34. Isaiah Chapter Thirty-Four

Part Id The Future of Gentile Nations and Israel

Chapters 34, 35 Isaiah Chapter 34 This and the next chapter are an expansion of the two subjects of chapter thirty-three, namely, the judgments of the Day of the Lord, and the subsequent Millennial blessedness of Israel and their land.

Under the satanic power of the Beast and the False Prophet the armies of the nations will be gathered in one great effort to annihilate the Jews (see Revelation 19:19-21), a passage which describes in detail what is here foretold in Isaiah 34:1-3. With Isaiah 34:4-7 compare Revelation 6:13-14. In Isaiah 34:6 Idumea (i.e., Edom, always figurative of the natural state of man in his antagonism against God) is particularly mentioned as the great scene of the divine intervention.

Bozrah is a central stronghold of the country. It will be the culminating locality of the warfare of Armageddon (see Isaiah 63:1 and notes there). The judgments of this “day of the Lord’s vengeance” will extend over 200 miles, the 1,600 furlongs of Revelation 14:20, and the district of Bozrah will, it would seem, be the southernmost limit of the conflict. For there the King of the North, having gone to subdue Egypt, will be returning northward with a view to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jews, because of tidings which will trouble him from the north. He will not reach Jerusalem, and that by reason of the personal intervention of Christ (Daniel 11:43-44). He will pitch his military headquarters (not “palace,” Daniel 11:45) in this Idumean region, and there will meet his doom at the Lord’s hand, as will also the Antichrist further north of Jerusalem itself. The figurative language of Isaiah 34:6-7 describes the mighty leaders of these Gentile powers. “The times of the Gentiles” will have come to an end. “It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, the year of recompence in the controversy of Zion” (Isaiah 34:8), i.e., to assert the rights of God’s King. With Isaiah 34:9-10 compare Revelation 18:18 and Revelation 19:3. As for the land of Edom, it will be eternally barren, overgrown with nettles and thorns, and the habitation of wild beasts and birds of prey (Isaiah 34:11-17). The description is symbolic of the futility of the flesh and of all human schemes. Just as the creative power of the Lord assigns to animals their relation, condition and region (“no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate”), so in fulfillment of His prophetic word, each fulfillment will answer to the prophecy which has predicted it. His Spirit carries out the twofold design. He it is who governs the creatures and He it is who accomplished the fiat of His unthwartable Word, detail for detail.