; yet were their most inveterate and implacable Enemies, watching all opportunities, and being ready to joyn with all those that attempted to Destroy them; whereof we have many intimations and instances in Scripture. But these are not named Exclusively, but rather Comprehensively, and Synecdochically, for all the Enemies of God's Church, of whom they were a considerable Part, and an eminent Type.

To whom my Curse belongs; or, whom I have Cursed, and devoted to utter Destruction, as this Hebrew Word properly signifies.

Marginal references: Jer. 46. 10.; Jer. 49. 7.

6. The 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.

Shall drink its fill of Blood. The Metaphor is here taken from a great Glutton or Drunkard, who is almost infatiable with Meat and Drink.

By Lambs, and Goats, and Rams, He means People of all ranks and conditions, high and low, rich and poor.

So he calleth this bloody Work, because it was done by God's Command, and for His Honour; and therefore was a Service acceptable to him.

A chief City of Edom, Isa. 63. 1. Ier. 49. 13. and a Type of those Cities which should be most opposite and mischievous to God's People.

Marginal references: Zeph. 1. 7.

7. And 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 .

Heb. the Reemim. But what kind of Beast this is, whether that Beast which is commonly called an Unicorn, which seems to be but a Fiction in the Judgment of the Learned; or a Rhinoceros, or a wild Ox or Bull; it is needless to trouble the ordinary Reader about it; and the Learned may consult my Latine Synopsis upon Num. 23. 22. about it. It is confessed, That it was a Beast of great strength and fierceness; and it is certain, that it is Metaphorically used in this place, to signify their Princes and Potentates.

Shall be humbled and cast down. The Seventy and Syriack render it, they shall fall down, as such Beasts do, when they have received a deadly blow.

With the Lambs, and Goats, and Rams, last mentioned, ver. 6.

With the Fat of the slain Sacrifices, which shall be mingled with it.

Marginal references: Or, rhinocerots.; Or, drunken.

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

This is the time which God hath long since appointed and fixed, to avenge the cause of his oppressed and persecuted People, against all their Enemies.

Marginal references: Chap. 63. 4.

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

Which seem most secure from this Danger, and much more the Land.

Idumea shall be dealt with, as Sodom and Gomorrah were, even utterly Destroyed, as it were by Fire, or burning Pitch and Brimstone thrown down upon it from Heaven.

Marginal references: See Deut. 29. 23.

10. It shall not be quenched night nor day, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie wast, none shall pass through it for ever and ever .

It shall be irrecoverably ruined, and shall remain as a spectacle of God's vengeance to all succeeding Ages.

Marginal references: Rev. 14. 11. & 18. 18. & 19. 3.

11. But 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 .

The Inhabitants shall be wholly cut off, and it shall be intirely possessed by those Creatures which delight in Deserts, and wast Places. See the same or like Expressions in the like case, Isa. 13. 21, 22. & 14. 23.

He shall use the Line, or the Stone or Plummet joyned to it, not to build them, but to mark them out to Desolation and Destruction, as work-men commonly use them, to mark what they are to pull down.

Marginal references: Zeph. 2. 14. Rev. 18. 2.; Or, pelican.; Zech. 3. 9. [illegible: 1+ letters] 4. 10.

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

They shall indeavour to heal their Breaches, but in vain: The remnant of the People shall seek for any fit Person, and offer the Kingdom to him; but they shall not find any such, who shall be willing to undertake the Government.

Either shall be lost and cut off: Or, shall have no Courage o[illegible: 1+ letters] Strength left in them.

13. And 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.

This is another Mark and Evidence of extream Desolation, as it is also, Hos. 9. 6.

Marginal references: Hos. 9. 6.; Chap. 13. 21. &c.; Or, ostriches.; Heb. daughters of the owl.

14. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow , the scrichowl also shall rest there , and find for her self a place of rest.

See on Isa. 13. 21, 22.

Because there shall be no Men left to disturb or affright them, Isa. 17. 2.

Marginal references: Heb. Zijim.; Heb. Ijim.; Or, nightmonster.

15. There 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 their mate.

Whether this, or what other Creature is meant by this Hebrew Word, the learned Reader may find largely discoursed▪ in my Latine Synopsis upon this place: For others it may suffice to know, what all agree in, that, whether it be a Bird or a Serpent, it is a Creature that lives in desert places.

As fearing no Disturbance from any Men.

16. Seek ye out of the book of the law 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 .

When this Judgment is executed, if you peruse this Book of holy Writ, and particularly this Prophecy of mine, you will find, that all things shall exactly come to pass, as I have told you.

As I have said, That the Vultures should each have their Mate; so shall it be: And this Prophecy shall be exactly fulfilled, even in its smallest Circumstances.

My Spirit; such sudden Changes of Persons being frequent here. And God's Spirit may be put for his Might and Power, as it is in many places of Scripture.

Hath brought all these Creatures together, as he formerly brought the Creatures to Adam, and to Noah by an instinct, which he put into 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.

He hath divided the Land to them, as it were, by Lot and Line, as Canaan was divided among the Israelites.

Isa 34:1-3

What the prophet here foretells relates to all nations, and to every individual within them, in their relation to the congregation of Jehovah. He therefore commences with the appeal in Isa 34:1-3 : “Come near, ye peoples, to hear; and he nations, attend. Let the earth hear, and that which fills it, the world, and everything that springs from it. For the indignation of Jehovah will fall upon all nations, and burning wrath upon all their host; He has laid the ban upon them, delivered them to the slaughter. And their slain are cast away, and their corpses - their stench will arise, and mountains melt with their blood.” The summons does not invite them to look upon the completion of the judgment, but to hear the prophecy of the future judgment; and it is issued to everything on the earth, because it would all have to endure the judgment upon the nations (see at Isa 5:25; Isa 13:10). The expression qetseph layehōvâh implies that Jehovah was ready to execute His wrath (compare yōm layehōvâh in Isa 34:8 and Isa 2:12). The nations that are hostile to Jehovah are slaughtered, the bodies remain unburied, and the streams of blood loosen the firm masses of the mountains, so that they melt away. On the stench of the corpses, compare Eze 39:11. Even if châsam, in this instance, does not mean “to take away the breath with the stench,” there is no doubt that Ezekiel had this prophecy of Isaiah in his mind, when prophesying of the destruction of Gog and Magog (Ezek 39).

