Isaiah 34:1

To the sacrifice which I make for you, A great slaughter on the mountains of Israel. And ye shall eat flesh and drink blood: The flesh of the mighty shall ye eat, And the blood of the lofty of the earth shall ye drink; Of rams, of lambs, and of goats, Of bullocks, all of them the fat ones of Bashan; And ye shall eat fat, till ye are cloyed, And drink blood, till ye are drunken; Of my slaughter, which I have slain for you." The sublime author of the Rev 19:17, Rev 19:18, has taken this image from Ezekiel, rather than from Isaiah. Verse 7 The unicorns shall come down - ראמים reemim, translated wild goats by Bishop Lowth. The ראם reem Bochart thinks to be a species of wild goat in the deserts of Arabia. It seems generally to mean the rhinoceros. With blood "With their blood" - מדמם middamam; so two ancient MSS. of Kennicott's the Syriac, and Chaldee. Verse 8 The year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion "The year of recompense to the defender of the cause of Zion" - As from דון dun, דין din, a judge; so from רוב rub, ריב rib, an advocate, or defender; Judici Sionis: Syriac. Verse 11 The cormorant - קאת kaath, the pelican, from the root קיא ki, to vomit, because it is said she swallows shell-fish, and when the heat of her stomach has killed the fish, she vomits the shells, takes out the dead fish, and eats them. The bittern - קפד kippod, the hedge-hog, or porcupine. The owl - ינשוף yanshoph, the bittern, from נשף nashaph, to blow, because of the blowing noise it makes, almost like the lowing of an ox. My old MS. Bible renders the words thus: - The foule in face like an asse, and the yrchoun, and the snyte (snipe.) The line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness "The plummet of emptiness over her scorched plains" - The word חריה choreyha, joined to the 12th verse, embarrasses it, and makes it inexplicable. At least I do not know that any one has yet made out the construction, or given any tolerable explication of it. I join it to the 11th verse, and supply a letter or two, which seem to have been lost. Fifteen MSS. five ancient, and two editions, read חוריה choreyha; the first printed edition of 1486, I think nearer to the truth, חור חריה chor choreyha. I read בחרריה becharereyha, or על חרריה al chorereyha; see Jer 17:6. A MS. has חדיה chodiah, and the Syriac reads חדוה chaduah, gaudium, joining it to the two preceding words; which he likewise reads differently, but without improving the sense. However, his authority is clear for dividing the verses as they are here divided. I read שם shem, as a noun. They shall boast, יקראו yikreu; see Pro 20:6. Verse 13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces - ועלו בארמנותיה vealu bearmenotheyha; so read all the ancient versions. A court for owls - יענה yaanah, the ostrich, from ענה anah, to cry, because of the noise it makes. "They roar, "says Dr. Shaw, "sometimes like a lion - sometimes like a bull. I have often heard them groan as if in the utmost distress." Verse 14 The weld beasts of the desert - ציים tsiyim, the mountain cats. - Bochart. Wild beasts of the island - איים aiyim, the jackals. The satyr - שעיר seir, the hairy one, probably the he-goat. The screech owl - לילית lilith, the night-bird, the night-raven, nyctycorax, from ליל layil, or לילה lailah, the night. Verse 15 The great owl - קפוז kippoz, the ακοντιας, or darter, a serpent so called because of its suddenly leaping up or darting on its prey. Probably the mongoose or ichneumon may be intended. The vultures - דיות daiyoth, the black vultures. My old MS. Bible renders these names curiously: And ageyn cumen schul devylis: the beste, party of an asse, and party of a mam: and the wodwose, the tother schal crien to the tother. There schal byn lamya, that is, thrisse, or a beste, havynge the body liic a woman, and hors feet. Ther hadde dichis, the yrchoun, and nurshide out littil chittis. There ben gadred kiitis, the top to the top. What language! Every one with her mate - A MS. adds אל el after אשה ishshah, which seems necessary to the construction; and so the Syriac and Vulgate. Another MS. adds in the same place את eth, which is equivalent. Verse 16 My mouth "For the mouth of Jehovah" - For הוא hu, five MSS., (three ancient), read יהוה Jehovah, and another is so corrected; so likewise the Septuagint. Two editions have צום tsivam; and so the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, with the edition of 1486, and a MS. has קבצם kebatsam, with the masculine pronoun instead of the feminine: and so in the next verses it is להם lahem, instead of להן lahen, in fourteen MSS., six of them ancient. - L. To see the importance of these various readings, the Hebrew Bible must be consulted. Introduction Flourishing state of the Church of God consequent to the awful judgments predicted in the preceding chapter. The images employed in the description are so very