The judgments with which God revenges his church, 1-10. The desolation of her enemies, 11-15. The certainty of the prophecy, 16, 17.
1 Come near, you nations, to hear. And listen, you people. Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all things that spring from it.
2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations and his fury upon all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has delivered them to the slaughter.
3 Their slain shall also be cast out, and their ill smell shall come up from their carcasses. 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 hosts shall fall down, as the leaf falls 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 Edom 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, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 And the wild oxen shall come down with them, and the young bulls with the strong bulls. And their land shall be drenched with blood and their dust made fat with fatness.
8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.
9 And its streams shall be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone, and its land shall become burning pitch.
10 It shall not be quenched night nor day. Its smoke shall ascend forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste. None shall pass through it forever and ever.
11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it. The owl 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 her nobles to the kingdom, but no one shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.
13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in her fortresses, and it shall be a habitation of jackals and a court for owls.
14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow. The screech-owl shall also rest there and find for herself a place of rest.
15 There the great owl shall make her nest, lay, and hatch and gather under her shadow. There the vultures shall also be gathered, each with her mate.
16 Seek out of the book of the LORD, and read. Not one of these shall fail. Not one shall lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
17 And he has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them by line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they shall dwell therein.
Matthew Henry Commentary - Isaiah, Chapter 34[➚]
[v.4] - Reference, Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:24-25.
[v.10] - Quoted in Revelation 19:3.