Isa 34:4

The judgment foretold by Isaiah also belongs to the last things; for it takes place in connection with the simultaneous destruction of the present heaven and the present earth.”And all the host of the heavens moulder away, and the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, and all their host withers as a leaf withers away from the vine, and like withered leaves from the fig-tree” (Nâmaq, to be dissolved into powdered mother (Isa 3:24; Isa 5:24); nâgōl (for nâgal, like nâzōl in Isa 63:19; Isa 64:2, and nârōts in Ecc 12:6), to be rolled up - a term applied to the cylindrical book-scroll. The heaven, that is to say, the present system of the universe, breaks up into atoms, and is rolled up like a book that has been read through; and the stars fall down as a withered leaf falls from a vine, when it is moved by even the lightest breeze, or like the withered leaves shaken from the fig-tree. The expressions are so strong, that they cannot be understood in any other sense than as relating to the end of the world (Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; compare Mat 24:29). It is not sufficient to say that “the stars appear to fall to the earth,” though even Vitringa gives this explanation.

When we look, however, at the following kı̄ (for), it undoubtedly appears strange that the prophet should foretell the passing away of the heavens, simply because Jehovah judges Edom. But Edom stands here as the representative of all powers that are hostile to the church of God as such, and therefore expresses an idea of the deepest and widest cosmical signification (as Isa 24:21 clearly shows). And it is not only a doctrine of Isaiah himself, but a biblical doctrine universally, that God will destroy the present world as soon as the measure of the sin which culminates in unbelief, and in the persecution of the congregation of the faithful, shall be really full.

Isa 34:5-7

If we bear this in mind, we shall not be surprised that the prophet gives the following reason for the passing away of the present heavens. “For my sword has become intoxicated in the heaven; behold, it comes down upon Edom, and upon the people of my ban to judgment. The sword of Jehovah fills itself with blood, is fattened with fat, with blood of lambs and he-goats, with kidney-fat of rams; for Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And buffaloes fall with them, and bullocks together with bulls; and their land become intoxicated with blood, and their dust fattened with fat.” Just as in chapter 63 Jehovah is represented as a treader of the wine-press, and the nations as the grapes; so here He is represented as offering sacrifice, and the nations as the animals offered (zebhach: cf., Zep 1:7; Jer 46:10); Eze 39:17.: all three passages founded upon this). Jehovah does not appear here in person as judge, as He does there, but His sword appears; just as in Gen 3:24, the “sword which turned every way” is mentioned as an independent power standing by the side of the cherub. The sword is His executioner, which has no sooner drunk deeply of wrath in heaven, i.e., in the immediate sphere of the Deity (rivvethâh, an intensive form of the kal, like pittēăch, Isa 48:8; Ewald, §120,d), than it comes down in wild intoxication upon Edom, the people of the ban of Jehovah, i.e., the people upon whom He has laid the ban, and there, as His instrument of punishment, fills itself with blood, and fattens itself with fat. הדּשׁנה is the hothpaal = התדּשׁנה, with the ת of the preformative syllable assimilated (compare הזּכּוּ in Isa 1:16, and אדּמּה in Isa 14:14). The penultimate has the tone, the nâh being treated as in the plural forms of the future. The dropping of the dagesh in the שׁ eht ni hse is connected with this. The reading מחלב, in Isa 34:6, is an error that has been handed down in modern copies (in opposition to both codices and ancient editions); for חלב (primary form, chilb) is the only form met with in the Old Testament. The lambs, he-goats, and rams, represent the Edomitish nation, which is compared to these smaller sacrificial animals. Edom and Bozrah are also placed side by side in Isa 63:1. The latter was one of the chief cities of the Edomites (Gen 36:33; Amo 1:12; Jer 49:13, Jer 49:22) - not the Bozrah in Auranitis (Haurân), however, which is well known in church history, but Bozrah in the mountains of Edom, upon the same site as the village of Buzaire (i.e., Minor Bozrah), which is still surrounded by its ruins. In contrast with the three names of the smaller animals in Isa 34:6, the three names of oxen in Isa 34:7 represent the lords of Edom. They also will fall, smitten by the sword (yâredū: cf., Jer 50:27; Jer 51:40; also Jer 48:15). The feast of the sword is so abundant, that even the earth and the dust of the land of Edom are satiated with blood and fat.

Isa 34:8-10

Thus does Jehovah avenge His church upon Edom. “For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense, to contend for Zion. And the brooks of Edom are turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its land becomes burning pitch. Day and night it is not quenched; the smoke of Edom goes up for ever: it lies waste from generation to generation; no one passes through it for ever and ever.” The one expression, “to contend for Zion,” is like a flash of lightning, throwing light upon the obscurity of prophecy, both backwards and forwards. A day and a year of judgment upon Edom (compare Isa 61:2; Isa 63:4) would do justice to Zion against its accusers and persecutors (rı̄bh, vindicare, as in Isa 51:22). The everlasting punishment which would fall upon it is depicted in figures and colours, suggested by the proximity of Edom to the Dead Sea, and the volcanic character of this mountainous country. The unquenchable fire (for which compare Isa 66:24), and the eternally ascending smoke (cf., Rev 19:3), prove that the end of all things is referred to. The prophet meant primarily, no doubt, that the punishment announced would fall upon the land of Edom, and within its geographical boundaries; but this particular punishment represented the punishment of all nations, and all men who were Edomitish in their feelings and conduct towards the congregation of Jehovah.

