Isaiah 34

Isaiah calls all the nations to hear God’s coming judgment. It falls on every nation that stands against Him, and then on Edom in particular, a picture of proud opposition to God and His people. The land becomes a wasteland, but the chapter ends with God’s word standing firm and every detail fulfilled as He has ordered.

Isaiah 34:1

The whole world is summoned like a courtroom audience. What God is about to do concerns every nation and everything on earth, not Israel alone. The call is to listen and take it seriously, because God’s verdict is about to be announced.

BSA: listen (“hear and obey”): The listening God asks for is not mere hearing but a response that takes His word to heart.

See also: Psalm 2:1-2.

Isaiah 34:2

God’s anger is aimed at all the nations and their armies, because they have set themselves against Him. To devote something to destruction means giving it over wholly to God’s judgment, so that it is no longer left in human hands.

BSA: devote (“utterly destroy, put under the ban”): The nations are placed under God’s ban, set apart entirely for His judgment.

Hebrew: הֶחֱרִימָם (heḥĕrîmām, H2763) — “put under the ban, devoted to destruction.” This word describes something set apart wholly to God, and judgment is the form that dedication takes. It shows that this is God’s act and not a human war.

Isaiah 34:3

The picture is grim on purpose. Corpses lie unburied, the stench rises, and blood runs down the hills. Isaiah wants us to feel how serious sin and rebellion are before the holy God.

BSA: unburied (“cast out, thrown away”): The dead are simply thrown out, which shows the shame and finality of the judgment.

Isaiah 34:4

The judgment reaches beyond earth to the sky itself. The stars fall like dried leaves, and the heavens roll up like a scroll. Isaiah shows that nothing in creation stands firm against God, and that the whole order of things answers to Him.

BSA: rolled up (“folded together”): The sky is folded away like a finished document, as though God simply closes it.

See also: Revelation 6:13-14; Matthew 24:29.

Isaiah 34:5

God’s sword is first satisfied in heaven, which suggests that His judgment begins with the powers above. Then it comes down on Edom. Edom was the nation descended from Esau and long hostile to Israel, and here it stands for all who oppose God’s people.

BSA: Edom (“Idumea, the region of Esau’s descendants”): The name recalls Esau, Jacob’s brother, and the long family quarrel between the two nations.

See also: Obadiah 1:10; Genesis 25:30.

Isaiah 34:6

The judgment is described as a great sacrifice, with blood and fat of lambs, goats and rams, as at the altar. Bozrah was a leading city of Edom. Here the slain are the offering, and God Himself is the one who presents it.

BSA: sacrifice (“offering to God”): The slaughter is pictured as an offering, so judgment is treated as a holy act and not as chaos.

See also: Jeremiah 49:13.

Isaiah 34:7

Even the mighty are brought down. The wild oxen and young bulls stand for Edom’s strong leaders and warriors. The land is so soaked with blood and fat that the ground itself seems to drink it in.

BSA: strong ones (“mighty, powerful”): Strength is no defense. The powerful fall with the rest.

Isaiah 34:8

God sets a time for putting things right. He takes up the cause of Zion, His people, who have been wronged. His judgment is not random anger. It is justice for those who suffered, and it means that wrongs are not forgotten.

BSA: recompense (“payment, reward, restitution”): It carries the sense of setting things right, as well as paying back.

See also: Isaiah 63:4; Romans 12:19.

Isaiah 34:9-10

Edom’s streams turn to pitch and its soil to burning sulfur, in a picture that recalls Sodom. The fire never goes out and the smoke keeps rising. The land stays empty from one generation to the next. It is a picture of judgment that is final and complete.

BSA: sulfur (“brimstone, burning stone”): Burning brimstone recalls the fire that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. forever (“for all eternity, always”): The smoke rising shows that this judgment has no end in view.

See also: Genesis 19:24-28; Revelation 14:11.

Isaiah 34:11

Where people once lived, wild birds now take over. God stretches His measuring line over Edom, as a builder would, but He measures for ruin and not for building. The words for chaos and destruction echo the empty, formless earth at the beginning.

BSA: chaos (“formlessness, emptiness”): The land returns to the empty state it had before God shaped the world.

Hebrew: תֹהוּ (tōhû, H8414) — “formless, empty waste.” This is the word used in Genesis 1:2 for the earth before God shaped it. Edom is taken back to that empty state.

See also: Genesis 1:2.

Isaiah 34:12

Edom’s rulers will have nothing left to rule. No one remains of noble rank to name a king, and the princes come to nothing. The proud houses that once held power are gone.

BSA: nothing (“emptiness, void”): Their authority ends in emptiness, matching the emptiness of the land.

Isaiah 34:13

The towers and fortresses once made Edom feel safe. Now thorns, thistles and briers grow over them, and jackals and ostriches live there. Human strength fades, and wild nature takes back what people built.

BSA: fortresses (“strongholds, fortified places”): The places built for security become the places where weeds and wild animals live.

See also: Obadiah 1:3-4.

Isaiah 34:14

Desert creatures meet and call to one another in the empty ruins. The list includes a night creature, which some Bible versions name differently, and the exact animal is uncertain. The point is that only wild, lonely things now live where people once did.

BSA: night creature (“Lilith, night-monster”): Some read this as a night spirit from ancient stories, which would add to the sense of a haunted, forsaken place.

Isaiah 34:15

The ruins are not simply dead. Animals nest and raise their young there, and birds of prey gather in pairs. Life goes on in the wasteland, but it is the life of wild creatures, not of the people who once lived there.

BSA: mate (“companion, female neighbor”): Each creature has its companion, which prepares for the promise in the next verse.

Isaiah 34:16

Isaiah tells the reader to look in the scroll of the LORD and see that every word comes true. Not one creature will lack a mate, because God has commanded it and His Spirit brings them together. What God has spoken He carries out in every detail.

BSA: Spirit (“breath, divine presence”): The same word means breath, wind and Spirit, so God’s own breath carries out what His mouth commands. Search (“diligently, thoroughly”): The reader is urged to check carefully and see that God’s word proves true.

Hebrew: רוּחוֹ (rûḥô, H7307) — “His Spirit, His breath.” One Hebrew word covers breath, wind and Spirit. The mouth gives the command and the breath carries it out.

See also: Isaiah 55:11.

Isaiah 34:17

God divides the land among the creatures as a surveyor would, with a line and by lot. Their place is fixed and lasting. The chapter ends by showing that even in judgment God is in full control, and nothing is outside His plan.

BSA: allotted (“cast the lot for, assigned”): Each creature’s place is given by God’s own choice, as Israel’s tribes once received their land.

See also: Joshua 18:6.