Isaiah chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

YAHWEH'S SWORD UPON EDOM—" THE YEAR OF RECOMPENCES FOR THE CONTROVERSY OF ZION." 

A STRIKING series of contrasts is placed before the brethren of the prophets in that section of Isaiah's writings which ends with chapter xxxv. Chapter xxxiv. introduces Edom. The prophet turns from the Northern " spoiler" of chapter xxxiii. to the Southern rival and related power of Edom. He had been all along saying, as it were, " Woe to Israel's enemies—They shall perish, but Israel shall endure." Thus, in ch. xxiii., it was Woe to Tyre. She should fall, and her substance be appropriated by the Lord's people when they should reign in Zion. So also it was Woe to Ephraim (ch. xxviii.), and even to " Ariel, the city where David dwelt" (xxix.) till Jacob should turn again to God. Then it was Woe to Egypt, in whom the house oi Israel foolishly trusted (xxx.- xxxi.). They should fall ; but in Israel a King should at last "reign in righteousness, and princes rule in judgment" (xxxv.). Then, Woe to the Spoiler of the latter days (xxxiii.), when the " everlasting burnings" should be kindled. He should become a spoil; but Zion and her children should " abide." And now it is Woe to Edom (xxxiv.). It shall be desolate in the " day of vengeance and year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." But Zion's wilderness shall blossom abundantly (xxxv.), and the ransomed of the Lord at last return in triumph to her. Written for all time by the Spirit of God in the prophet, these things at once excite our highest admiration and praise, and shed light upon our times, assuring us that the Lord has not forsaken the earth, and encouraging us to wait for His Kingdom in patient well-doing

The opening of this chapter is an emphatic challenge of wide-reaching application, that at once tells us that we must not limit the matter to the times of Isaiah or a century or twa later, nor to the few hundred square miles of territory that properly belonged to Edom in his days. " Come near, ye nations, tohear; and hearken ye people: let the earth hear and all that is therein ; the world and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of Yahweh is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly devoted them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter." Psalm xlix. contains an illustration of a similar proclamation in its opening verses, and the matter of its setting to music is one upon which " all people" sadly need enlightenment. Moses' song, Deut. xxxii., is another instance, where, although he at first appealsto the " heavens and earth " of Israel, he at last turns to the nationssaying, " Eejoice, Ο ye nations with his people " ; which Paul in Rom. xv. applies to the bringing in of the Gentiles to the Kingdom of God. Isaiah likewise speaks of this in ch. xi., as Paul also shows in Rom. xv. But here in chap, xxxiv. his "message" to Edom covers the preliminary judgments on the nations before the Kingdom of "God is established. " The indignation of Yahweh " is a phrase of terrible imports and shows that He is not regardless of the operations of " all nations." It is true that He knows them not as He knows Israel (Amos iii.), but since His word has been sent abroad among them by the ministry of the apostles, they have had a degree of responsibility thereby that did not attach to them before. Moreover they have persecuted His saints and His nation ; and He has sworn to avenge them both. We shall see how this is connected with the enmity and the fate of Edom. The highly figurative language in which the judgments to come are introduced is intelligible enough to those versed in the scriptures. "The host of heaven dissolved," "heavens rolled together as a scroll," falling stars, " sword bathed in heaven "—all these expressions find ample illustration in Bible symbolism elsewhere, where the historical outworking of the judgment is unquestionable. And even here the context itself prevents the- possibility of mistake, for the parallelism of verse 5 runs thus :— My sword shall he bathed in heaven : Behold it shall come down upon Edom. And upon the people of my curse, to judgment. Here the " heaven" is " Edom," the " people of the curse." A sword in Mars or Jupiter would not affect these at all. The heavens and earth of Israel to which Moses, as we4 have said, referred (Deut. xxxii.), were similarly to be the subjects of the sword, fire, pestilence, and famine (verses 22-25). So also the Babylonian constellations and sun and moon were to be darkened in the " day of the Lord" upon Babylon, as Isaiah had declared (ch. xiv.). Jesus likewise associated the coming desolation of the Land of Israel, with similar darkening of sun and moon, and falling of stars ; " and," he says, " the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Matt. xxiv. 29). Peter, when this catastrophe was imminent, likewise reproduced the language of the prophets (2 Pet. iii. 10-13), adding, in view of the passing away of the Mosaic order of things :—" Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.'' Those for whom he wrote would know well where that promise was, and what it meant—namely, that Christ should return, and " Jerusalem become a rejoicing and her people a joy " (Isa. lxv.). The Lord Jesus has, in the Revelation (chs. vi. 12-17: xii.), similarly revealed the judgments by which the Pagan order of the Roman Empire was done away to make room for the new order of Antichristendom, in which his real friends, " which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ," are represented by a fugitive and persecuted woman pursued by " the serpent," and warred against by " the dragon." These references will illustrate the language of Isaiah xxxiv. Upon close study it will be perceived that its exact terms are reproduced in many of them. Then again, in Heb. i., Paul shows by quoting from Isaiah and the Psalms, that Messiah was to abolish the heavens and earth that were obnoxious to God's judgment, and change them as a vesture, that his own heavenly order might remain.