Isa 34:11-12

The land of Edom, in this geographical and also emblematical sense, would become a wilderness; the kingdom of Edom would be for ever destroyed. “And pelican and hedgehog take possession of it, and eared-owl and raven dwell there; and he stretches over it the measure of Tohu and the level of Bohu. Its nobles - there is no longer a monarchy which they elected; and all its princes come to nought.” The description of the ruin, which commences in Isa 34:11 with a list of animals that frequent marshy and solitary regions, is similar to the one in Isa 13:20-22; Isa 14:23 (compare Zep 2:14, which is founded upon this). Isaiah’s was the original of all such pictures of ruin which we meet with in the later prophets. The qippōd is the hedgehog, although we find it here in the company of birds (from qâphad, to draw one’s self together, to roll up; see Isa 14:23). קאת is written here with a double kametz, as well as in Zep 2:14, according to codd. and Kimchi, W.B. (Targ. qâth, elsewhere qâq; Saad. and Abulwalid, qûq: see at Psa 102:7). According to well-established tradition, it is the long-necked pelican, which lives upon fish (the name is derived either from קוא, to vomit, or, as the construct is קאת, from a word קאה, formed in imitation of the animal’s cry). Yanshūph is rendered by the Targum qı̄ppōphı̄n (Syr. kafûfo), i.e., eared-owls, which are frequently mentioned in the Talmud as birds of ill omen (Rashi, or Berachoth 57 b, chouette). As the parallel to qâv, we have אבני (stones) here instead of משׁקלת, the level, in Isa 28:17. It is used in the same sense, however - namely, to signify the weight used in the plumb or level, which is suspended by a line. The level and the measure are commonly employed for the purpose of building up; but here Jehovah is represented as using these fore the purpose of pulling down (a figure met with even before the time of Isaiah: vid., Amo 7:7-9, cf., 2Ki 21:13; Lam 2:8), inasmuch as He carries out this negative reverse of building with the same rigorous exactness as that with which a builder carries out his well-considered plan, and throws Edom back into a state of desolation and desert, resembling the disordered and shapeless chaos of creation (compare Jer 4:23, where tōhū vâbhōhū represents, as it does here, the state into which a land is reduced by fire). תהוּ has no dagesh lene; and this is one of the three passages in which the opening mute is without a dagesh, although the word not only follows, but is closely connected with, one which has a soft consonant as its final letter (the others are Psa 68:18 and Eze 23:42). Thus the primeval kingdom with its early monarchy, which is long preceded that of Israel, is brought to an end (Gen 36:31). חריה stands at the head as a kind of protasis. Edom was an elective monarchy; the hereditary nobility electing the new king. But this would be done no more. The electoral princes of Edom would come to nothing. Not a trace would be left of all that had built up the glory of Edom.

Isa 34:13-15

The allusion to the monarchy and the lofty electoral dignity leads the prophet on to the palaces and castles of the land. Starting with these, he carries out the picture of the ruins in Isa 34:13-15. “And the palaces of Edom break out into thorns, nettles and thistles in its castles; and it becomes the abode of wild dogs, pasture for ostriches. And martens meet with jackals, and a wood-devil runs upon its fellow; yea, Liiliith dwells there, and finds rest for itself. There the arrow-snake makes its nest, and breeds and lays eggs, and broods in the shadow there; yea, there vultures gather together one to another.” The feminine suffixes refer to Edom, as they did in the previous instance, as בּת־אדום or אדום ארץ. On the tannı̄m, tsiyyı̄m, and 'iyyı̄m, see at Isa 13:21-22. It is doubtful whether châtsı̄r here corresponds to the Arabic word for an enclosure (= חצר), as Gesenius, Hitzig, and others suppose, as elsewhere to the Arabic for green, a green field, or garden vegetable. We take it in the latter sense, viz., a grassy place, such as was frequented by ostriches, which live upon plants and fruits. The word tsiyyim (steppe animals) we have rendered “martens,” as the context requires a particular species of animals to be named. This is the interpretation given by Rashi (in loc.) and Kimchi in Jer 50:39 to the Targum word tamvân. We do not render 'iyyı̄m “wild cats” (chattūilin), but “jackals,” after the Arabic. קרא with על we take in the sense of קרה (as in Exo 5:3). Lı̄lı̄th (Syr. and Zab. lelitho), lit., the creature of the night, was a female demon (shēdâh) of the popular mythology; according to the legends, it was a malicious fairy that was especially hurtful to children, like some of the fairies of our own fairy tales. There is life in Edom still; but what a caricature of that which once was there! In the very spot where the princes of Edom used to proclaim the new king, satyrs now invite one another to dance (Isa 13:21); and there kings and princes once slept in their palaces and country houses, the lı̄lı̄th, which is most at home in horrible places, finds, as though after a prolonged search, the most convenient and most comfortable resting-place. Demons and serpents are not very far distant from one another. The prophet therefore proceeds in Isa 34:15 to the arrow-snake, or springing-snake (Arabic qiffâze, from qâphaz, related to qâphats, Sol 2:8, to prepare for springing, or to spring; a different word from qippōd, which has the same root). This builds its nest in the ruins; there it breeds (millēt, to let its eggs slide out) and lays eggs (bâqa‛, to split, i.e., to bring forth); and then it broods in the shade (dâgar is the Targum word in Job 39:14 for chimmēm (ithpael in Lam 1:20 for חמרמר), and is also used in the rabbinical writings for fovere, as Jerome renders it here). The literal sense of the word is probably to keep the eggs together (Targum, Jer 17:11, בּעין מכנּשׁ, lxx συνήγαγεν), since דּגר (syn. חמּר) signifies “to collect.” Rashi has therefore explained it in both passages as meaning glousser, to cluck, the noise by which a fowl calls its brood together. The dayyâh is the vulture. These fowls and most gregarious birds of prey also collect together there.

