This section concludes the major section of Isaiah that deals with God's sovereignty over the nations of the world (chs. 13-35). Here the lessons stand out clearly. Pride leads to humiliation whereas trust in the Lord results in exaltation (cf. Matt. 23:12). Chapters 34-35 bring to a head chapters 28-33 as chapters 24-27 topped off chapters 13-23.
"These two chapters form a fitting climax to the judgment and salvation motifs which have been spoken of extensively by Isaiah. . . . Discussion of the judgment on Assyria (30:27-33; 31:8-9; 33:1, 18-19) naturally led to a discussion of God's judgment on the whole world in the Tribulation. God's vengeance on the world will be followed by millennial blessing on His covenant people, Israel."328
These themes of judgment and blessing, of course, were prominent in the sixth "woe,"so there is a strong connection with what precedes in chapter 33. Chapters 34 and 35 present the contrasting images of a productive land turned into a desert (ch. 34) and a desert turned into a garden (ch. 35).
"To align oneself with the nations of the earth is to choose a desert; to trust in God is to choose a garden."329
This poem depicts the effects of Yahweh's wrath on the self-exalting nations. His judgment will be universal (vv. 1-4). Isaiah particularized it with reference to Edom, a representative nation (vv. 5-17; cf. 25:10-12).
"Here we have depicted the scene of carnage that will ensue upon the Battle of Armageddon."330
"This chapter is remarkable for its combination of the general and the particular, the universal and the local. It reminds us of the Greek word hekastos(each one individually') used in so many descriptions of judgment in the NT."331
34:1 Isaiah called everyone in the world to hear what follows (cf. 1:2; Ps. 25:1; 96:1-3; 97:1; 98:1-2, 4). It has universal significance and scope.
34:2 The first reason (cf. vv. 5, 6, 8) everyone should listen is that the Lord is very angry with the nations. He has determined to devote them to destruction, to put them under the ban (Heb. herem; cf. 11:15; Josh. 6:21; 1 Sam. 15:3).
"In the Hebrew setting at least two implications [of the ban] are significant: spoils are devoted to God to show that God alone has won a battle (Jericho); when a nation has deliberately blocked the flow of God's love to the world, it forfeits itself into God's hands (Amalek)."332
What humankind must hear, then, is a sentence of judgment on the whole earth (cf. Ps. 2:9).
34:3 The blood of the slain nations will stink and soak the mountains of the earth in such quantities that they run red. Unburied corpses were, and still are, shameful things (cf. Rev. 19:17-18).
34:4 Evidently the whole universe will be involved in this judgment. The Lord will roll up the heavens like a scroll that He has finished reading. The sun, moon, and stars will wither and fall like grapes or figs (cf. Matt. 24:29; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 6:13-14). This implies also the destruction of the pantheon of gods that these heavenly bodies represented in the ancient world.
The prophet now introduced Edom, as a case in point, whose end would be typical of the whole earth (cf. 11:14; 63:1-6). If Edom alone had been in view, Isaiah probably would have dealt with it as he did the other nations in the oracles earlier in the book (chs. 13-23). But why Edom? The Old Testament consistently treats Edom as the antithesis of Israel (cf. Obad.). Isaac told Esau that he would live in an infertile area (Gen. 27:39-40).
"Recollecting 29:22 and the establishing of the family of Jacob, the overthrow of the people of Esau makes the end the exact fulfilment [sic] of what was promised at the beginning (Gn. 25:23)."333
34:5 A second reason for God's worldwide judgment is that when His sword, a symbol of His judgment (cf. Deut. 32:41-43; Josh. 5:13; Judg. 7:20), has done all it can do to the heavenly host, it will fall on the nations represented by Edom.334Humans must pay. Everyone belongs to God. If human beings do not submit to Him voluntarily, He will force them to do so against their wills. This will be God's judgment on the world for rebelling against Him.
34:6-7 Using sacrificial imagery, the Lord in judgment will seek what is peculiarly his. He will take what He alone has a right to take. Sin is a matter of life and death. All sin must be atoned for with sacrificial blood (cf. Lev. 4:1-12; Isa. 53). Those who repudiate the sacrifice of Christ for their sins will forfeit their own lives as sacrifices to God. A sacrifice is necessary, therefore, third, if the demands of divine holiness are to be met. No rebel would be spared. Bozrah (modern Buseirah), the capital of Edom, stood about 25 miles south southeast of the Dead Sea.
"He who really takes offense at what is here related has no true conception of the heinous character of sinful rebellion against the Holy One of Israel."335
34:8 A fourth reason for this slaughter is that the Lord will take vengeance on those who have trodden down Zion. He will act for His people against those who have cursed them (cf. Gen. 12:3). Even though we do not know when this will happen, God has a timetable for this judgment and will keep to it.
34:9-10 The prophet described Edom's overthrow in terms reminiscent of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (cf. Gen. 19:24-28; Deut. 29:23; Ps. 11:6; Jer. 49:18; Rev. 14:10-11), which lay in the same general direction as Edom from Jerusalem. Edom's actions brought on this destruction. The world's end will be total, and its territory will be uninhabitable from then on (cf. Lev. 6:13).336Human sin affects humanity's environment.
34:11-13 Human leaders will be no more, and only wild animals and weeds will occupy the land (cf. 13:21-22; 14:23). "Desolation"and "emptiness"(Heb. tohuand bohu, cf. Gen. 1:2) point to conditions that existed before Creation. Measuring the land indicates that the Lord has a standard by which He evaluates its inhabitants and metes it out to whomever He will (cf. v. 17).
