Isaiah 34:8-17

2. SHAMBLES

TEXT: Isaiah 34:8-17

8

For Jehovah hath a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9

And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

10

It shall not be quenched night nor day; 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.

11

But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he will stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness.

12

They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.

13

And thorns shall come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

14

And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest.

15

There shall the dart-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shade; yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate.

16

Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah, and read: no one of these shall be missing, none shall want her mate; for my mouth, it hath commanded, and his Spirit, it hath gathered them.

17

And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

QUERIES

a.

How could the smoke of Edom go up forever?

b.

What is a night-monster?

c.

What is the book of Jehovah?

PARAPHRASE

Yes, the Lord will bring Zion its day of recompense. Edom has had its day opposing Zion, but the Lord will bring vengeance upon Edom at the proper time. Edom's streams will be fouled with tar and pitch and her soil turned into sulphurous dust and her land into burning, smoldering pools of tar, not fit for habitation. This desolation of Edom will never end. It will be an uninhabited kingdom forever, from one generation to another. It will never again be made a habitable place. The only creatures inhabiting this territory henceforth will be wild, unclean creatures of loneliness and desolationpelicans, porcupines, owls and ravens. God has measured that kingdom by His standards of righteousness and justice, and it is found to be fit only for destruction and desolation. They shall call it, No Kingdom There, and its princes shall soon all be gone. Thorn bushes and weeds will grow up inside its palaces and mansions; its fortresses will fall into complete disuse and be the haunts of wild jackals and ostriches. The animals of the desert will forage there along with wolves and wild goats. The screeching night-thing will settle there and build her nest. The dangerous darting snake and the scavenging vulture will settle there and reproduce their young. Search what the Lord has caused to be written in His book; not one of these predictions shall go unfulfilled because the Lord who revealed the predictions through my mouth is the same Lord whose Spirit will cause the wild animals to inhabit the desolation of Edom. The Lord of Creation has set this territory aside and marked it off to be given to those doleful and despised wild creatures from one generation to another.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 34:8-10 WASTE-LAND: The vengeance of the Lord serves also as a recompense for Zion. Edom has vented its age-old hatred (which began with the family feud between Esau and Jacob) upon Zion with an unrelenting passion (cf. Obadiah). Edom stood aloof, rejoiced, and joined in when other pagans plundered Jerusalem. God's sovereignty and His sovereign program cannot go on being thwarted forever. If His sovereignty is to be verified, rebellion must be punished. Edom's time has come, or is very near. When it happens, Zion's cause will be vindicated.

Malachi 1:3, 300 years after Isaiah, says the mountains and the heritage of Esau (Edom) were laid waste and left to the jackals of the desert. Then Malachi 1:4-5 represents the Edomites vowing they will rebuild and the Lord vowing He will tear down again. The territory of Edom was made desolate by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks (Seleucids) in succession. However, there was a brief period of recovery in the time of the Maccabeans, and Edom once again appears as an adversary of Israel of some importance. Gradually, however, Edom had to yield to the superior power of the Romans and was later, overrun and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs who completed the ruin of the land. It is now, and has been for more than a thousand years, one of the most desolate territories of land upon the face of the earth. Isaiah would hardly seem to demand a literal turning streams into pitch. The present land of once ancient Edom has no perennial rivers. It has numerous wadis (dry stream beds) which sometimes run with torrents when the winter rains flood them. Isaiah's intent, no doubt, is that Edom should be visited with a destruction and desolation so complete it could be likened unto that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24; Jeremiah 49:18). Men have passed through this area again and again since those days and still do, though they all testify to its utter desolateness. The word forever must be understood as hyperbole here.

Isaiah 34:11-15 WILD-LIFE: There is some disagreement among translators as to the exact identification of the animals in these verses. The only one generally agreed upon is the raven. The kooth is translated, cormorant, pelican or hawk. The kipod is translated, bittern, hedgehog or porcupine. Whatever their specific genre, the intent of the prophet seems to be to describe only animals that inhabit desolate, deserted places not inhabited by human beings. These forlorn beasts of the desert nights will move in and make this territory their possession. No other creatures will want it. God has measured off this territory for this specific group of unclean animals. The measuring-tape and the plumb-line are tohu and vohu and are the same two words used in Genesis 1:2 and translated waste and void, or confusion and emptiness. In other words God has marked Edom for systematic or planned reduction to chaos. All the nobles (rulers by birth) of Edom will disappear, and none will remain to constitute a kingdom. So the territory will be called, No Kingdom There. Its palaces and cities will be deserted and overgrown with brush and thorns. In Isaiah 34:14 the word in Hebrew lyilyith is translated night-monster in the ASV and satyr in the RSV. Some say it is a word with Akkadian root meaning some kind of storm-spirit. Most Hebrew lexicons define it as screech-owl. Lilit was the name of a female demon or wicked fairy, in whom the Assyrians (Akkadians) believeda being thought to vex and persecute her victims in their sleep. The Hebrew word for night is layeloh. Whatever the case, the night-monster or screech-owl is added to the arrow-snake and vulture to indicate a place where dwells every odious, despised, scary creature known. The prophets were poets and used imagery. When so doing they were free to use even the beliefs and superstitions of their contemporaries to intensify the force of their messages.

Isaiah 34:16-17 WORD OF THE LORD: Some have said the book of Jehovah was a volume collected of the works of Moses, some of the prophets before Isaiah, and the psalms of David. But there is no evidence of such a collection then. It is better to understand the book to be that of Isaiah's own writings up to that point. Nothing contained in his writings shall fail of fulfillment is the prophet's warning, for his writings are the work of Jehovah. Every utterance of his, even in the minute detail of the animals marked to possess Edom's territory, will come to pass, for although the predictions come through the mouth of Isaiah, it shall be the Spirit of the living God which shall bring them to pass. The Lord allots to all the nations of the earth their boundaries (cf. Jeremiah 27:5 ff). He has now allotted Edom to the unclean beasts and birds which are mentioned. He has marked it desolate (cf. Matthew 23:38). All kingdoms which oppose God are marked for destruction (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24-28; 1 Corinthians 15:50). Edom is here typical and representative.

QUIZ

1.

How will Edom's judgment be recompense for Zion?

2.

Were Edom's streams literally turned into pitch?

3.

What does the list of these particular animals portray about Edom?

4.

What is the territory of ancient Edom like today?

5.

How could Isaiah be certain his predictions would be fulfilled?