Isa 34:16-17

Whenever any one compared the prophecy with the fulfilment, they would be found to coincide. “Search in the book of Jehovah, and read! Not one of the creatures fails, not one misses the other: for my mouth - it has commanded it; and His breath - it has brought them together. And He has cast the lot for them, and His hand has assigned it (this land)to them by measure: they will possess it for ever; to generation and generation they will dwell therein.” The phrase על כּתב is used for entering in a book, inasmuch as what is written there is placed upon the page; and מעל דּרשׁ for searching in a book, inasmuch as a person leans over the book when searching in it, and gets the object of his search out of it. The prophet applied the title “The Book of Jehovah” to his collection of the prophecies with which Jehovah had inspired him, and which He had commanded him to write down. Whoever lived to see the time when the judgment should come upon Edom, would have only to look inquiringly into this holy scripture; and if he compared what was predicted there with what had been actually realized, he would find the most exact agreement between them. The creatures named, which loved to frequent the marshes and solitary places, and ruins, would all really make their homes in what had once been Edom. But the satyrs and the lı̄lı̄th, which were only the offspring of the popular belief - what of them? They, too, would be there; for in the sense intended by the prophet they were actual devils, which he merely calls by well-known popular names to produce a spectral impression. Edom would really become a rendezvous for all the animals mentioned, as well as for such unearthly spirits as those which he refers to here. The prophet, or rather Jehovah, whose temporary organ he was, still further confirms this by saying, “My mouth hath commanded it, and His breath has brought them (all these creatures) together.” As the first creating word proceeded from the mouth of Jehovah, so also does the word of prophecy, which resembles such a word; and the breath of the mouth of Jehovah, i.e., His Spirit, is the power which accomplishes the fiat of prophecy, as it did that of creation, and moulds all creatures and their history according to the will and counsel of God (Psa 33:6). In the second part of Isa 34:16 the prophet is speaking of Jehovah; whereas in the first Jehovah speaks through him - a variation which vanishes indeed if we read פּיו (Olshausen on Job 9:2), or, what would be better, פּיהוּ, but which may be sustained by a hundred cases of a similar kind. There is a shadow, as it were, of this change in the להם, which alternates with להן in connection with the animals named. The suffix of chilleqattâh (without mappik, as in 1Sa 1:6) refers to the land of Edom. Edom is, as it were, given up by a divine lot, and measured off with a divine measure, to be for ever the horrible abode of beasts and demons such as those described. A prelude of the fulfilment of this swept over the mountainous land of Edom immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem (see Köhler on Mal 1:2-5); and it has never risen to its previous state of cultivation again. It swarms with snakes, and the desolate mountain heights and barren table-lands are only inhabited by wild crows and eagles, and great flocks of birds. But the ultimate fulfilment, to which the appeal in Isa 34:16 refers, is still in the future, and will eventually fall upon the abodes of those who spiritually belong to that circle of hostility to Jehovah (Jesus) and His church, of which ancient Edom was merely the centre fixed by the prophet.

Threatenings against God's Enemies. (b. c. 720.)

1 Come 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. 2 For 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. 3 Their 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. 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 fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. 5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. 6 The 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. 7 And 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. 8 For it is the day of the Lord 's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

Here we have a prophecy, as elsewhere we have a history, of the wars of the Lord, which we are sure are all both righteous and successful. This world, as it is his creature, he does good to; but as it is in the interest of Satan, who is called the god of this world, he fights against it.

I. Here is the trumpet sounded and the war proclaimed, v. 1. All nations must hear and hearken, not only because what God is about to do is well worthy their remark (as ch. xxxiii. 13), but because they are all concerned in it; it is with them that God has a quarrel; it is against them that God is coming forth in wrath. Let them all take notice that the great God is angry with them; his indignation is upon all nations, and therefore let all nations come near to hear. The trumpet is blown in the city (Amos iii. 6), and the watchmen on the walls cry, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, Jer. vi. 17. Let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof, for it is the Lord's (Ps. xxiv. 1) and ought to hearken to its Maker and Master. The world must hear, and all things that come forth of it, the children of men, that are of the earth earthy, come out of it, and must return to it; or the inanimate products of the earth are called to, as more likely to hearken than sinners, whose hearts are hardened against the calls of God. Hear, O you mountains! the Lord's controversy, Micah vi. 2. It is so just a controversy that all the world may be safely appealed to concerning the equity of it.

II. Here is the manifesto published, setting forth,

1. Whom he makes war against (v. 2): The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations; they are all in confederacy against God and religion, all in the interests of the devil, and therefore he is angry with them all, even with all the nations that forget him. He has long suffered all nations to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. 16), but now he will no longer keep silence. As they have all had the benefit of his patience, so they must all expect now to feel his resentments. His fury is in a special manner upon all their armies, (1.) Because with them they have done mischief to the people of God; those are they that have made bloody work with them, and therefore they must be sure to have blood given them to drink. (2.) Because with them they hope to make their part good against the justice and power of God they trust to them as their defence, and therefore on them, in the first place, God's fury will come. Armies before God's fury are but as dry stubble before a consuming fire, though ever so numerous and courageous.

