Isaiah 34:3, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures a slaughter so vast that the dead are cast out and left unburied, their stench rises from their decaying bodies, and their blood flows so abundantly that the mountains are described as melted with it. It belongs to the Lord's indignation upon all nations and His fury upon all their armies, when He utterly destroys them and delivers them to slaughter on the great day of His wrath. That slaughter comes just before and in connection with Christ's coming, in the seven last plagues and at His advent, when the nations are gathered to the battle of that great day of God Almighty as the worldwide destruction of those opposed to God. At His second coming all the living wicked are slain out of the earth and left unburied upon the land to decay, leaving the earth desolate and without human inhabitants. Isaiah 34:1-15 describes the condition of the earth during the thousand years while the risen and changed saints reign with Christ in heaven, after which the wicked are finally destroyed by fire and God makes a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Words and Historic Setting

The verse depicts a slaughter so overwhelming that the dead are cast out and left exposed and unburied, their stench ascending from their carcasses while their shed blood so abundantly soaks the land that the mountains are pictured as melted with it. The bodies lie unburied upon the earth to decay, with corpses and blood marking the devastation and the land soaked in blood. The judgment falls upon the nations when their armies are delivered to slaughter, leaving the slain cast out with their stench rising.

Idumea or Edom in this prophecy is not the literal ancient land, which was only a mountainous strip about a hundred miles long by fifteen or twenty wide and could not account for such fearful consequences. It signifies the earth, or some portion of it, even the sin-cursed earth and its idolatrous dwellers. In that sense Idumea stands as a type of the world under God’s just judgments, with its desolation leaving the land without human inhabitants as a roaming place for wild beasts.

The verse belongs to Isaiah chapters 24–35, which look especially toward the last days and God’s judgments upon the earth. Its terrible imagery describes divine judgment carried out through divine providence, which does not require a personal appearance of God or literal cosmic changes. The chapter’s language of desolation lasting forever and ever does not mean the land remains desolate without end, for Isaiah 35 afterward describes it blossoming and being inhabited by the Lord’s ransomed. Together Isaiah 34–35 connect the fall of Babylon as a type of the end of the world with the return to Zion with songs and everlasting joy as a type of the Gospel dispensation. The prophecy’s picture of devastating conflict and destruction in the final overthrow stands alongside the prophecy of Isaiah 13:4-5.

Day of Vengeance at Coming

The slain lie exposed and unburied, their stench rising from their carcasses while blood runs so abundantly that the mountains are pictured as melted with it, for the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations and His fury upon all their armies, whom He has utterly destroyed and delivered to slaughter on the great day of His wrath. That slaughter is the Lord's day of vengeance, the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion, also called the day of the tumult of the Lord and the day of His wrath and fierce anger, the day of vengeance in His heart and the year of His redeemed. Then He gathers the nations and assembles the kingdoms to pour upon them all His fierce anger until all the earth is devoured with the fire of His jealousy, with all the host of heaven dissolved, the heavens rolled together as a scroll, and their host falling as a leaf falls from the vine and as a falling fig from the fig tree. It is the punishment and desolation in which Idumea signifies the earth or some portion of it, and it comes when the Lord arises to shake terribly the earth and the great day of judgment dawns upon a guilty world.

That day of the Lord is cruel wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate, a day of wasteness and desolation, darkness and gloom, great and very terrible with slaughter, bloodshed and vengeance. It is never the accepted time or day of salvation with call to repentance and offer of mercy, but is as different from a merciful probationary age as wrath is from mercy and darkness from light. The slaughter comes just before and in connection with Christ's advent, in the seven last plagues and at His coming, when the nations are gathered to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. It is not a past event but the worldwide destruction and final overthrow of the nations opposed to God, the prophetic picture of devastating conflict standing alongside Isaiah 13:4-5.

It is the worldwide slaughter that closes the last perilous times before the millennium, coming after the earth is turned upside-down and all people are in pain as a woman in travail. The dissolving of mountains in blood pictures nations scourged, shaken and deceived, and all confederations of the unsanctified finally smitten in unexampled war and judgment over the whole earth. Present hopes of liberty, progress and easy victory are flood-gates of disaster and judgment, and its fulfillment is speedy, certain and unstoppable. In the phrase the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion, the noun year is put in apposition to explain the noun day, proving that a prophetic day means a year.

The mountains offer no refuge from that judgment in the great day, but are themselves subject to judgment and melted with the blood of the slain. The slain of the nations cast out unburied, with stench rising from their corpses and blood soaking the mountains, is among the descriptions of the fate of those who worship the beast and receive its mark.

Millennial Desolation and Renewal

At Christ's second coming all the living wicked, the sinners then living, are slain and destroyed out of the earth. Their slain bodies are cast out unburied upon the land and left exposed to decay, with stench rising from their carcasses and blood so abundant that it soaks the land and the mountains are pictured as melted with it. That slaughter leaves the earth desolate.

By that slaughter the earth lies desolate like the ruins of Carthage and Nineveh until the New Jerusalem descends and the earth is renewed. It is left without a place for the wicked and naturally incapable of supporting human life, without human inhabitants. Isaiah 34:1-15 describes this condition of the earth during the thousand years. While the earth remains desolate the immortal saints have ascended with Christ to the Father's house, the heavenly city and New Jerusalem, having been raised from the dead or changed to immortality in the first resurrection, to reign with Him in judgment in heaven before the city descends to earth.

During that desolation the earth is not entirely wrapped in flame until the thousand years end. Animal life still persists, for the chapter's closing desolation leaves the land without human inhabitants as a roaming place for wild beasts and birds of prey. Not every beast and bird need be destroyed, for some may survive and reproduce among the ruins during the thousand years. After the thousand years the saints return with Christ and the city, the wicked dead are raised and utterly destroyed by fire from heaven in the final conflagration in which all who are not identified with the Lord perish, and then the New Jerusalem descends, the earth is renewed, and God makes a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.