Isaiah 34:2

34:2 For the Lord is angry at all the nations

and furious with all their armies.

He will annihilate them and slaughter them.

Isaiah 34:4

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.

Isaiah 45:12

45:12 I made the earth,

I created the people who live on it.

It was me – my hands stretched out the sky,

I give orders to all the heavenly lights.


tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa 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.”

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

tn The words “who live” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

tn Heb “I, even my hands”; NASB “I stretched out…with My hands”; NRSV “it was my hands that stretched out.” The same construction occurs at the beginning of v. 13.

tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

tn Heb “and to all their host I commanded.” See the notes at 40:26.