2. Whom he makes war for, and what are the grounds and reasons of the war (v. 8): It is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and he it is to whom vengeance belongs, and who is never unrighteous in taking vengeance, Rom. iii. 5. As there is a day of the Lord's patience, so there will be a day of his vengeance; for, though he bear long, he will not bear always. It is the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. Zion is the holy city, the city of our solemnities, a type and figure of the church of God in the world. Zion has a just quarrel with her neighbours for the wrongs they have done her, for all their treacherous and barbarous usage of her, profaning her holy things, laying waste her palaces, and slaying her sons. She has left it to God to plead her cause, and he will do so when the time, even the set time, to favour Zion shall have come; then he will recompense to her persecutors and oppressors all the mischiefs they have done her. The controversy will be decided, that Zion has been wronged, and therein Zion's God has been himself abused. Judgment will be given upon this decision, and execution done. Note, There is a time prefixed in the divine counsels for the deliverance of the church and the destruction of her enemies, a year of the redeemed, which will come, a year of recompences for the controversy of Zion; and we must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time.

III. Here are the operations of the war, and the methods of it, settled, with an infallible assurance of success. 1. The sword of the Lord is bathed in heaven; this is all the preparation here made for the war, v. 5. It may probably allude to some custom they had then of bathing their swords in some liquor or other, to harden them or brighten them; it is the same with the furbishing of it, that it may glitter, Ezek. xxi. 9-11. God's sword is bathed in heaven, in his counsel and decree, in his justice and power, and then there is not standing before it. 2. It shall come down. What he has determined shall without fail be put in execution. It shall come down from heaven, and the higher the place is, whence it comes, the heavier will it fall. It will come down upon Idumea, the people of God's curse, the people that lie under his curse and are by it doomed to destruction. Miserable, for ever miserable, are those that have by their sins made themselves the people of God's curse; for the sword of the Lord will infallibly attend the curse of the Lord and execute the sentences of it; and those whom he curses are cursed indeed. It shall come down to judgment, to execute judgment upon sinners. Note, God's sword of war is always a sword of justice. It is observed of him out of whose mouth goeth the sharp sword that in righteousness he doth judge and make war, Rev. xix. 11, 15. 3. The nations and their armies shall be given up to the sword (v. 2): God has delivered them to the slaughter, and then they cannot deliver themselves, nor can all the friends they have deliver them from it. Those only are slain whom God delivers to the slaughter, for the keys of death are in his hand; and, in delivering them to the slaughter, he has utterly destroyed them; their destruction is as sure, when God has doomed them to it, as if they were destroyed already, utterly destroyed. God has, in effect, delivered all the cruel enemies of his church to the slaughter by that word (Rev. xiii. 10), He that kills with the sword must be killed by the sword, for the Lord is righteous. 4. Pursuant to the sentence, a terrible slaughter shall be made among them (v. 6): The sword of the Lord, when it comes down with commission, does vast execution; it is filled, satiated, surfeited, with blood, the blood of the slain, and made fat with their fatness. When the day of God's abused mercy and patience is over the sword of his justice gives no quarter, spares none. Men have by sin lost the honour of the human nature and made themselves like the beasts that perish; they are therefore justly denied the compassion and respect that are owing to the human nature and killed as beasts, and no more is made of slaying an army of men than of butchering a flock of lambs or goats and feeding on the fat of the kidneys of rams. Nay, the sword of the Lord shall not only dispatch the lambs and goats, the infantry of their armies, the poor common soldiers, but (v. 7) the unicorns too shall be made to come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls, though they are ever so proud, and strong, and fierce (the great men, and the mighty men, and the chief captains Rev. vi. 15), the sword of the Lord will make as easy a prey of as of the lambs and the goats. The greatest of men are nothing before the wrath of the great God. See what bloody work will be made: The land shall be soaked with blood, as with the rain that comes often upon it and in great abundance; and their dust, their dry and barren land, shall be made fat with the fatness of men slain in their full strength, as with manure. Nay even the mountains, which are hard and rocky, shall be melted with their blood, v. 3. These expressions are hyperbolical (as St. John's vision of blood to the horse-bridles, Rev. xiv. 20), and are made use of because they sound very dreadful to sense (it makes us even shiver to think of such abundance of human gore), and are therefore proper to express the terror of God's wrath, which is dreadful beyond conception and expression. See what work sin and wrath make even in this world, and think how much more terrible the wrath to come is, which will bring down the unicorns themselves to the bars of the pit. 5. This great slaughter will be a great sacrifice to the justice of God (v. 6): The Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah; there it is that the great Redeemer has his garments dyed with blood, ch. lxiii. 1. Sacrifices were intended for the honour of God, to make it appear that he hates sin and demands satisfaction for it, and that nothing but blood will make atonement; and for these ends the slaughter is made, that in it the wrath of God may be revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, especially their ungodly unrighteous enmity to his people, which was the sin that the Edomites were notoriously guilty of. In great sacrifices abundance of beasts were killed, hecatombs offered, and their blood poured out before the altar; and so will it be in this day of the Lord's vengeance. And thus would the whole earth have been soaked with the blood of sinners if Jesus Christ, the great propitiation, had not shed his blood for us; but those who reject him, and will not make a covenant with God by that sacrifice, will themselves fall as victims to divine wrath. Damned sinners are everlasting sacrifices, Mark ix. 48, 49. Those that sacrifice not (which is the character of the ungodly, Eccl. ix. 2) must be sacrificed. 6. These slain shall be detestable to mankind, and shall be as much their loathing as ever they were their terror (v. 3): They shall be cast out, and none shall pay them the respect of a decent burial; but their stink shall come up out of their carcases, that all people by the odious smell, as well as by the ghastly sight, may be made to conceive an indignation against sin and a dread of the wrath of God. They lie unburied, that they may remain monuments of divine justice. 7. The effect and consequence of this slaughter shall be universal confusion and desolation, as if the whole frame of nature were dissolved and melted down (v. 4): All the host of heaven shall pine and waste away (so the word is); the sun shall be darkened, and the moon look black, or be turned into blood; the heavens themselves shall be rolled together as a scroll or parchment when we have done with it, and lay it by, or as when it is shrivelled up by the heat of the fire. The stars shall fall as the leaves in autumn; all the beauty, joy, and comfort, of the vanquished nation shall be lost and done away, magistracy and government shall be abolished, and all dominion and rule, but that of the sword of war, shall fall. Conquerors, in those times, affected to lay waste the countries they conquered; and such a complete desolation is here described by such figurative expressions as will yet have a literal and full accomplishment in the dissolution of all things at the end of time, of which last day of judgment the judgments which God does now sometimes remarkably execute on sinful nations are figures, earnests, and forerunners; and by these we should be awakened to think of that, for which reason these expressions are used here and Rev. vi. 12, 13. But they are used without a metaphor, 2 Pet. iii. 10, where we are told that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the earth shall be burnt up.

