Text -- Isaiah 34:1-11 (NET)

The Lord Will Judge Edom

34:1 Come near, you nations, and listen! Pay attention, you people! The earth and everything it contains must listen, the world and everything that lives in it. 34:2 For the Lord is angry at all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will annihilate them and slaughter them. 34:3 Their slain will be left unburied, their corpses will stink; the hills will soak up their blood. 34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, the sky will roll up like a scroll; all its stars will wither, like a leaf withers and falls from a vine or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 34:5 He says, “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. Look, it now descends on Edom, on the people I will annihilate in judgment.” 34:6 The Lord’s sword is dripping with blood, it is covered with fat; it drips with the blood of young rams and goats and is covered with the fat of rams’ kidneys. For the Lord is holding a sacrifice in Bozrah, a bloody slaughter in the land of Edom. 34:7 Wild oxen will be slaughtered along with them, as well as strong bulls. Their land is drenched with blood, their soil is covered with fat. fat. 34:8 For the Lord has planned a day of revenge, a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion. 34:9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch and her soil into brimstone; her land will become burning pitch. 34:10 Night and day it will burn; its smoke will ascend continually. Generation after generation it will be a wasteland and no one will ever pass through it again. 34:11 Owls and wild animals will live there, all kinds of wild birds will settle in it. The Lord will stretch out over her the measuring line of ruin and the plumb line of destruction.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 34:1

¹ tn Heb “the world and its offspring”; NASB “the world and all that springs from it.”

NET Notes: Isa 34:3

¹ tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”

² tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”

³ tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”

NET Notes: Isa 34:4

¹ tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”

² tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

NET Notes: Isa 34:5

¹ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.

² tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] my sword is drenched in the heavens.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has תראה (“[my sword] appeared [in the heavens]”), but this is apparently an attempt to make sense out of a difficult metaphor. Cf. NIV “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.”

sn In v. 4 the “host of the heaven” refers to the heavenly luminaries (stars and planets, see, among others, Deut 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kgs 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:4-5; 2 Chr 33:3, 5) that populate the divine/heavenly assembly in mythological and prescientific Israelite thought (see Job 38:7; Isa 14:13). As in 24:21, they are viewed here as opposing God and being defeated in battle.

³ sn Edom is mentioned here as epitomizing the hostile nations that oppose God.

NET Notes: Isa 34:6

¹ tn The verb is a rare Hotpaal passive form. See GKC 150 §54.h.

² tn The words “it drips” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

³ tn The words “and is covered” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn Heb “for there is a sacrifice to the Lord.”

⁵ sn The Lord’s judgment of Edom is compared to a bloody sacrificial scene.

⁶ tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

NET Notes: Isa 34:7

¹ tn Heb “will go down”; NAB “shall be struck down.”

² tn Heb “and bulls along with strong ones.” Perhaps this refers to the leaders.

NET Notes: Isa 34:8

¹ tn Heb “for a day of vengeance [is] for the Lord.”

² tn Heb “a year of repayment for the strife of Zion.” The translation assumes that רִיב (riv) refers to Edom’s hostility toward Zion. Another option is to understand רִיב (riv) as referring to the Lord’s taking up Zion’s cause. In this case one might translate, “a time when he will repay Edom and vindicate Zion.”

NET Notes: Isa 34:9

¹ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Edom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Isa 34:10

¹ tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”

NET Notes: Isa 34:11

¹ tn קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (cf. Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). קִפּוֹד (qippod) may also refer to a type of bird (NAB “hoot owl”; NIV “screech owl”; TEV “ravens”), but some have suggested a rodent may be in view (cf. NCV “small animals”; ASV “porcupine”; NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”).

² tn Heb “will possess it” (so NIV).

³ tn The Hebrew text has יַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב (yanshof vÿ’orev). Both the יַנְשׁוֹף (“owl”; see Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16) and עֹרֵב (“raven”; Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14) were types of wild birds.

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “stones,” i.e., the stones used in a plumb bob.

⁶ sn The metaphor in v. 11b emphasizes that God has carefully planned Edom’s demise.