Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 34:1

"Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye peoples: let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all things that come forth from it." — Isaiah 34:1 (ASV)

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.)