Threatenings against God's Enemies. (b. c. 720.)

9 And the streams thereof 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 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. 12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. 13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. 14 The 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. 15 There 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. 16 Seek 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. 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.

This prophecy looks very black, but surely it looks so further than upon Edom and Bozrah. 1. It describes the melancholy changes that are often made by the divine Providence, in countries, cities, palaces, and families. Places that have flourished and been much frequented strangely go to decay. We know not where to find the places where many great towns, celebrated in history, once stood. Fruitful countries, in process of time, are turned into barrenness, and pompous populous cities into ruinous heaps. Old decayed castles look frightful, and their ruins are almost as much dreaded as ever their garrisons were. 2. It describes the destroying judgments which are the effects of God's wrath and the just punishment of those that are enemies to his people, which God will inflict when the year of the redeemed has come, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. Those that aim to ruin the church can never do that, but will infallibly ruin themselves. 3. It describes the final desolation of this wicked world, which is reserved unto fire at the day of judgment, 2 Pet. iii. 7. The earth itself, when it, and all the works that are therein, shall be burnt up, will (for aught I know) be turned into a hell to all those that set their affections on earthly things. However, this prophecy shows us what will be the lot of the generation of God's curse.

I. The country shall become like the lake of Sodom, v. 9, 10. The streams thereof, that both watered the land and pleased and refreshed the inhabitants, shall now be turned into pitch, shall be congealed, shall look black, and shall move slowly, or not at all. Their floods to lazy streams of pitch shall turn; so Sir R. Blackmore. The dust thereof shall be turned into brimstone; so combustible has sin made their land that it shall take fire at the first spark of God's wrath struck upon it; and, when it has taken fire, it shall become burning pitch; the fire shall be universal, not a house, or town, on fire, but a whole country; and it shall not be in the power of any to suppress or extinguish it. It shall burn continually, burn perpetually, and shall not be quenched night nor day. The torment of those in hell, or that have a hell within them in their own consciences, is without interruption; the smoke of this fire goes up for ever. As long as there are provoking sinners on earth, from one generation to another, an increase of sinful men, to augment the fierce anger of the Lord (Num. xxxii. 14), there will be a righteous God in heaven to punish them for it. And as long as a people keep up a succession of sinners God will have a succession of plagues for them; nor will any that fall under the wrath of God be ever able to recover themselves. It will be found, how light soever men make of it, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If the land be doomed to destruction, none shall pass through it, but travellers will choose rather to go a great way about than come within the smell of it.

II. The cities shall become like old decayed houses, which, being deserted by the owners, look very frightful, being commonly possessed by beasts of prey or birds of ill omen. See how dismally the palaces of the enemy look; the description is peculiarly elegant and fine. 1. God shall mark them for ruin and destruction. He shall stretch out upon Bozrah the line of confusion with the stones or plummets of emptiness, v. 11. This intimates the equity of the sentence passed upon it; it is given according to the rules of justice and the exact agreeableness of the execution with the sentence; the destruction is not wrought at random, but by line and level. The confusion and emptiness that shall overspread the face of the whole country shall be like that of the whole earth when it was Tohu and Bohu (the very words here used)—without form and void. Gen. i. 2. Sin will soon turn a paradise into a chaos, and sully the beauty of the whole creation. When there is confusion there will soon be emptiness; but both are appointed by the governor of the world, and in exact proportions. 2. Their great men shall be all cut off, and none of them shall dare to appear (v. 12): They shall call the nobles of the kingdom to take care of the arduous affairs which lie before them, but none shall be there to take this ruin under their hand, and all her princes, having the sad tidings brought them, shall be nothing, shall be at their wits' end, and not be able to stand them in stead, to shelter them from destruction.

III. Even the houses of state, and those of strength, shall become as wildernesses (v. 13); not only grass shall grow, but thorns shall come up, in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and there shall be none to cut them up or tread them down. We sometimes see ruined buildings thus overgrown with rubbish. It intimates that the place shall not only be uninhabited and unfrequented where a full court used to be kept, but that it shall be under the curse of God; for thorns and thistles were the production of the curse, Gen. iii. 18.

