not ... taken down ... removed--image from captives "removed" from their land ([Is 36:17]). There shall be no more "taking away" to an enemy's land. Or else, from nomads living in shifting tents. The saints, who sojourned once in tabernacles as pilgrims, shall have a "building of God--eternal in the heavens" ([2Co 5:1]; [He 11:9], ; compare [Is 54:2]).
stakes--driven into the ground; to these the "cords" were fastened. Christ's Church shall never fall ([Mt 16:18]). So individual believers ([Re 3:12]).
21. there--namely, in Jerusalem.
will be ... rivers--Jehovah will be as a broad river surrounding our city (compare [Is 19:6]; [Na 3:8]), and this, too, a river of such a kind as no ship of war can pass (compare [Is 26:1]). Jerusalem had not the advantage of a river; Jehovah will be as one to it, affording all the advantages, without any of the disadvantages of one.
galley with oars--war vessels of a long shape, and propelled by oars; merchant vessels were broader and carried sail.
gallant--same Hebrew word as for "glorious," previously; "mighty" will suit both places; a ship of war is meant. No "mighty vessel" will dare to pass where the "mighty Lord" stands as our defense.
22. Lord--thrice repeated, as often: the Trinity ([Nu 6:24-26]).
judge ... lawgiver ... king--perfect ideal of the theocracy, to be realized under Messiah alone; the judicial, legislative, and administrative functions as king to be exercised by Him in person ([Is 11:4]; ; [Jas 4:12]).
23. tacklings--Continuing the allegory in [Is 33:21], he compares the enemies' host to a war galley which is deprived of the tacklings or cords by which the mast is sustained and the sail is spread; and which therefore is sure to be wrecked on "the broad river" ([Is 33:21]), and become the prey of Israel.
they--the tacklings, "hold not firm the base of the mast."
then--when the Assyrian host shall have been discomfited. Hezekiah had given Sennacherib three hundred talents of silver, and thirty of gold ([2Ki 18:14-16]), and had stripped the temple of its gold to give it to him; this treasure was probably part of the prey found in the foe's camp. After the invasion, Hezekiah had so much wealth that he made an improper display of it ([2Ki 20:13-15]); this wealth, probably, was in part got from the Assyrian.
the lame--Even the most feeble shall spoil the Assyrian camp (compare [Is 35:6]; [2Sa 5:6]).
24. sick--Smith thinks the allusion is to the beginning of the pestilence by which the Assyrians were destroyed, and which, while sparing the righteous, affected some within the city ("sinners in Zion"); it may have been the sickness that visited Hezekiah ([Is 38:1-22]). In the Jerusalem to come there shall be no "sickness," because there will be no "iniquity," it being forgiven ([Psa 103:3]). The latter clause of the verse contains the cause of the former ([Mr 2:5-9]).
Chapter 34
Is 34:1-17. Judgment on Idumea
The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth chapters form one prophecy, the former part of which denounces God's judgment against His people's enemies, of whom Edom is the representative; the second part, of the flourishing state of the Church consequent on those judgments. This forms the termination of the prophecies of the first part of Isaiah (the thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters being historical) and is a kind of summary of what went before, setting forth the one main truth, Israel shall be delivered from all its foes, and happier times shall succeed under Messiah.
1. All creation is summoned to hear God's judgments ([Eze 6:3]; [De 32:1]; [Psa 50:4]; [Mi 6:1], ), for they set forth His glory, which is the end of creation ([Re 15:3]; ).
that come forth of it--answering to "all that is therein"; or Hebrew, "all whatever fills it," Margin.
2. utterly destroyed--rather, "doomed them to an utter curse" [Horsley].
delivered--rather, "appointed."
3. cast out--unburied ([Is 14:19]).
melted--washed away as with a descending torrent.
