341 Come near, you nations, to hear!
Listen, you peoples.
Let the earth and all it contains hear;
the world, and everything that comes from it. 2 For Yahweh is enraged against all the nations,
and angry with all their armies.
He has utterly destroyed them.
He has given them over for slaughter. 3 Their slain will also be cast out,
and the stench of their dead bodies will come up;
and the mountains will melt in their blood. 4 All of the army of the sky will be dissolved.
The sky will be rolled up like a scroll,
and all its armies will fade away,
as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree. 5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky.
Behold, it will come down on Edom,
and on the people of my curse, for judgment. 6 Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood.
It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams;
for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom. 7 The wild oxen will come down with them,
and the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
and their land will be drunken with blood,
and their dust made greasy with fat. 8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 34:1-8
Commentary on Isaiah 34:1-8
(Read Isaiah 34:1-8)
Here is a prophecy of the wars of the Lord, all which are both righteous and successful. All nations are concerned. And as they have all had the benefit of his patience, so all must expect to feel his resentment. The description of bloodshed suggests tremendous ideas of the Divine judgments. Idumea here denotes the nations at enmity with the church; also the kingdom of antichrist. Our thoughts cannot reach the horrors of that awful season, to those found opposing the church of Christ. There is a time fixed in the Divine counsels for the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of her enemies. We must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time. Through Christ, mercy is exercised to every believer, consistently with justice, and his name is glorified.