consolatory and sublime as to oblige us to extend their fulfillment to that period of the Gospel dispensation when Messiah shall take unto himself his great power and reign. The fifth and sixth verses were literally accomplished by our Savior and his apostles: but that the miracles wrought in the first century were not the only import of the language used by the prophet, is sufficiently plain from the context. They, therefore, have a farther application; and are contemporary with, or rather a consequence of, the judgments of God upon the enemies of the Church in the latter days; and so relate to the greater influence and extension of the Christian faith, the conversion of the Jews, their restoration to their own land, and the second advent of Christ. Much of the imagery of this chapter seems to have been borrowed from the exodus from Egypt: but it is greatly enlivened by the life, sentiments, and passions ascribed to inanimate objects; all nature being represented as rejoicing with the people of God in consequence of their deliverance; and administering in such an unusual manner to their relief and comfort, as to induce some commentators to extend the meaning of the prophecy to the blessedness of the saints in heaven, Isa 35:1-10. The various miracles our Lord wrought are the best comment on this chapter, which predicts those wondrous works and the glorious state of the Christian Church. See the parallel texts in the margin. On this chapter Bishop Lowth has offered some important emendations. I shall introduce his translation, as the best yet given of this singular prophecy: - 1. The desert and the waste shall be glad;And the wilderness shall rejoice, and flourish: 2. Like the rose shall it beautifully flourish;And the well-watered plain of Jordan shall also rejoice:The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it,The beauty of Carmel and of Sharon;These shall behold the glory of Jehovah,The majesty of our God. 3. Strengthen ye the feeble hands,And confirm ye the tottering knees. 4. Say ye to the faint-hearted, Be ye strong;Fear ye not; behold your God!Vengeance will come; the retribution of God:He himself will come, and will deliver you. 5. Then shall be unclosed the eyes of the blind;And the ears of the deaf shall be opened: 6. Then shall the lame bound like the hart,And the tongue of the dumb shall sing;For in the wilderness shall burst forth waters,And torrents in the desert: 7. And the glowing sand shall become a pool,And the thirsty soil bubbling springs:And in the haunt of dragons shall spring forthThe grass with the reed and the bulrush. 8. And a highway shall be there;And it shall be called The way of holiness:No unclean person shall pass through it:But he himself shall be with them, walking in the way,And the foolish shall not err therein: 9. No lion shall be there;Nor shall the tyrant of the beasts come up thither:Neither shall he be found thereBut the redeemed shall walk in it. 10. Yea, the ransomed of Jehovah shall return;They shall come to Sion with triumph;And perpetual gladness shall crown their heads.Joy and gladness shall they obtain;And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Verse 1 Shall be glad - יששום yesusum; in one MS. the מ mem seems to have been added; and שום sum is upon a rasure in another. None of the ancient versions acknowledge it; it seems to have been a mistake, arising from the next word beginning with the same letter. Seventeen MSS. have ישושום yesusum, both vaus expressed; and five MSS. יששם yesusum, without the vaus. Probably the true reading is, "The wilderness and the dry place shall be glad. "Not for them. Verse 2 Rejoice even with joy and singing "The well-watered plain of Jordan shall also rejoice" - For ורנן veranen, the Septuagint read ירדן yarden, τα ερηνα του Ιορδανου, "the deserts of Jordan." Four MSS. read גלת gulath; see Jos 15:19: "Irrigua Jordani;" Houbigant. גידת gidoth, Ripae Jordani, "the banks of Jordan;" Kennicott. See De S. Poesi Hebr. Praelect. 20 note. Unto it - For לה lah, to it, nine MSS. of Kennicott's and four of De Rossi's read לך lecha, to thee. See ibid. Verse 7 The parched ground "The glowing sand" - שרב sharab; this word is Arabic, as well as Hebrew, expressing in both languages the same thing, the glowing sandy plain, which in the hot countries at a distance has the appearance of water. It occurs in the Koran, chap. 24: "But as to the unbelievers, their works are like a vapor in a plain, which the thirsty traveler thinketh to be water, until, when he cometh thereto, he findeth it to be nothing. "Mr. Sale's note on this place is, "The Arabic word serab signifies that false appearance which in the eastern countries is often seen on sandy plains about noon, resembling a large lake of water in motion, and is occasioned by the reverberation of the sun beams: 'by the quivering undulating motion of that quick succession of vapours and