IV. They shall become the residence and rendezvous of fearful frightful beasts and birds, which usually frequent such melancholy places, because there they may be undisturbed, and, when they are frightened thither, they help to frighten men thence. This circumstance of the desolation, being apt to strike a horror upon the mind, is much enlarged upon here, v. 11. The cormorant shall possess it, or the pelican, which affects to be solitary (Ps. cii. 6); and the bittern, which makes a hideous noise, the owl, a melancholy bird, the raven, a bird of prey, invited by the dead carcases, shall dwell there (with all the ill-boding monsters of the air, Sir R. B.), all the unclean birds, which were not for the service of man, v. 13. It shall be a habitation for dragons, which are poisonous and hurtful. And in their lofty rooms of state, Where cringing sycophants did wait, Dragons shall hiss and hungry wolves shall howl; In courts before by mighty lords possess'd The serpent shall erect his speckled crest, Or fold his circling spires to rest. Sir R. Blackmore . That which was a court for princes shall now be a court for owls or ostriches, v. 14. The wild beasts of the desert, the dry and sandy country, shall meet, as it were by appointment, with the wild beasts of the island, the wet marshy country, and shall regale themselves with such a perfect desolation as they shall find there. Leopards, and all the rav'ning brotherhoods That range the plains, or lurk in woods, Each other shall invite to come, And make this wilder place their home. Fierce beasts of every frightful shape and size Shall settle here their bloody colonies. Sir R. Blackmore . The satyr shall cry to his fellow to go with him to this desert place, or, being there, they shall please themselves that they have found such an agreeable habitation. There shall the screech-owl rest, a night-bird and an ominous one. The great owl shall there make her nest (v. 15) and lay and hatch; the breed of them shall be kept up to provide heirs for this desolate place. The vultures which feast on carcases, shall be gathered there, every one with his mate. Now observe, 1. How the places which men have deserted, and keep at a distance from, are proper receptacles for other animals, which the providence of God takes care of, and will not neglect. 2. Whom those resemble that are morose, unsociable, and unconversable, and affect a melancholy retirement; they are like these solitary creatures that take delight in desolations. 3. What a dismal change sin makes; it turns a fruitful land into barrenness, a frequented city into a wilderness.

V. Here is an assurance given of the full accomplishment of this prediction, even to the most minute circumstance of it (v. 16, 17): "Seek you out of the book of the Lord and read. When this destruction comes compare the event with the prediction, and you will find it to answer exactly." Note, The book of the prophets is the book of the Lord, and we ought to consult it and converse with it as of divine origin and authority. We must not only read it, but see out of it, search into it, turn first to one text and then to another and compare them together. Abundance of useful knowledge might thus be extracted, by a diligent search, out of the scriptures, which cannot be got by a superficial reading of them. When you have read the prediction out of the book of the Lord then observe, 1. That according to what you have read so you see; not one of these shall fail, either beast or fowl: and, it being foretold that they shall possess it from generation to generation, in order to that, that the species may be propagated, none shall want her mate; these marks of desolation shall be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the land. 2. That God's mouth having commanded this direful muster his Spirit shall gather them, as the creatures by instinct were gathered to Adam to be named and to Noah to be housed. What God's word has appointed his Spirit will effect and bring about, for no word of God shall fall to the ground. The word of God's promise shall in like manner be accomplished by the operations of the Spirit. 3. That there is an exact order and proportion observed in the accomplishment of this threatening: He has cast the lot for these birds and beasts, so that each one shall know his place as readily as if it were marked by line. See the like, Joel ii. 7, 8, They shall not break their ranks, neither shall one thrust another. The soothsayers among the heathen foretold events by the flight of birds, as if the fate of men depended on them. But here we find that the flight of birds is under the direction of the God of Israel: he has cast the lot for them. 4. That the desolation shall be perpetual: They shall possess it for ever. God's Jerusalem may be laid in ruins; but Jerusalem of old recovered itself out of its ruins, till it gave place to the gospel Jerusalem, which may be brought low, but shall be rebuilt, and shall continue till it give place to the heavenly Jerusalem. But the enemies of the church shall be for ever desolate, shall be punished with an everlasting destruction.

CHAP. XXXIV.

Ver. 1. COme near ye Nations] In this Chapter and the next, the Prophet, for the terrour of the wicked, and comfort of the godly, ſummeth up what he had ſaid before concerning the deſtruction of the enemies, and the reſtauration of the Church.Lib. 11. de praep. Evang. Euſebius (with many other Ancients) will have this Chapter to be underſtood of the end of the world and the laſt judgement: and further ſaith that Plato hath taken this place of the Prophet Iſaiah into his writings, and made it his own, Litera vero hujus vaticinii de extremo judicio non loquitur: but this cannot be the literal ſenſe of the text, ſaith Scultetus. The Jew-Doctours will needs underſtand theſe two Chapters as a Prophecy of their return into the holy land, when once Idumea ſhall be deſtroyed: and for this they alledge, Lam. 4.22. which yet proveth it not.

Ver. 2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all Nations] Is or ſhall be upon all the Churches enemies, whether of former or latter time; even his boyling wrath, as the Word ſignifieth.

He hath utterly deſtroyed them] Or, he will make an Anathema of them, as ver. 5. the people of my curſe, devoted to deſtruction.

Ver, 3. Their ſlain alſo ſhall be caſt out) Buried with the burial of an Aſſe, Jer. 22.19. which Cicero ſomewhere calleth ſepulturam inſepultam: This may alſo befall ſuch as for Gods ſake are ſlain all the day long: but to them it is no ſuch judgment; Caelo tegitur qui caret urna.

And their ſtink ſhall come up out of their carcaſſes] They ſtink alive as Goates, as whited Tombes, as walking dunghils: and now their dead carcaſſes alſo ſhall ſtink above-ground.

And the mountaines ſhall be melted with their blood] Juſtè omnino, becauſe they moiſtened the earth with the blood of Gods people, and dunged the land with their dead carcaſſes.

Ver. 4. And all the hoſt of Heaven ſhall be diſſolved] Inuſitati ſupplicii atrocitas ſic deſignatur. So great ſhall be the ſlaughter of the Nations, that the heavenly bodies ſhall ſeem to be ſenſible of it, and amazed at it, and the whole heaven to be rolled together as a ſcroll, leſt it ſhould be forced to behold it. In a bloody fight between Amurath the third, King of Turkes, and Lazarus Deſpot of Servia, many thouſands fell on both ſides: the Turkiſh Hiſtories, to expreſs the terrour of the day, vainly ſay, that the Angels in Heaven amazed with that hideous noiſe, for that time forgot the heavenly hymnes wherewith they alwayes glorifie God.

