Dusk in Edom: rose-red cliffs and ravines fall away below a small, silent rock town on a crag, no smoke and no light in it, under a darkening sky.

Woe and a King

Isaiah 34

Does it trouble you that God will one day judge the world?

17 verses≈ 4 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–5Zion on trialJudah’s sin, the mountain raised, the vineyard’s song
6Holy, holy, holyIsaiah’s call, in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC)
7–12ImmanuelAhaz’s fear, the sign, the Child, the shoot of Jesse
13–23The nations judgedBabylon to Tyre: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
24–27The whole earthThe earth laid waste, and death swallowed up
28–35Woe and a KingEgypt’s help or the LORD’s, and the King in His beautyChapter 34
36–39Hezekiah’s crisisSennacherib, 701 BC: the prayer, the sickness, the envoys
40–48Comfort My peopleTo the exiles ahead: Cyrus, the idols, the Servant
49–55The Servant and ZionPierced for our transgressions; Zion restored
56–66New heavens and earthA house of prayer, the Anointed One, all things new

Judgment on the Nations

Isaiah

Come near, O nations, to listen;

pay attention, O peoples.

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it,

the world and all that springs from it.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

Isaiah

The LORD is angry with all the nations

and furious with all their armies.

He will devote them to destruction;

He will give them over to slaughter.

Isaiah

Their slain will be left unburied,

and the stench of their corpses will rise;

the mountains will flow with their blood.

Isaiah

A clear night over the dark Judean hills: many streaks of falling stars cross the sky toward the horizon, the land below black and still.

All the stars of heaven will be dissolved.

The skies will be rolled up like a scroll,

and all their stars will fall

like withered leaves from the vine,

like foliage from the fig tree.

Question

Quick question

Before Isaiah names Edom, he tells us how wide the LORD’s judgment reaches. Look at 34:1–2.

Who is the LORD angry with in 34:1–2?

Judgment on Edom

God

God

When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,

then it will come down upon Edom,

upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

Isaiah

The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood.

It drips with fat—

with the blood of lambs and goats,

with the fat of the kidneys of rams.

For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah,

a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

And the wild oxen will fall with them,

the young bulls with the strong ones.

Their land will be drenched with blood,

and their soil will be soaked with fat.

Isaiah

For the LORD has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Isaiah

A deep ravine in Edom at dusk: the ground black and glistening like pitch, thin smoke rising from cracks, sulfur-yellow crust on the rocks, red cliffs above, empty.

Edom’s streams will be turned to tar,

and her soil to sulfur;

her land will become a blazing pitch.

It will not be quenched—day or night.

Its smoke will ascend forever.

From generation to generation it will lie desolate;

no one will ever again pass through it.

Isaiah

Isaiah

The desert owl and screech owl will possess it,

and the great owl and raven will dwell in it.

Isaiah

An abandoned fortress of red stone on a ridge in Edom, its plain square towers and walls overgrown with thistles, thorns and briers, no one there.

No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,

and all her princes will come to nothing.

Her towers will be overgrown with thorns,

her fortresses with thistles and briers.

Isaiah

Isaiah

She will become a haunt for jackals,

an abode for ostriches.

The desert creatures will meet with hyenas,

and one wild goat will call to another.

There the night creature will settle

and find her place of repose.

Isaiah

First light in a broken niche of a ruined stone wall: an owl sits over her small downy chicks in a nest of twigs, and high in the pale sky a pair of hawks circles.

There the owl will make her nest;

she will lay and hatch her eggs

and gather her brood under her shadow.

Even there the birds of prey will gather,

each with its mate.

Isaiah

Search and read the scroll of the LORD:

Not one of these will go missing,

not one will lack her mate,

because He has ordered it by His mouth,

and He will gather them by His Spirit.

Isaiah 34:16

Isaiah

Isaiah

He has allotted their portion;

His hand has distributed it by measure.

They will possess it forever;

they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

Pray

Judge of all the earth, Your word does not fail. Let me not shrink from Your justice or treat it lightly. Keep me under Your mercy, and give me Your heart for the nations. Amen.

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Isaiah 34

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A verse to carry with you

Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

Isaiah 34:16

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