| Isaiah 34:1
| Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that cometh forth of it.
| Come. Both Gentiles and Jews are admonished of the world's end before judgment. (Worthington)
|
| Isaiah 34:2
| For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to slaughter.
|
|
| Isaiah 34:3
| Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
|
|
| Isaiah 34:4
| And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig-tree.
| Away. These strong expressions denote great misery, Isaias 13., and Joel 2:10., and Ezechiel 32:27. (Calmet) --- Book. Hebrew, "roll." (Haydock) --- Some thence foolishly inferred that the destiny of every one might be read in the heavens. (Huet.; Eusebius, praep. 6:11.; Philoo. xxiii.; Pic. Astrol. 8:5.) --- The prophet only means that the heavens shall be devoid of beauty, (Calmet) and covered with darkness. (Haydock)
|
| Isaiah 34:5
| For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.
| Heaven. Casting down the rebel angels. (St. Jerome) --- The resolution to destroy the Idumeans, for their cruelty to the Jews, has been taken long ago. All these expressions allude to the last judgment. (Calmet) --- Idumea. Under the name of Idumea or Edom, a people that were enemies of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of God and his Church. (Challoner) --- Assaradon fell upon Edom two years after Sennacherib's death. (Calmet) --- No strong place like Bosra, shall rescue any from destruction at the last day. (Worthington)
|
| Isaiah 34:6
| The sword of the Lord is filled with blood; it is made thick with the blood of lambs and buck-goats, with the blood of rams full of marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
|
|
| Isaiah 34:7
| And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with the fat of fat ones.
| The unicorns. That is, the great and mighty. (Challoner)
|
| Isaiah 34:8
| For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompenses of the judgment of Sion.
| Recompenses. When the persecutors of Sion, that is, of the Church, shall receive their reward. (Challoner) --- The Idumeans had frequently shown their ill-will towards the Jews, 2 Paralipomenon 28:17., and Amos 1:11. (Calmet) --- Sion shall perish as the wicked in hell shall be tormented. (Worthington)
|
| Isaiah 34:9
| And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.
| Pitch. The soil was sulphureous, and became neglected, (ver. 10.) like the territory of Sodom. The people are now no more, and only a few miserable Arabs pitch their tents there.
|
| Isaiah 34:10
| Night and day it shall not be quenched; 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.
|
|
| Isaiah 34:11
| The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.
| Line. Intimating entire destruction, Lamentations 2:8., and 4 Kings 11:13. (Calmet) --- Yet God will not punish more than people deserve. (Menochius)
|
| Isaiah 34:12
| The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.
|
|
| Isaiah 34:13
| And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.
| Dragons, Thannim, Isaias 13:22. (Haydock) --- Ostriches, or swans.
|
| Isaiah 34:14
| And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.
| Monsters. Literally, "Ass-centaurs." (Haydock) --- Hebrew, "fishermen shall find islands," Isaias 13:21. --- Ones. Goats. --- Lamia. Hebrew lilith. Chaldean, "owl," the bird of Minerva, or the Moon, which the Arabs style Alilat. (Calmet) --- Dicodorus (20) relates that Lamia was an African queen, who having last her children, was changed into a beast, and destroyed all the children she could catch; and the Jews deal still more in fables, (Calmet0 asserting that Lilith was the first wife of Adam, etc. (Buxtorf. Syn. 2.)
|
| Isaiah 34:15
| There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.
| Ericius. Hebrew, "kippoz, (Haydock) hath its nest." It may denote the serpent, acontias. (Bochart) --- All this shews the desolation of the country.
|
| Isaiah 34:16
| Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.
| Read what I have written. --- The other. All these beasts will be there, (Calmet) or all these declarations will be verified. (Haydock)
|
| Isaiah 34:17
| And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it to them by line: they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation they shall dwell therein.
|
|