exhalations which are extracted by the powerful influence of the sun.' - Shaw, Trav. p. 378. It sometimes tempts thirsty travelers out of their way; but deceives them when they come near, either going forward, (for it always appears at the Same distance), or quite vanishing." Q. Curtius has mentioned it: "Arenas vapor aestivi solis accendit; camporumque non alia, quam vasti et profundi aequoris species est." - Lib. vii., c. 5. Dr. Hyde gives us the precise meaning and derivation of the word. "Dictum nomen Barca הברקה habberakah, splendorem, seu splendentem regionem notat; cum ea regio radiis solaribus tam copiose collustretur, ut reflexum ab arenis lumen adeo intense fulgens, a longinquo spectantibus, ad instar corporis solaris, aquarum speciem referat; et hinc arenarum splendor et radiatio, (et lingua Persica petito nomine), dicitur serab, i.e., aquae superficies seu superficialis aquarum species." Annot. in Peritsol., cap. ii. "Shall spring forth" - The ה he in רבצה rebitseh seems to have been at first מ mem in MS. Bodl., whence Dr. Kennicott concludes it should be רבצים rebitsim. But instead of this word the Syriac, Vulgate, and Chaldee read some word signifying to grow, spring up, or abound. Perhaps פרצה paretsah, or פרצו paretsu, or פרץ החציר parats hachatsir, as Houbigant reads. - L. Verse 8 And a highway - The word ודרך vederech is by mistake added to the first member of the sentence from the beginning of the following member. Sixteen MSS. of Dr. Kennicott's, seven ancient, and two of De Rossi's have it but once; so likewise the Syriac, Septuagint, and Arabic. Err therein - A MS. of Dr. Kennicott's adds בו bo, in it, which seems necessary to the sense, and so the Vulgate, per eam, "by it. "One of De Rossi's has שם sham, there. But it shall be for those "But he himself shall be with them, walking in the way" - That is, God; see Isa 35:4. "Who shall dwell among them, and set them an example that they should follow his steps." Our old English Version translated the place to this purpose, our last translators were misled by the authority of the Jews, who have absurdly made a division of the verses in the midst of the sentence, thereby destroying the construction and the sense. Verse 9 It shall not be found there "Neither shall he be found there" - Three MSS. read ולא velo, adding the conjunction; and so likewise the Septuagint and Vulgate. And four MSS., one ancient, read ימצא yimmatsa, the verb, as it certainly ought to be, in the masculine form. The redeemed shall walk there - גאולים geulim. Those whose forfeited inheritances are brought back by the kinsman, גואל goel, the nearest of kin to the family. This has been considered by all orthodox divines as referring to the incarnation of ou

Threatenings against God's Enemies. ( b. c. 720.) 1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. 2 For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. 3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. 4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. 5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. 6 The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. 7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. 8 For it is the day of the Lord 's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. Here we have a prophecy, as elsewhere we have a history, of the wars of the Lord, which we are sure are all both righteous and successful. This world, as it is his creature, he does good to; but as it is in the interest of Satan, who is called the god of this world, he fights against it. I. Here is the trumpet sounded and the war proclaimed, v. 1 . All nations must hear and hearken, not only because what God is about to do is well worthy their remark (as ch. xxxiii. 13 ), but because they are all concerned in it; it is with them that God has a quarrel; it is against them that God is coming forth in wrath. Let them all take notice that the great God is angry with them; his indignation is upon all nations, and therefore let all nations come near to hear. The trumpet is blown in the city ( Amos iii. 6 ), and the watchmen on the walls cry, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, Jer. vi. 17 . Let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof, for it is the Lord's ( Ps. xxiv. 1 ) and ought to hearken to its Maker and Master. The world must hear, and all things that come forth of it, the children of men, that are of the earth earthy, come out of it, and must return to it; or the inanimate products of the earth are called to, as more likely to hearken than sinners, whose hearts are hardened against the calls of God. Hear, O you mountains! the Lord's controversy, Micah vi. 2 . It is so just a controversy that all the world may be safely appealed to concerning the equity of it. II. Here is the manifesto published, setting forth, 1. Whom he makes war against ( v. 2 ): The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations; they are all in confederacy against God and religion, all in the interests of the devil, and therefore he is angry with them all, even with all the nations that forget him. He has long suffered all nations to walk in their own ways ( Acts xiv. 16 ), but now he will no longer keep silence. As they have all had the benefit of his patience, so they must all expect now to feel his resentments. His fury is in a special manner upon all their armies, (1.) Because with them they have done mischief to the people of God; those are they that have made bloody work with them, and therefore they must be sure to have blood given them to drink. (2.) Because with them they hope to make their part good against the justice and power of God they trust to them as their defence, and therefore on them, in the first place, God's fury will come. Armies before God's fury are but as dry stubble before a consuming fire, though ever so numerous and courageous. 2. Whom he makes war for, and what are the grounds and reasons of the war ( v. 8 ): It is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and he it is to whom vengeance belongs, and who is never unrighteous in taking vengeance, Rom. iii. 5 . As there is a day of the Lord's patience, so there will be a day of his vengeance; for, though he bear long, he will not bear always. It is the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. Zion is the holy city, the city of our solemnities, a type and figure of the church of God in the world. Zion has a just quarrel with her neighbours for the wrongs they have done her, for all their treacherous and barbarous usage of her, profaning her holy things, laying waste her palaces, and slaying her sons. She has left it to God to plead her cause, and he will do so when the time, even the set time, to favour Zion shall have come; then he will recompense to her persecutors and oppressors all the mischiefs they have done her. The controversy will be decided, that Zion has been wronged, and therein Zion's God has been himself abused. Judgment will be given upon this decision, and execution done. Note, There is a time prefixed in the divine counsels for the deliverance of the church and the destruction of her enemies, a year of the redeemed, which will come, a year of recompences for the controversy of Zion; and we must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time. III. Here are the operations of the war, and the methods of it, settled, with an infallible assurance of success. 1. The sword of the Lord is bathed in heaven; this is all the preparation here made for the war, v. 5 . It may probably allude to some custom they had then of bathing their swords in some liquor or other, to harden them or brighten them; it is the same with the furbishing of it, that it may glitter, Ezek. xxi. 9-11 . God's sword is bathed in heaven, in his counsel and decree, in his justice and power, and then there is not standing before it. 2. It shall come down. What he has determined shall without fail be put in execution. It shall come down from heaven, and the higher the place is, whence it comes, the heavier will it fall. It will come down upon Idumea, the people of God's curse, the people that lie under his curse and are by it doomed to destruction. Miserable, for ever miserable, are those that have by their sins made themselves the people of God's curse; for the sword of the Lord will infallibly attend the curse of the Lord and execute the sentences of it; and those whom he curses are cursed indeed. It shall come down to judgment, to execute judgment upon sinners. Note, God's sword of war is always a sword of justice. It is observed of him out of whose mouth goeth the sharp sword that in righteousness he doth judge and make war, Rev. xix. 11 , 15 . 3. The nations and their armies shall be given up to the sword ( v. 2 ): God has delivered them to the slaughter, and then they cannot deliver themselves, nor can all the friends they have deliver them from it. Those only are slain whom God delivers to the slaughter, for the keys of death are in his hand; and, in delivering them to the slaughter, he has utterly destroyed them; their destruction is as sure, when God has doomed them to it, as if they were destroyed already, utterly destroyed. God has, in effect, delivered all the cruel enemies of his church to the slaughter by that word ( Rev. xiii. 10 ), He that kills with the sword must be killed by the sword, for the Lord is righteous. 