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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. XXXIV.
In this chapter we have the fatal doom of all the nations that are
enemies to God’s church and people, though Edom only is mentioned,
because of the old enmity of Esau to Jacob, which was typical, as much
as that more ancient enmity of Cain to Abel, and flowed from the
original enmity of the serpent to the seed of the woman. It is probable
that this prophecy had its accomplishment in the great desolations made
by the Assyrian army first, or rather by Nebuchadnezzar’s army some
time after, among those nations that were neighbours to Israel and had
been in some way or other injurious to them. That mighty conqueror took
a pride in shedding blood, and laying countries waste, and therein,
quite beyond his design, he was fulfilling what God here threatened
against his and his people’s enemies. But we have reason to think it is
intended as a denunciation of the wrath of God against all those who
fight against the interests of his kingdom among men, that it has its
frequent accomplishment in the havoc made by the wars of the nations
and other desolating judgments, and will have its full accomplishment
in the final dissolution of all things at the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men. Here is,
I. A demand of universal attention,
II. A direful scene of blood and confusion presented,
III. The reason given for these judgments,
IV. The continuance of this desolation, the country being made like the
lake of Sodom
(ver. 9, 10),
and the cities abandoned to wild beasts and melancholy fowls,
V. The solemn ratification of all this,
Let us hear, and fear.
| Threatenings against God’s Enemies. | B. C. 720. |
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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
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
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,
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
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,
Those that sacrifice not (which is the character of the ungodly,
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
But they are used without a metaphor,
where we are told that the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise and the earth shall be burnt up.
| Threatenings against God’s Enemies. | B. C. 720. |
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9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the
dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become
burning pitch.
10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof
shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie
waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl
also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out
upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.
12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none
shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.
13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and
brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habitation
of dragons, and a court for owls.
14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild
beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the
screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place
of rest.
15 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch,
and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be
gathered, every one with her mate.
16 Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of
these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath
commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.
17 And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided
it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from
generation to generation shall they dwell therein.
This prophecy looks very black, but surely it looks so further than
upon Edom and Bozrah.
1. It describes the melancholy changes that are often made by the
divine Providence, in countries, cities, palaces, and families. Places
that have flourished and been much frequented strangely go to decay. We
know not where to find the places where many great towns, celebrated in
history, once stood. Fruitful countries, in process of time, are turned
into barrenness, and pompous populous cities into ruinous heaps. Old
decayed castles look frightful, and their ruins are almost as much
dreaded as ever their garrisons were.
2. It describes the destroying judgments which are the effects of
God’s wrath and the just punishment of those that are enemies to his
people, which God will inflict when the year of the redeemed has
come, and the year of recompences for the controversy of
Zion. Those that aim to ruin the church can never do that, but will
infallibly ruin themselves.
3. It describes the final desolation of this wicked world, which is
reserved unto fire at the day of judgment,
2 Pet. iii. 7.
The earth itself, when it, and all the works that are therein, shall be
burnt up, will (for aught I know) be turned into a hell to all those
that set their affections on earthly things. However, this prophecy
shows us what will be the lot of the generation of God’s
curse.
I. The country shall become like the lake of Sodom,
The streams thereof, that both watered the land and pleased and
refreshed the inhabitants, shall now be turned into
pitch, shall be congealed, shall look black, and shall move slowly,
or not at all. Their floods to lazy streams of pitch shall turn;
so Sir R. Blackmore. The dust thereof shall be turned into
brimstone; so combustible has sin made their land that it shall
take fire at the first spark of God’s wrath struck upon it; and, when
it has taken fire, it shall become burning pitch; the fire shall be
universal, not a house, or town, on fire, but a whole country; and it
shall not be in the power of any to suppress or extinguish it. It shall
burn continually, burn perpetually, and shall not be quenched night
nor day. The torment of those in hell, or that have a hell within
them in their own consciences, is without interruption; the smoke of
this fire goes up for ever. As long as there are provoking sinners
on earth, from one generation to another, an increase of sinful
men, to augment the fierce anger of the Lord
there will be a righteous God in heaven to punish them for it. And as
long as a people keep up a succession of sinners God will have a
succession of plagues for them; nor will any that fall under the wrath
of God be ever able to recover themselves. It will be found, how light
soever men make of it, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God. If the land be doomed to destruction, none
shall pass through it, but travellers will choose rather to go a great
way about than come within the smell of it.
II. The cities shall become like old decayed houses, which, being
deserted by the owners, look very frightful, being commonly possessed
by beasts of prey or birds of ill omen. See how dismally the palaces of
the enemy look; the description is peculiarly elegant and fine.
1. God shall mark them for ruin and destruction. He shall stretch
out upon Bozrah the line of confusion with the stones or plummets
of emptiness,
v. 11.
This intimates the equity of the sentence passed upon it; it is given
according to the rules of justice and the exact agreeableness of the
execution with the sentence; the destruction is not wrought at random,
but by line and level. The confusion and emptiness that shall
overspread the face of the whole country shall be like that of the
whole earth when it was Tohu and Bohu (the very words here
used)–without form and void.
Gen. i. 2.
