As we concluded Chapter 33 we found the prophet Isaiah predicting an era of eternal peace (from enemies) for the people of Israel. Chapter 34 explains how this will come about: the Lord will make certain that Israel has no enemies! Everyone who has ever persecuted the Jewish people will be judged for their crimes against humanity. As our chapter opens we find the Lord's message addressed to "the nations" and "the peoples", so we know His message of judgment is addressed to the wicked from among the Gentile nations, not the Jewish people.
"Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all that comes out of it! The Lord is angry with all nations; His wrath is on all their armies. He will totally destroy them, He will give them over to slaughter." (Isaiah 34:1-2) Many mainstream Christian scholars believe that the era known as the Great Tribulation is in view here. The Lord is not going to destroy every person on the face of the earth but in the book of Revelation we find a coalition of wicked kings and thousands upon thousands of citizens from their nations joining together to fight against the Lord's chosen King: the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord will destroy those who hate Him with the words of His mouth. In the Great Tribulation there will be more persecution of the Jewish people than ever before and there will be more persecution of Christians (those who came to faith after the Lord calls His church out of the world) than ever before. But the Lord will judge all these persecutors to an eternity separated from the glory and the love and the joy of His presence.
"Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink; the mountains will be soaked with their blood. All the stars in the sky will be dissolved and the heavens rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree." (Isaiah 34:3-4) There are several prophecies in the New Testament regarding great cataclysms on the earth and in the heavens above. These correspond almost word for word with this passage from the book of Isaiah.
Next the Lord mentions the kingdom of Edom, which was founded by Jacob's brother Esau, as an example of an enemy of Israel that He would cause to fall. "My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; see, it descends in judgment on Edom, the people I have totally destroyed. The sword of the Lord is bathed in blood, it is covered with fat---the blood of rams and goats, fat from the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And the wild oxen will fall with them, the bull calves and the great bulls. Their land will be drenched with blood, and the dust will be soaked with fat." (Isaiah 34:5-7)
The language in this passage is graphic but it is necessary for the Lord to use this type of language to make His people understand that He will avenge all the blood their enemies have shed. Throughout the ages a number of nations, including Edom, opposed the establishment and the continuation of the nation of Israel. Untold millions of the descendants of Jacob have been cruelly cut down by those who hate them. The Lord will not allow these crimes to go unpunished. He uses the example of the Edomites, whose nation no longer exists in our day, as an example of utter destruction. Where is the kingdom of Edom today? It has vanished from the earth and in this same way all nations that oppose the Lord's people Israel will vanish from the earth.
The Lord speaks of sacrifices in the passage above. Normally the sacrifices made to the Lord were made with rams and goats and sheep and bulls. The Lord compares His slaughter of Israel's enemies to animal sacrifices, perhaps because so many people have behaved like animals toward His people. Or perhaps He mentions sacrifices because the great slaughter of the wicked of the earth in the Great Tribulation will be one not of atonement, as sacrifices usually are, but because this sacrifice will be one of vengeance. The wicked of that era don't want atonement. They oppose the Lord and the Lord's people to the very end and He makes a slaughter of them.
"For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion's cause." (Isaiah 34:8) Long ago in the Old Testament, before the Lord brought the descendants of Jacob into the promised land and made a great nation of them, He said to them: "It is Mine to avenge; I will repay." (Deuteronomy 32:35a) He meant He would handle problems in their day to day lives and He meant that in the future He would handle their enemies in a permanent way. In the end times He will completely fulfill this promise by avenging all the wrongs ever done to His people and by establishing them as a secure nation forever.
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