Ver. 5. For my ſword ſhall be bathed in heaven] Heb. drunk or drenched, i. e. In caelo decretum eſt ut inebrietur; whence-ſoever the ſword comes, it is bathed in Heaven, hath its commiſſion from God, Jer. 47.6, 7. See Jer. 46.9. and as a drunken man reeleth to and fro: ſo the ſword, when once in commiſſion, roveth up and down, and rideth circuit uſually, Ezek. 14.17.

Behold it ſhall come down upon Idumea] i e. Upon the Edomites who were aſſidui & acerrimi hoſtes Judaeorum, bitter enemies to the Jews, though both Nations came of Iſaac, both were circumciſed: ſo are now the Romiſh Edomites to the Churches of Chriſt, with whoſe blood they are red all over, Rev. 17. The Hebrews underſtand here by Idumea, Rome.

Ver. 6. The ſword of the Lord is filled with blood, &c.] That is, it maketh clean work: as the blood and fat were in ſacrifices conſumed, Levit. 1.16, 17. and this execution was no leſs pleaſing to God than ſome ſolemn ſacrifice.

For the Lord hath a ſacrifice in Bozrah] The Metropolis of Idumea: Ptolomy calleth it Botſra. And it prefigured Rome, ſaith Piſcator; the chief City and ſeat of Antichriſts Kingdom.

Ver. 7. And the Ʋnicornes ſhall come down] Monocerotes, qui interimi poſſunt, capi non poſſunt, creatures of untameable fierceneſs: or Rhinocerotes, as the Margent hath it: he meaneth the Great ones.

Ver. 8. For the controverſie of Zion] i. e. Of the Church both Jewiſh and Chriſtian, ſaith Piſcator: Confer, Rev. 18.2.

Alludit ad vicinam & ſ[illegible: 1 letter]tu & ſcelere & clade Sodomam. lib. 5. de bell. Jud. Geog. l. 16. Ver. 9. And the ſtreams thereof ſhall be turned into pitch] Like the Lake of Sodom which is near to Idumea; and whereof Joſephus writeth, that an Ox, having all his legs bound, will not ſink into it, the water is ſo thick and pitchy. Strabo, though a ſtranger to this Prophecy, atteſteth the accompliſhment of it. Lyra ſaith, that in ſome part of Idumea there is ſtill aſcending a ſmoke of fire and brimſtone, as out of Mount Aetna in Sicily. And Hyperius thinketh that the Edomites are here further threatned with hell-torments. It ſhould ſeem ſo by the next words.

Ver. 10. It ſhall not be quenched night nor day; the ſmoak of it ſhall go up for ever] See Revel. 14.11. and 18.18. and 19.3. And obſerve how John the Divine picks out the choiceſt paſſages of the Old Teſtament, and poliſheth therewith his Revelation.

None ſhall paſſe thorough it for ever] i. e. Incolendi animo, to dwell there: paſſengers did paſſe through it, and wondred at Gods dreadful judgments thereon, Jer. 49.17.

Ver. 11. The cormorant and the bittern ſhall poſſeſſe it] God cannot ſatisfie himſelf in ſaying what he will do to the Edomites, becauſe they had dealt by revenge, and had taken vengeance with a despightful heart to deſtroy the Church, for the old Satanical hatred, as Ezek 25.15. He will turn in thoſe animalia faeda, fera & terribelia, to dwell in their land; whereby is noted extream devaſtation, which is here in many exquiſite words (more propemodum Poetico) deſcribed.

And he ſhall ſtretch out upon it] So that men ſhall in vain think of rebuilding and repeopling it.

Ver. 12. They ſhall call the Nobles thereof to the Kingdom] The Venetians have Magiſtrates called Pregadi; becauſe at firſt men were prayed to take the office, and to help to govern the State: but here were none left for ſuch a purpoſe.

Ver. 13. A Court for Owles] Or, Oſtritches: ſee on ver. 11.

Ver. 14. The wild beaſts of the deſart] Heb. Ziim & Jiim: See Chap. 12.21, 22. where theſe monſtrous creatures are ſaid to dance: whence Baſil noteth, that men learned of devils to dance:Conr. Clingius. And another ſaith, that a dance is a circle; the centre whereof is the devil, the circumference, all his Angels.

And the Satyr ſhall cry to his fellow] Heb. the rough or hairy one. Chald. Daemones inter ſe colludent, the devils ſhall play among themſelves, Satan is a rough harſh ſpirit, ſo are his, See Levit. 17.7.

Ver. 15. There ſhall the great Owle make her neſt] Heb. Kippoz. The Hebrews themſelves agree not what creatures theſe are here mentioned: ſo far are they faln from the knowledge of the Scripture: Their tale about Lilits (once Adams firſt wife, but now a ſcriech-Owle or an evil ſpirit) is not worthy the mentioning.

Ver. 16. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord] Sciſcitamini ex libro Domini, the Holy Bible: which Biſhop Bonneri Chaplain called in ſcorn of the Martyrs, Your little pretty Gods-book: Another Bohemian blaſphemer for Biblia called it Vitlia: which in the Bohemian language ſignifieth Vomit. But let us ſearch the Scriptures, (and particularly this Prophecy commanded to be written in a book, chap. 30.8.) and compare the truth of theſe predictions with the events.

None ſhall want her mate] Some write of the Aſp, he never wandreth alone without his companion; and none of theſe birds of deſolation want their mate: ſo craft and cruelty do ever go together in the Churches enemies.

Ver. 17. And he hath caſt the lot for them] i. e. For thoſe creatures of prey aforementioned.

From generation] i. e. For many generations.