Isaiah 34:15, commentary and pictures

It describes a land left utterly waste under God's judgment, fit only for wild birds to nest and gather with their mates. It belongs to the prophecy of Edom's ruin, which looks beyond the ancient land to the day of the Lord's indignation upon all nations at Christ's coming. At that coming the living wicked are slain, the righteous are taken immortal to heaven, and the wicked dead remain unraised, leaving the earth desolate and uninhabited by man through the thousand years while the saints reign with Christ in the New Jerusalem above. Through that age no people dwell there, but owls nest and hatch and vultures gather, with only wild and loathsome beasts and birds left alive to multiply and feed upon the carcasses strewn over the earth. That desolation is not endless, but proves that unquenchable fire and ascending smoke consume until nothing remains and the wicked perish utterly, before the earth is renewed and inhabited by the redeemed.

Prophetic Context

Isaiah 34:15 belongs to the group of prophecies in Isaiah 24-35 that look especially toward the last days and God's judgments upon the earth. It is part of the prophecy describing Idumea's or Edom's desolation, which points to the time of God's final judgments rather than only the ruined condition of the ancient land. In that prophecy Idumea represents the earth, or a part of it, that receives God's judgments when the nations gather for the great day of God. It represents this sin-cursed earth and its idolatrous inhabitants, with the nesting and gathering of creatures as part of that picture.

The verse contributes to the picture of Idumea's absolute desolation under God's just judgments, portraying the land as a place where wild birds nest and gather with their mates. Its time is the day of the Lord's indignation upon all nations, the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion, when man is utterly destroyed and the land is left desolate. That coming great day is the day of the tumult of the Lord, the day of His wrath and fierce anger at the glorious coming of the Lord Jesus.

The desolate habitation of owls and vultures left by the fall of Babylon is a bold type of the end of the world. Coupled with the return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy, it types the gospel dispensation and the return of all who are scattered to Babylon. The prophecy thus has traits with a twofold application.

Thousand-Year Desolation

At Christ's second coming all wicked men living then are destroyed, the righteous dead are raised and the living righteous are changed to immortality, and the immortal saints ascend with Christ to the eternal city and to the Father's house to reign with Him in the judgment of the wicked for a thousand years, while the wicked dead remain unraised until the thousand years are ended. The nesting of the great owl and the gathering of the vultures every one with her mate pictures a land emptied of people and given over to wild birds and wild creatures dwelling in its ruins, because the sinners living at Christ's coming are destroyed and the saints are taken to heaven. Isaiah 34:1-15 shows this desolation of the earth during the millennium, describing its condition through the thousand years after the second coming.

The earth lies desolate with only wild creatures dwelling in its ruins, left uninhabited by humans and naturally incapable of supporting human life. It remains desolate through the thousand years while the righteous are with Christ in heaven, after Christ comes and the wicked are slain. The thousand-year judgment reign of Christ and the saints takes place in the New Jerusalem before it descends to earth, since the saints ascend with Christ and the earth remains desolated at His coming.

During that age of desolation no human beings live there, but animal and bird life remains to occupy the ruins of a waste and empty earth while the saints are in heaven. Owls make nests, lay, hatch and gather under shadow and raise their young, vultures gather every one with her mate, and wild animals and birds of prey possess the land through the age of desolation after people have been destroyed. The nesting, breeding birds and their mates are placed in a land emptied of people, showing the desolate earth as a place left without human inhabitants where wild creatures nest, hatch their young, and gather with their mates, after Christ's coming when the wicked are dead and before its final destruction.

The destruction does not cut off every species of living creature from the whole earth, and the earth's destruction by fire is not yet universal at the beginning of the day of the Lord. Man and domestic or useful beasts are cut off in the day of the Lord's indignation upon all nations, the day of the Lord's vengeance and year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion, and there remain alive only the most ferocious, doleful, revolting and horrible kinds of beasts, birds and reptiles, with the great owl making her nest and laying and hatching and gathering under her shadow and the vultures gathered every one with her mate. These birds nesting, hatching, laying eggs and gathering their young, and other animals and birds of prey, remain after Christ's coming even though human life is destroyed, and can multiply and feed on the human carcasses left on the earth, growing greatly in number during the thousand years between Christ's coming and the resurrection of the wicked. That abundant animal life provides food for the wicked when they rise at the end of the thousand years.

Animal life thus remains on the earth during the thousand years, before the earth is entirely wrapped in flame at the end of that period. This supports the sequence in which Christ's return brings the destruction of the living wicked and leaves the earth desolate during the thousand years, followed by the wicked dead being raised and destroyed, and God making a new earth.

Doctrine and Warning

Edom after its burning with fire that shall not be extinguished and with smoke ascending forever becomes a perpetual desolation through which no man passes, inhabited only by wild creatures nesting and gathering there, the great owl making her nest and hatching and gathering under her shadow and the vultures gathered every one with her mate. This proves that fire that never shall be quenched and smoke ascending forever can give place to utter desolation when everything has been consumed. Where smoke ascends, fire is consuming what produces the smoke, and what consumes must finally cease to burn when nothing remains to support the fire. So the ascent of smoke is testimony that the wicked are consuming in their torment, however slowly, and that finally they must perish utterly into smoke.

The desolation described is not eternal, for the land later blossoms and is inhabited by the Lord's redeemed, so forever describes a span with an end. Like the ruins of Carthage and Nineveh, it portrays the earth in its entirety as left desolate after the destruction of the last day. That waste condition continues until the New Jerusalem descends and the earth is renewed.

The mention of each creature with its mate does not teach that people will be married in heaven. The verse also foretells a near day of desolation upon the selfish rich who oppress the poor, when hoarded gold rusts and proves to be worthless baubles for which the soul was sold. Then their glittering grand palaces become mouldering ivy-covered piles where the owl makes her nest and hoots. There the satyr cries, the bat flits, prowling monsters hide and venomed serpents glide, and through ages long no human foot paces the halls and no human voice wakes an echo.