Destruction of the Gentile World
June 21, 2025
Commentary
This chapter includes an invitation of the nations (v. 1), God’s coming judgment on the nations (vv. 2-4), and an announcement of judgment on Edom (vv. 5-17). The Lord invited all nations and people to hear (v. 1). He was angry, condemning them to be slaughtered. Their blood would flow down the mountains (vv. 2-3). Then He prophesied of how catastrophic events in the sky will accompany the Lord’s return to the earth to establish His millennial reign (v. 4). Isaiah uses Edom as an example of God’s judgment (v. 5). The destruction of Edom mentioned here is a picture of the ultimate end of all who oppose God and His people (vv. 6-7). This section of Isaiahās prophesy depicts the world-wide carnage of the Battle of Armageddon (vv. 8-10).
Because Edom became a perpetual enemy of Israel (Ez. 36:5) she was an appropriate example of what the Lord will do to all nations that fight against His people (vv. 11-15). Isaiah referred to the prophecies that God commanded him to write down as the ābook of the Lordā (v. 16). While he focused especially on Edom, he was using that proud nation as an example of what God would do to all the Gentile nations during the coming of the Lord. As a result of God’s judgment on Edom, the end will lie desolate for many generations (v. 17).
Application
Prophecy predicts and history reveals what has been in God's mind for all time. I am looking forward to the rapture of the church and spending all eternity with my Savior.
Isaiah 34:1–17 (NET)
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.
2 For the Lord is angry at all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will annihilate them and slaughter them.
3 Their slain will be left unburied, their corpses will stink; the hills will soak up their blood.
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.
5 He says, āIndeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. Look, it now descends on Edom, on the people I will annihilate in judgment.ā
6 The Lordās 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 ramsā kidneys. For the Lord is holding a sacrifice in Bozrah, a bloody slaughter in the land of Edom.
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.
8 For the Lord has planned a day of revenge, a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion.
9 Edomās streams will be turned into pitch and her soil into brimstone; her land will become burning pitch.
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.
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.
12 Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom, and all her officials will disappear.
13 Her fortresses will be overgrown with thorns; thickets and weeds will grow in her fortified cities. Jackals will settle there; ostriches will live there.
14 Wild animals and wild dogs will congregate there; wild goats will bleat to one another. Yes, nocturnal animals will rest there and make for themselves a nest.
15 Owls will make nests and lay eggs there; they will hatch them and protect them. Yes, hawks will gather there, each with its mate.
16 Carefully read the scroll of the Lord! Not one of these creatures will be missing, none will lack a mate. For the Lord has issued the decree, and his own spirit gathers them.
17 He assigns them their allotment; he measures out their assigned place. They will live there permanently; they will settle in it through successive generations.