34:14-15 So devoid of human population will the earth be that animals that people have tried to control in the past will be safe enough to multiply. Even the goat demon and the night monster, representing the most detestable animals, will roam the land.337
34:16-17 In closing, Isaiah's thought turned back to verse 1. Those summoned to listen to this remarkable revelation might need to assure themselves of its certainty by referring to the written record of it in this prophecy and elsewhere (cf. 13:21-22). The Lord's mouth commanded this judgment, and His Spirit will execute it (cf. Gen. 1:2). God sovereignly gave Canaan to His people, and in the future He will give the Edoms of this world to the desert creatures.
How does this picture of devastation so thorough that no human beings remain alive harmonize with other revelation concerning the Tribulation? According to Revelation 6:8 and 9:18 half of the world's population will have perished by the end of the sixth trumpet judgment. Many more devastating judgments will fall on earth-dwellers after the sixth trumpet judgment, specifically the seven bowl judgments, the worst ones of all in the Tribulation. Therefore what Isaiah pictured may be what the earth will look like at the very end of the Tribulation, just before Jesus Christ returns to the earth. There will be some people left alive on the earth then, but Isaiah's description was perhaps hyperbolic to make the point that God will judge all the earth's inhabitants.338
In contrast to the preceding chapter, this one is full of joy and rejoicing. There God turned the world into a desert; here He transforms that desert into a garden.339References to "be glad"and "gladness"begin and end the poem forming an inclusio. "Shout of joy,""shout for joy,"and "joyful shouting"appear at the beginning (v. 2), middle (v. 6), and end (v. 10). The structure is chiastic centering on hope (vv. 5-6). However, Isaiah tantalized his readers by offering images that create questions in our minds that only reading further solves. The chapter increasingly builds to an intellectual resolution and an emotional climax in the last verse.
35:1-2 References to the wilderness and desert tie this chapter to the preceding one. The wilderness that God so thoroughly judged, personified here, will eventually rejoice because it will blossom profusely. The beauty and glory that formerly marked Lebanon and Carmel, before the devastation of chapter 34, will mark these places again, but more so. Their transformation, at God's hand, will enable them to appreciate the inherent value and majestic dignity of Israel's sovereign Lord (cf. Rom. 8:13-25).
"If we will give God his glory, then he will give his to us."340
35:3-4 Those who are alive at the end of the Tribulation will be a small remnant of believers and some unbelievers. Isaiah called the reader to encourage the exhausted and feeble believers of his or her time. They would need to keep their eyes on God. God would come to take vengeance for them and to deliver them (cf. Deut. 31:6-7, 23; Josh. 1:6-7, 9, 18; Rev. 13:9-10; 14:12). He would reward them; they will enter Messiah's millennial kingdom.
35:5-6b The former limitations of these believers will end, and they will rejoice (cf. 6:9-10; 29:9-12, 18; 65:20; Luke 7:18-23; Acts 3:8).
35:6c-7 Water breaking out in the arid wilderness and Arabah would be a sign of blessings that they would shortly experience (cf. vv. 1-2; 41:18; 43:19-20; 44:3-4; Deut. 28:1-14). The desolate resting place where only jackals lived would become verdant with grassy growth. Reversal and transformation will mark this time.
35:8 A highway will be there leading through the then lush landscape to Zion (v. 10). It will be for the ransomed of the Lord (v. 10) to travel to Messiah's capital. It will be a highway marked by holiness because only redeemed people will travel on it. Fools, the morally perverse, will not wander onto it because they are unholy. Is this a literal road? It may be, but it certainly pictures God's people at that time streaming to Zion through a renovated earth.
35:9-10 Nothing will threaten or endanger the redeemed as they travel the holy highway to the holy city.341They will come rejoicing into Zion, the New Jerusalem, where there will be no more sorrow or sighing, just unbreakable happiness, gladness, and joyful shouting (cf. 51:11; Ps. 23:6; Ezek. 36:24-28; 40-44; Zech. 14:16-19; Rev. 21:1-4).
While what Isaiah described here parallels to a limited extent the Jews' return from Babylonian captivity, the context of the chapter as well as its terminology point to a fulfillment in the future that the return only prefigured. Another foreview was the streaming of pilgrims to Jerusalem from all over the world to celebrate the annual feasts of Judaism.342
Verse 10 not only climaxes chapter 35 but also the whole section of Isaiah dealing with God's sovereignty over the nations (chs. 13-35).
"Chs. 7-12 posed a question: Is God Sovereign of the nations?' Can God deliver from an Assyria? Or is he just one more of the gods, waiting to be gobbled up by a bigger god? In short, can God be trusted? Chs. 13-35 have sought to answer that question in four main sections: chs. 13-23; 24-27; 28-33; 34-35. In the first, God's lordship over each of the nations is asserted. In the second, it is shown that God is not merely the reactor to the nations, but is in fact the sovereign Actor on the world's stage. In the third, the superiority of God's counsel over that of the merely human leaders is shown. Finally, the last two chapters show the ultimate results of the two courses of action, with ch. 35 ending at exactly the same point as chs. 11-12, with the promise that God can, and will, redeem. He may be trusted. However, the issue remains: is this merely abstraction or can it become concrete reality? Ahaz had proved that the nations cannot be trusted. But what of God? Can his trustworthiness be demonstrated or only asserted? Must his promises for the distant future be clung to blindly or can an earnest of their reality be experienced now? This is what chs. 36-39 are about."343
