Isaiah 34

¹Come near, O nations, to listen; pay attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that springs from it.

²The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

• Forms of the Hebrew cherem refer to the giving over of things or persons, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering; also in verse 5.

³Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

⁴All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree.

⁵When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

⁶The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.

⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

• Or of recompense for (Edom’s) hostility against Zion.

⁹Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch.

¹⁰It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it.

¹¹The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

• The precise identification of these birds is uncertain.

¹²No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

¹³Thorns will overgrow her citadels, nettles and thistles her fortresses. She will become a haunt of dragons, an abode for sirens.

• Heb. תַּנִּים / תַּנִּין (tannim/tannin), 'sea-dragon' or 'chaos-creature.' Canonical range runs from chaos-dragon (Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9, where tannin parallels Rahab) to the devouring sea-beast of creation (Gen 1:21; Job 7:12). Jeremiah 51:34 applies the word directly to Nebuchadnezzar: "he has swallowed me like a dragon." The LXX renders as δράκοντες throughout; the KJV renders 'dragons.' Most modern translations default to 'jackals,' driven by naturalistic assumptions rather than the canonical weight of the term.
• Heb. בְּנוֹת יַעֲנָה (benot ya'anah). Most dictionaries and English translations identify it as "daughters of the ostrich" or simply "ostriches." The LXX renders as σειρῆνες (seirēnes): supernatural beings with a woman's head and a bird's body whose wailing voices lured the living to their deaths. Micah 1:8 uses the term as a figure of mournful wailing; Job 30:29 pairs it with תַּנִּים as a figure of desolation. Revelation 18:2 requires these ruins to be populated by hostile spiritual beings.

¹⁴Desert creatures will meet with howlers; goat demons will call to each other. There Lilith will settle and find her resting place.

• Heb. אִיִּים (iyyim), 'howlers.' Appear only in this desolation formula (Isa 13:22; 34:14; Jer 50:39), always alongside צִיִּים (tsiyyim, 'desert dwellers'). The root points to mournful howling or wailing. The LXX renders as ὀνοκένταυρος ('donkey-centaur'), a being of the human-animal hybrid class. Second Temple readers recognized iyyim as a demonic category (Songs of the Sage, 4Q510). Immediately parallel with se'irim (goat demons) and Lilith in the same verse.
• Heb. שְׂעִירִים (se'irim), 'hairy ones' or 'goat-beings.' Leviticus 17:7 prohibits Israel from sacrificing to the se'irim; 2 Chronicles 11:15 records Jeroboam appointing priests for them alongside the golden calves. The LXX renders as δαιμόνια (daimonia) in both Isaiah 13:21 and 34:14; Revelation 18:2 uses the same word.
• Heb. לִילִית (lilit), 'night-demon.' BDB identifies her as "a female night-demon haunting desolate Edom, borrowed from Babylonian tradition." The Great Isaiah Scroll renders the word in the plural (liliyyot), suggesting a class rather than a unique figure. The Songs of the Sage (4Q510) lists her alongside demons, howlers, and desert dwellers — the precise cluster of beings populating the Isaiah and Jeremiah desolation texts.

¹⁵There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

¹⁶Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

¹⁷He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

¹Come 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.

²For 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.

³Their 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.

⁴And 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.

⁵For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

⁶The 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.

⁷And 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.

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

⁹And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰It 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.

¹¹But 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.

¹²They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.

¹³And 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.

¹⁴The 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.

¹⁵There 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.

¹⁶Seek 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.

¹⁷And 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.