John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 34:12

"They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing." — Isaiah 34:12 (ASV)

They shall call her nobles without a kingdom. This passage has received various interpretations, which I do not quote, because it would be tedious to refute them. One of the most probable is, “They shall call his nobles to reign, but in vain.” As if he had said, “In their wretched condition no one will be found willing to rule over them, and to undertake the charge of the commonwealth.”

A statement of the same kind is found elsewhere, and we have previously (Isaiah 3:6, 7) seen one that is almost alike, but the words do not correspond. When the Prophet speaks in this way, “They shall call her nobles, and they shall not be there,” he employs, I doubt not, witty raillery to censure the pride of that nation which had been cherished by long-continued peace and abundance.

When the Edomites, therefore, out of their mountains breathed lofty pride, the Prophet declares that they will be disgracefully cast down, so that they will have no nobility and no government. This is just as when a kingdom has been overturned, government is taken away, so that the general mass of the people resembles a maimed or disfigured body, and there is no distinction of ranks. To those stately nobles who vaunted themselves so much, he says in mockery that they will be princes without subjects.

And all her princes shall be nothing. The meaning of the former clause is still more evident from this second clause, in which he adds for the sake of explanation that her princes “shall be reduced to nothing.”

It amounts to this: the land of Edom will resemble a mutilated body, so that nothing will be seen in it but shocking confusion.

This is the utmost curse of God, because if people have no political government, they will hardly differ at all from beasts. Indeed, their condition will be far worse, for beasts can dispense with a governor because they do not make war against their own kind. But nothing can be more cruel than humans if they are not held by some restraint, for everyone will be driven by the furious eagerness of their own passions to every kind of vicious indulgence.