Isaiah 34:1-6

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. ¹ 

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, ² 

their corpses will stink; ³ 

the hills will soak up their blood. ⁴ 

34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, ⁵ 

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. ⁶ 

34:5 He says, ⁷  “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. ⁸ 

Look, it now descends on Edom, ⁹ 

on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”

34:6 The Lord’s sword is dripping with blood,

it is covered ¹⁰  with fat;

it drips ¹¹  with the blood of young rams and goats

and is covered ¹²  with the fat of rams’ kidneys.

For the Lord is holding a sacrifice ¹³  in Bozrah, ¹⁴ 

a bloody ¹⁵  slaughter in the land of Edom.

[34:1]  ¹ tn Heb “the world and its offspring”; NASB “the world and all that springs from it.”

[34:3]  ² tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”

[34:3]  ³ tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”

[34:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”

[34:4]  ⁵ 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.”

[34:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

[34:5]  ⁷ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.

[34:5]  ⁸ 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.”

[34:5]  ⁹ sn Edom is mentioned here as epitomizing the hostile nations that oppose God.

[34:6]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is a rare Hotpaal passive form. See GKC 150 §54.h.

[34:6]  ¹¹ tn The words “it drips” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ¹² tn The words “and is covered” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “for there is a sacrifice to the Lord.”

[34:6]  ¹⁴ sn The Lord’s judgment of Edom is compared to a bloody sacrificial scene.

[34:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).