View Isaiah 34 in the note window.
God's fury and wrath against his church's enemies, ver. 1 - 10.
Their land utterly desolate, ver. 11 - 15.
The certainly hereof, and duration, ver. 16, 17.
2: All nations - Not only upon the Assyrians, but on all enemies
of my people.
3: Cast out - Into the fields.
4: Dissolved - The sun, moon, and stars. So great shall be the
confusion and consternation of mankind, as if all the frame of the
creation were broken into pieces. It is usual for prophetic writers,
both in the Old and New Testament, to represent great and general
calamities, in such words and phrases, as properly agree to the day of
judgment; as on the contrary, the glorious deliverances of God's people,
in such expressions, as properly agree to the resurrection from the dead.
5: Bathed - In the blood of these people. Heaven - Where God
dwells; in which this is said to be done, because it was there decreed
and appointed. Idumea - Upon the Edomites, who, tho' they were nearly
related to the Israelites, yet were their implacable enemies. But
these are named for all the enemies of God's church, of whom they were
an eminent type. The people - Whom I have cursed, and devoted to utter
destruction, as the word properly signifies.
6: The sword - The metaphor is taken from a great glutton, who is
almost insatiable. Rams - By lambs, and goats, and rams, he means people
of all ranks and conditions, high and low, rich and poor. Bozrah - A chief
city of Edom, and a type of those cities which should be most opposite
to God's people.
7: The unicorns - It is confessed, this was a beast of great strength
and fierceness; and it is used in this place to signify their princes and
potentates, who shall be humbled and cast down. Them - With the lambs, and
goats, and rams. Fatness - With the fat of the slain sacrifices, mingled
with it.
8: For - This is the time which God hath fixed, to avenge the cause
of his persecuted people.
9: The land - Idumea shall be dealt with, as Sodom and
Gomorrah were.
10: For ever - It shall remain as a spectacle of God's vengeance to
all succeeding ages.
11: Dwell - It shall be entirely possessed by those creatures which
delight in deserts and waste places. Stretch - He shall use the line, or
the stone or plummet joined to it, not to build them, but to mark them
out to destruction, as workmen commonly use them to mark what they are
to pull down.
12: None - They shall not find any willing to undertake the
government. Nothing - Shall have no courage or strength left in them.
16: Seek - When this judgment is executed, if you pursue this
prophecy, you will find, that all things exactly come to pass, as I have
told you. His - My spirit, (such sudden changes of persons being frequent
here) hath brought all these creatures together, as he formerly brought
the creatures to Adam, and to Noah, by an instinct which he put into
them.
17: Divided - He hath divided the land to them, as it were by lot and
line, as Canaan was divided among the Israelites.
