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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Isaiah 34:1 - 34:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Judgments upon Idumea.
Isaiah is rightly called the evangelist of the Old Testament. Throughout his book of prophecies he refers to conditions as they would obtain in the time of the Messiah. In chapters 34 and 35 also, which form the conclusion of the first half of his book, he makes use of New Testament ideas and pictures. For this reason these ers, at the same time, strike the introductory chords to the great Book of Consolations, 40-66.
Introductory Proclamation
v. 1. Come near, ye nations, to hear, and hearken, ye people! the prophet's proclamation being so great and momentous that he summons all nations to give attention. Let the earth hear and all that is therein, all creatures being concerned in this weighty announcement; the world, the entire circle of time inhabited globe, and all things that come forth of it. The invitation is like Eze_6:3; Deu_32:1; Psa_50:4; Mic_6:1-2.
v. 2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, His is a great wrath, which will result in punishment upon all His enemies, and His fury upon all their armies, upon which they, in the excess of their insolence, rely; He hath utterly destroyed them, doomed them, by a solemn curse, to destruction, He hath delivered them to the slaughter, appointed them to be slain.
v. 3. Their slain also shall be cast out, left to lie unburied, and their stink, the odor of decay, shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood, washed away as by a mighty torrent. Cf Mat_24:29; 2Pe_3:7-10; Rev_6:13-14.
v. 4. And all the host of heaven, all the stars and heavenly bodies, shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, in the manner in which parchment-rolls were formerly rolled together; and all their host shall fall down, as the firmament of the heavens passes away, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, upon its fading in the autumn, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree, immature and useless. The prophet clearly has in mind the final dissolution of the universe, the end of the present dispensation, for which reason Peter makes use of the same picture in describing the end of the world, 2Pe_3:10-12.