Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 34

Come near, ye nations, to hear - This means to hear of the judgments God was about to execute and the great purposes He was about to accomplish. If the supposition is correct that this and the following chapter contain a summary of all that the prophet had spoken up to this point—a declaration that all the enemies of God's people would be destroyed, the most violent and bitter of whom was Idumea, and that this was to be followed by the happy times of the Messiah—then we see a clear reason why all the nations are summoned to hear and pay attention.

These events pertain to them all; the truths communicated are of universal interest. And all that is therein. The Hebrew, as noted in the margin, is ‘its fullness;’ that is, all the inhabitants of the earth.

All things that come forth of it - All that proceed from it; that is, all the inhabitants that the world has produced. The Septuagint renders it: The world and the people ὁ λαὸς (ho laos) who are therein.

For the indignation of the Lord - Yahweh is about to express his wrath against all the nations which are opposed to his people.

He hath utterly destroyed them - In his purpose, or intention. The prophet represents this as so certain that it may be exhibited as already done.

Their slain also shall be cast out - They would lie unburied. The slaughter would be so extensive, and the desolation would be so entire, that there would not remain enough to bury the dead (compare the notes at Isaiah 14:19).

And the mountains shall be melted with their blood - The expression here is evidently hyperbolical, and means that as mountains and hills are wasted away by descending showers and impetuous torrents, so the hills would be washed away by the vast quantity of blood that would be shed by the anger of Yahweh.

And all the host of heaven - On the word ‘host’ (צבא tsâbâ'), see the note at Isaiah 1:9. The heavenly bodies often represent kings and princes (compare the note at Isaiah 24:21).

Shall be dissolved - (ינמקוּ v^enâmaqqû). This figure Vitringa supposes to be taken from the common assumption by which the stars appear to be crystals, or gems, set in the azure vault of heaven, which may melt and flow down by the application of heat. The sense is that the princes and nobles who had opposed God and His people would be destroyed, as if the sparkling stars, like gems, should melt in the heavens and flow down to the earth.

And the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll - The word ‘scroll’ here (ספר sêpher) means a roll, or a book. Books were made of parchment, leaves, etc., and were rolled together instead of being bound, as they are with us. The figure here is taken from what strikes the eye: that the heaven above us is “an expanse” (רקיע râqı̂ya‛) (Genesis 1:8; Psalms 104:2), which is spread out, and which might be rolled together and thus pass away.

It is possible that there may be a reference also to the fact that in a storm, when the sky is filled with dark, rolling clouds, the heavens seem to be rolled together and to be passing away. The sense is that there would be great destruction among those high in office and in power—a destruction that would be well represented by the rolling up of the firmament, the destruction of the visible heavens and their host, and by leaving the world to ruin and night.

And all their host shall fall down - That is, their stars: either by being, as it were, melted, or by the fact that the expanse in which they are apparently located would be rolled up and removed, and, there being no fixtures for them, they would fall. The same image occurs in Revelation 6:13. A somewhat similar one occurs in Virgil, Georgics 1:365 and following.

As the leaf falls off from the vine... - That is, in a storm, or when violently shaken.

For my sword shall be bathed in heaven - A sword is an instrument of vengeance, and is often so used in the Scriptures, because it was often employed in capital punishments (see the note at Isaiah 27:1). This passage has given much perplexity to commentators, on account of the apparent want of meaning of the expression that the sword would be bathed in heaven. Lowth reads it:

For my sword is made bare in the heavens;

Following in this the Chaldee which reads תתגלי tı̂thgallı̂y — ‘shall be revealed.’ But there is no authority from manuscripts for this change in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate renders it, Quoniam inebriatus est in coelo gladius meus - ‘My sword is intoxicated in heaven.’ The Septuagint renders it in the same way, Ἐμεθύσθη ἡ μάχαιρά μον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ Emethusthē hē machaira mou en tō ouranō; and the Syriac and Arabic in the same manner. The Hebrew word רוּתה riv^etâh — from רוה râvâh — means properly to drink to the full; to be satisfied, or sated with drink; and then to be full or satiated with intoxicating liquor, to be drunk. It is applied to the sword, as satiated or made drunk with blood, in Jeremiah 46:10:

And the sword shall devour,
And it shall be satiate, and made drunk with their blood.

And thus in Deuteronomy 32:42, a similar figure is used respecting arrows, the instruments also of war and vengeance:

I will make mine arrows drunk with blood;
And my sword shall devour flesh.

A similar figure is often used in Oriental writers, where the sword is represented as glutted, satiated, or made drunk with blood (see Rosenmuller on Deuteronomy 32:42). Thus Bohaddinus, in the life of Saladin, in describing a battle in which there was a great slaughter, says, ‘The swords drank of their blood until they were intoxicated.’

The idea here, however, is not that the Lord’s sword was made drunk with blood in heaven. Instead, it means the sword was intoxicated or made furious with wrath. It was stirred up like an intoxicated man who is under ungovernable passions.

It was in heaven that the wrath began, and the sword of divine justice rushed forth as if intoxicated, to destroy all before it. There are few figures, even in Isaiah, that are more bold than this.

It shall come down upon Idumea - (see the Analysis of the chapter for the situation of Idumea, and for the causes why it was to be devoted to destruction).

Upon the people of my curse - The people devoted to destruction.