Sin will soon turn a paradise into a chaos, and sully the beauty of the
whole creation. When there is confusion there will soon be emptiness;
but both are appointed by the governor of the world, and in exact
proportions.
2. Their great men shall be all cut off, and none of them shall dare to
appear
(v. 12):
They shall call the nobles of the kingdom to take care of the
arduous affairs which lie before them, but none shall be there to take
this ruin under their hand, and all her princes, having the sad tidings
brought them, shall be nothing, shall be at their wits’ end, and not be
able to stand them in stead, to shelter them from destruction.
III. Even the houses of state, and those of strength, shall become as
wildernesses
(v. 13);
not only grass shall grow, but thorns shall come up, in her palaces,
nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and there shall be
none to cut them up or tread them down. We sometimes see ruined
buildings thus overgrown with rubbish. It intimates that the place
shall not only be uninhabited and unfrequented where a full court used
to be kept, but that it shall be under the curse of God; for thorns and
thistles were the production of the curse,
IV. They shall become the residence and rendezvous of fearful frightful
beasts and birds, which usually frequent such melancholy places,
because there they may be undisturbed, and, when they are frightened
thither, they help to frighten men thence. This circumstance of the
desolation, being apt to strike a horror upon the mind, is much
enlarged upon here,
The cormorant shall possess it, or the pelican, which affects to
be solitary
(Ps. cii. 6);
and the bittern, which makes a hideous noise, the owl, a
melancholy bird, the raven, a bird of prey, invited by the dead
carcases, shall dwell there (with all the ill-boding monsters of the
air, Sir R. B.), all the unclean birds, which were not for
the service of man,
It shall be a habitation for dragons, which are poisonous and
hurtful.
| And in their lofty rooms of state,
Where cringing sycophants did wait, Dragons shall hiss and hungry wolves shall howl; In courts before by mighty lords possess’d The serpent shall erect his speckled crest, Or fold his circling spires to rest. |
| SIR R. BLACKMORE. |
That which was a court for princes shall now be a court for owls or
ostriches,
The wild beasts of the desert, the dry and sandy country, shall
meet, as it were by appointment, with the wild beasts of the island,
the wet marshy country, and shall regale themselves with such a perfect
desolation as they shall find there.
| Leopards, and all the rav’ning brotherhoods
That range the plains, or lurk in woods, Each other shall invite to come, And make this wilder place their home. Fierce beasts of every frightful shape and size Shall settle here their bloody colonies. |
| SIR R. BLACKMORE. |
The satyr shall cry to his fellow to go with him to this desert
place, or, being there, they shall please themselves that they have
found such an agreeable habitation. There shall the screech-owl
rest, a night-bird and an ominous one. The great owl shall
there make her nest
(v. 15)
and lay and hatch; the breed of them shall be kept up to provide
heirs for this desolate place. The vultures which feast on
carcases, shall be gathered there, every one with his mate. Now
observe,
1. How the places which men have deserted, and keep at a distance from,
are proper receptacles for other animals, which the providence of God
takes care of, and will not neglect.
2. Whom those resemble that are morose, unsociable, and unconversable,
and affect a melancholy retirement; they are like these solitary
creatures that take delight in desolations.
3. What a dismal change sin makes; it turns a fruitful land into
barrenness, a frequented city into a wilderness.
V. Here is an assurance given of the full accomplishment of this
prediction, even to the most minute circumstance of it
(v. 16, 17):
“Seek you out of the book of the Lord and read. When this
destruction comes compare the event with the prediction, and you will
find it to answer exactly.” Note, The book of the prophets is the book
of the Lord, and we ought to consult it and converse with it as of
divine origin and authority. We must not only read it, but see out of
it, search into it, turn first to one text and then to another and
compare them together. Abundance of useful knowledge might thus be
extracted, by a diligent search, out of the scriptures, which cannot be
got by a superficial reading of them. When you have read the prediction
out of the book of the Lord then observe,
1. That according to what you have read so you see; not one of these
shall fail, either beast or fowl: and, it being foretold that they
shall possess it from generation to generation, in order to
that, that the species may be propagated, none shall want her
mate; these marks of desolation shall be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the land.
2. That God’s mouth having commanded this direful muster his Spirit
shall gather them, as the creatures by instinct were gathered to
Adam to be named and to Noah to be housed. What God’s word has
appointed his Spirit will effect and bring about, for no word of God
shall fall to the ground. The word of God’s promise shall in like
manner be accomplished by the operations of the Spirit.
3. That there is an exact order and proportion observed in the
accomplishment of this threatening: He has cast the lot for
these birds and beasts, so that each one shall know his place as
readily as if it were marked by line. See the like,
They shall not break their ranks, neither shall one thrust
another. The soothsayers among the heathen foretold events by the
flight of birds, as if the fate of men depended on them. But here we
find that the flight of birds is under the direction of the God of
Israel: he has cast the lot for them.
4. That the desolation shall be perpetual: They shall possess it
for ever. God’s Jerusalem may be laid in ruins; but Jerusalem of
old recovered itself out of its ruins, till it gave place to the gospel
Jerusalem, which may be brought low, but shall be rebuilt, and shall
continue till it give place to the heavenly Jerusalem. But the enemies
of the church shall be for ever desolate, shall be punished with an
everlasting destruction.
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