4. Pursuant to the sentence, a terrible slaughter shall be made among them ( v. 6 ): The sword of the Lord, when it comes down with commission, does vast execution; it is filled, satiated, surfeited, with blood, the blood of the slain, and made fat with their fatness. When the day of God's abused mercy and patience is over the sword of his justice gives no quarter, spares none. Men have by sin lost the honour of the human nature and made themselves like the beasts that perish; they are therefore justly denied the compassion and respect that are owing to the human nature and killed as beasts, and no more is made of slaying an army of men than of butchering a flock of lambs or goats and feeding on the fat of the kidneys of rams. Nay, the sword of the Lord shall not only dispatch the lambs and goats, the infantry of their armies, the poor common soldiers, but ( v. 7 ) the unicorns too shall be made to come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls, though they are ever so proud, and strong, and fierce ( the great men, and the mighty men, and the chief captains Rev. vi. 15 ), the sword of the Lord will make as easy a prey of as of the lambs and the goats. The greatest of men are nothing before the wrath of the great God. See what bloody work will be made: The land shall be soaked with blood, as with the rain that comes often upon it and in great abundance; and their dust, their dry and barren land, shall be made fat with the fatness of men slain in their full strength, as with manure. Nay even the mountains, which are hard and rocky, shall be melted with their blood, v. 3 . These expressions are hyperbolical (as St. John's vision of blood to the horse-bridles, Rev. xiv. 20 ), and are made use of because they sound very dreadful to sense (it makes us even shiver to think of such abundance of human gore), and are therefore proper to express the terror of God's wrath, which is dreadful beyond conception and expression. See what work sin and wrath make even in this world, and think how much more terrible the wrath to come is, which will bring down the unicorns themselves to the bars of the pit. 5. This great slaughter will be a great sacrifice to the justice of God ( v. 6 ): The Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah; there it is that the great Redeemer has his garments dyed with blood, ch. lxiii. 1 . Sacrifices were intended for the honour of God, to make it appear that he hates sin and demands satisfaction for it, and that nothing but blood will make atonement; and for these ends the slaughter is made, that in it the wrath of God may be revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, especially their ungodly unrighteous enmity to his people, which was the sin that the Edomites were notoriously guilty of. In great sacrifices abundance of beasts were killed, hecatombs offered, and their blood poured out before the altar; and so will it be in this day of the Lord's vengeance. And thus would the whole earth have been soaked with the blood of sinners if Jesus Christ, the great propitiation, had not shed his blood for us; but those who reject him, and will not make a covenant with God by that sacrifice, will themselves fall as victims to divine wrath. Damned sinners are everlasting sacrifices, Mark ix. 48, 49 . Those that sacrifice not (which is the character of the ungodly, Eccl. ix. 2 ) must be sacrificed. 6. These slain shall be detestable to mankind, and shall be as much their loathing as ever they were their terror ( v. 3 ): They shall be cast out, and none shall pay them the respect of a decent burial; but their stink shall come up out of their carcases, that all people by the odious smell, as well as by the ghastly sight, may be made to conceive an indignation against sin and a dread of the wrath of God. They lie unburied, that they may remain monuments of divine justice. 7. The effect and consequence of this slaughter shall be universal confusion and desolation, as if the whole frame of nature were dissolved and melted down ( v. 4 ): All the host of heaven shall pine and waste away (so the word is); the sun shall be darkened, and the moon look black, or be turned into blood; the heavens themselves shall be rolled together as a scroll or parchment when we have done with it, and lay it by, or as when it is shrivelled up by the heat of the fire. The stars shall fall as the leaves in autumn; all the beauty, joy, and comfort, of the vanquished nation shall be lost and done away, magistracy and government shall be abolished, and all dominion and rule, but that of the sword of war, shall fall. Conquerors, in those times, affected to lay waste the countries they conquered; and such a complete desolation is here described by such figurative expressions as will yet have a literal and full accomplishment in the dissolution of all things at the end of time, of which last day of judgment the judgments which God does now sometimes remarkably execute on sinful nations are figures, earnests, and forerunners; and by these we should be awakened to think of that, for which reason these expressions are used here and Rev. vi. 12, 13 . But they are used without a metaphor, 2 Pet. iii. 10 , where we are told that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the earth shall be burnt up.