---
title: "Isaiah 34 - Study King James Bible with ellicotts commentary for english readers"
description: "Read Isaiah 34 with ellicotts commentary for english readers commentary. 1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. 2"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/ellicotts-commentary-for-english-readers/isaiah/34"
---

[ Read](/kjv/isaiah/34)[ Commentary](/study/isaiah/34)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/isaiah/34) Audio

 1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.*

 2 For the indignation of the LORD *is* upon all nations, and *his* fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

 3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and 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 host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off 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 Idumea, 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, *and* with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

 7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.**

 8 For *it is* the day of the LORD’s vengeance, *and* the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

 9 And the streams thereof 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 cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also 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 the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none *shall be* there, and all her princes shall be nothing.

 13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, *and* a court for owls.*

 14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.***

 15 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.

 16 ¶ Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, 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.
 
[Isaiah 33](/study/isaiah/33) [Isaiah 35](/study/isaiah/35)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
**XXXIV.** 

(1) **Come near, ye nations, to hear . . .**—The two chapters that follow have a distinct character of their own. They form, as it were, the closing epilogue of the first great collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, the historical section that follows (Isaiah 36-39) serving as a link between them and the great second volume, which comes as an independent whole. Here, accordingly, we have to deal with what belongs to a transition period, probably the closing years of the reign of Hezekiah The Egyptian alliance and the attack of Sennacherib are now in the back-ground, and the prophet’s vision takes a wider range. In the destruction of the Assyrian army he sees the pledge and earnest of the fate of all who fight against God, and as a representative instance of such enemies, fixes upon Edom, then, as ever, foremost among the enemies of Judah. They had invaded that kingdom in the days of Ahaz ([2 Chronicles 28:17](/kjv/2-chronicles/28/17)). The inscriptions of Sennacherib (Lenormant, *Anc. Hist.,*i. 399) show that they submitted to him. They probably played a part in his invasion of Judah, in his attack on Jerusalem, analogous to that which drew down the bitter curse of the Babylonian exiles ([Psalms 137:7](/kjv/psalms/137/7)). The chapters are further noticeable as having served as a model both to Zephaniah throughout his prophecy, and to [Jeremiah 25:0](/kjv/jeremiah/25/0), [Jeremiah 46:3-12](/kjv/jeremiah/46/3-12), Jeremiah 50, 51, parallelisms with which will meet us as we go on. 

The prophecy opens, as was natural, with a wider appeal. The lesson which Isaiah has to teach is one for all time and for all nations: “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.” There rises before his eyes once more the vision of a day of great slaughter, such as the world had never known before, the putrid carcasses of the slain covering the earth, as they had covered Tophet, the Valley of Hinnom, after the pestilence had done its work on Sennacherib’s army. (Comp. as an instance of like hyperbole, the vision of the destruction of Gog and Magog, in [Ezekiel 39:11-16](/kjv/ezekiel/39/11-16).)

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