4. ([Psa 102:26]; [Joe 2:31]; ; [Mt 24:29]).
dissolved--([2Pe 3:10-12]). Violent convulsions of nature are in Scripture made the images of great changes in the human world ([Is 24:19-21]), and shall literally accompany them at the winding up of the present dispensation.
scroll--Books were in those days sheets of parchment rolled together ([Re 6:14]).
fall down--The stars shall fall when the heavens in which they are fixed pass away.
fig tree--([Re 6:13]).
5. sword--([Jr 46:10]). Or else, knife for sacrifice for God does not here appear as a warrior with His sword, but as one about to sacrifice victims doomed to slaughter [Vitringa]. ([Eze 39:17]).
bathed--rather "intoxicated," namely, with anger (so [De 32:42]). "In heaven" implies the place where God's purpose of wrath is formed in antithesis to its "coming down" in the next clause.
Idumea--originally extending from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea; afterwards they obtained possession of the country east of Moab, of which Bozrah was capital. Petra or Selah, called Joktheel ([2Ki 14:7]), was capital of South Edom (see on [Is 16:1]). David subjugated Edom ([2Sa 8:13], ). Under Jehoram they regained independence ([2Ch 21:8]). Under Amaziah they were again subdued, and Selah taken ([2Ki 14:7]). When Judah was captive in Babylon, Edom, in every way, insulted over her fallen mistress, killed many of those Jews whom the Chaldeans had left, and hence was held guilty of fratricide by God (Esau, their ancestor, having been brother to Jacob): this was the cause of the denunciations of the prophets against Edom ([Is 63:1], &c.; [Jr 49:7]; Eze 25:12-14; 35:; [Joe 3:19]; [Am 1:11], ; Ob 8, 10, 12-18; Mal [1:3,4]). Nebuchadnezzar humbled Idumea accordingly ([Jr 25:15-21]).
of my curse--that is, doomed to it.
to judgment--that is, to execute it.
6. filled--glutted. The image of a sacrifice is continued.
blood ... fat--the parts especially devoted to God in a sacrifice ([2Sa 1:22]).
lambs ... goats--sacrificial animals: the Idumeans, of all classes, doomed to slaughter, are meant ([Zep 1:7]).
Bozrah--called Bostra by the Romans, &c., assigned in [Jr 48:24] to Moab, so that it seems to have been at one time in the dominion of Edom, and at another in that of Moab ([Is 63:1]; [Jr 49:13], 20, 22); it was strictly not in Edom, but the capital of Auranitis (the Houran). Edom seems to have extended its dominion so as to include it (compare [La 4:21]).
7. unicorns--Hebrew, reem: conveying the idea of loftiness, power, and pre-eminence (see on [Job 39:9]), in the Bible. At one time the image in the term answers to a reality in nature; at another it symbolizes an abstraction. The rhinoceros was the original type. The Arab rim is two-horned: it was the oryx (the leucoryx, antelope, bold and pugnacious); but when accident or artifice deprived it of one horn, the notion of the unicorn arose. Here is meant the portion of the Edomites which was strong and warlike.
come down--rather, "fall down," slain [Lowth].
with them--with the "lambs and goats," the less powerful Edomites ([Is 34:6]).
bullocks ... bulls--the young and old Edomites: all classes.
dust--ground.
8. recompenses for the controversy of Zion--that is, the year when God will retaliate on those who have contended with Zion. Her controversy is His. Edom had thought to extend its borders by laying hold of its neighbor's lands and has instigated Babylon to cruelty towards fallen Judah ([Psa 137:7]; [Eze 36:5]); therefore Edom shall suffer the same herself ([La 4:21], ). The final winding up of the controversy between God and all enemies of Him and His people is also foreshadowed ([Is 61:2]; ; [66:14-16]; Mal 4:1, 3; [2Th 1:7], [8, 9]; [Re 11:18]; ; ).
9. Images from the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah ([Ge 19:24-28]; so [De 29:23]; [Jr 49:17], ).
10. It--The burning pitch, &c. ([Is 34:9]).
smoke ... for ever--([Re 14:11]; ; ).