Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 34

Come near, ye nations, to hear ... — The two chapters that follow have a distinct character of their own. They form, as it were, the closing epilogue of the first great collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, with the historical section that follows (Isaiah 36-39) serving as a link between them and the great second volume, which comes as an independent whole.

Here, accordingly, we are dealing with what belongs to a transition period, probably the closing years of the reign of Hezekiah. The Egyptian alliance and the attack of Sennacherib are now in the background, and the prophet’s vision takes a wider range.

In the destruction of the Assyrian army, he sees the pledge and earnest of the fate of all who fight against God. As a representative instance of such enemies, he focuses on Edom, then, as ever, foremost among the enemies of Judah.

They had invaded that kingdom in the days of Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:17). The inscriptions of Sennacherib (Lenormant, Anc. Hist., i. 399) show that they submitted to him. They probably played a part in his invasion of Judah, in his attack on Jerusalem, analogous to that which drew down the bitter curse of the Babylonian exiles (Psalms 137:7).

These chapters are also noticeable for having served as a model both to Zephaniah throughout his prophecy and to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:0; Jeremiah 46:3–12; Jeremiah 50 and 51), parallels that we will encounter as we proceed.

The prophecy opens, as was natural, with a wider appeal. The lesson which Isaiah has to teach is one for all time and for all nations: They that take the sword shall perish by the sword. There rises before his eyes once more the vision of a day of great slaughter, such as the world had never known before, the putrid carcasses of the slain covering the earth, as they had covered Tophet, the Valley of Hinnom, after the pestilence had done its work on Sennacherib’s army. (Compare, as an instance of similar hyperbole, the vision of the destruction of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 39:11-16.)

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved ... —No prophetic picture of a “day of the Lord” was complete without this symbolism , probably written about this period. Like the psalmist (Psalms 102:26), Isaiah contrasts the transitoriness of sun, moon, and stars, with the eternity of Jehovah. The Greek poets sing that the “life of the generations of men is as the life of the leaves of the trees” (Homer, Il. vi. 146). To Isaiah’s sublime thoughts there came the vision of a time when even the host of heaven would fall as a leaf from the vine, and as a fig from the fig-tree.

My sword shall be bathed in heaven ... —Literally, has drunk to the full. The words find an echo in Deuteronomy 32:41-42, and Jeremiah 46:10. There, however, the sword is soaked, or made drunk with blood. Here it is “bathed in heaven,” and this seems to require a different meaning. We read in Greek poets of the “dippings” by which steel was tempered. May not the “bathing” of Isaiah have a similar significance?

It shall come down upon Idumea ... —Better, for Edom, ... here and in the next verse. No reason can be assigned for this exceptional introduction of the Greek form.

The Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah ... — Two cities of this name appear in history; one in the Haurân, more or less conspicuous in ecclesiastical history, and the other, of which Isaiah now speaks, in Edom. It was a strongly fortified city, and is named again and again. (Amos 1:12; Jeremiah 49:13; Jeremiah 49:22.) The image both of the sword and the sacrifice appears in Jeremiah 46:10.

And the unicorns shall come down with them ... —Better, the aurochs, or wild bulls ... The Hebrew word rem, which appears in Deuteronomy 33:17 and Psalm 22:21, has been identified with the buffalo and the antelope (Antilope leucoryx). Additionally, Mr. Houghton, a naturalist as well as a scholar, identifies it with the Bos primigenius of zoologists (Bible Educator, ii. 24-29), an identification based on Assyrian inscriptions (pointing to the land of the Khatti (Hittites) and the foot of Lebanon as its habitat) and on bas-reliefs representing it.

Here, the fierce wild beasts stand for the chiefs of the Edomites. (Psalms 22:21.) The verb, shall come down, as in Jeremiah 48:15, Jeremiah 50:27, and Jeremiah 51:40, implies going down to the shambles, or slaughtering house.