Isaiah 34
Berean Standard Bible · Compare translations · 712 BC – 690 BC · Judah alone · Tap a verse to copy, share or highlight ·
17 verses · 474 words · ~2 min read · ~3 min listen
Judgment on the Nations
1Come 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.
2The 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.
3Their slain will be left unburied,
and the stench of their corpses will rise;
the mountains will flow with their blood.
4All 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.
Judgment on Edom
5When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
then it will come down upon Edom,
upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
6The 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.
7And 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.
8For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
9Edomʼs streams will be turned to tar,
and her soil to sulfur;
her land will become a blazing pitch.
10It 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.
11The desert owl and screech owl will possess it,
and the great owl and raven will dwell in it.
The Lord will stretch out over Edom
a measuring line of chaos
and a plumb line of destruction.
12No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,
and all her princes will come to nothing.
13Her towers will be overgrown with thorns,
her fortresses with thistles and briers.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
14The 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.
15There 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.
16Search 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.
17He 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.
Footnotes (6)
- a v2 Forms of the Hebrew cherem refer to the giving over of things or persons, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering; also in verse 5.
- b v8 Or of recompense for (Edomʼs) hostility against Zion.
- c v11 The precise identification of these birds is uncertain.
- d v13 Or serpents or dragons
- e v13 Literally for daughters of an ostrich or for daughters of an owl
- f v14 Hebrew Lilith
Study notes on this chapter · 1
Prophecy & fulfillmentDebated
This generation will not pass away
After describing signs, the coming of the Son of Man and the gathering of the elect, Jesus says, 'This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.' The statement is among the most discussed in the gospels, since 'this generation' and 'all these things' can be read in several ways.
When: Jesus' Olivet discourse, c. AD 30–33.
Ways people read this (5)
- 'This generation' means Jesus' contemporaries, and the events (destruction of the temple, the coming of the Son of Man in judgment) happened in AD 70 (preterist).
- 'This generation' means the generation that sees the signs begin, which will also see the end.
- 'Generation' means 'race' or 'people' (the Jewish people will survive until the end).
- 'Generation' refers to an evil kind of people, as in Matthew 12:39, 45, and 'these things' are the signs, not the end itself.
- Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple as a first stage and the final coming as a later one, with verse 36 marking the change.
Editorial note by BibleWay. Interpretations vary; dates are approximate scholarly estimates.