But why in this prophecy of Isaiah should such universal " indignation " and " fury " be associated with Edom ? Why and when this great sacrifice in Bozrah, and slaughter in the land of Edom ? (The Revised Version, in Isa. xxxiv., and Ezek. xxxv., xxxvi., rightly reads "Edom " and not " Idurnea," which latter form, in the A.V., tends to obscure the prophecy.) The true answers to these questions are only to be arrived at from a study of the divinely-revealed history of Edom, and of the purpose of God from the beginning as so strikingly announced therein. HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON ESAU AND EDOM. Edom, like all the other names of the early makers of human history in the directly divinely-controlled line, is a typical name, and was applied to the twin-brother of Jacob under peculiar circumstances. It is a monument to the prevision and purpose of God, as Paul forcibly argues in Rom. ix.—one of those notorious developments in human affairs that can be ignored, but not effaced, and against which the shafts of a sceptical criticism must ever be broken. In Edom or Esau, and Jacob, we see perpetuated the division of the two seeds that was ordained of God in the days of Adam and Eve (Gen. iii. 15): " Thy seed (0 serpent), and her seed " (the woman's). Then came the Oainite and Sethite lines (Gen. iv., v.). At the Flood, a remnant only of the Sethites was saved, and " the world of the ungodly" perished. Then came the Shemites on the one side (that of the blessing—Gen. ix. 2Q), and the descendants of Ham and Japheth on the other. Then, in the Shemite line, came the call of Abraham, which separated him from the idolatrous apostates of Chaldea; and made another division. Then, even in Abraham's line, Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, was rejected, that " in Isaac," the child of promise, might his seed be called. Finally, " when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac—(for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth)— it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written (in Malachi, about 1,600 years after the birth of the children) : Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. ix. 10-13). The circumstances attending the birth of Esau and Jacob are recorded in Gen. xxv. Esau was red from birth, and hairy; but the name Edom (red) was bestowed upon him not merely because of the characteristics that were his by birth, but because of the character he afterwards manifested in profanely selling his birthright. He came in from the field faint, and, setting longing eyes on Jacob's lentil pottage, exclaimed, " Feed me with that red, that red (pottage) (adorn), . . . therefore was his name called Edom." The genealogy and habitation of Edom and his descendants are given in Gen. xxxvi., Mount Seir being there defined as his dwelling place. By a remarkable coincidence, the very country harmonised in its colour and roughness with the character of Edom. Its ruddy sandstone is said to contrast remarkably with the white limestone of most of the hills of Jacob's inheritance. And Mount Seir by name is " the rough mountain " —the word Seir being in the original only a different pointing of the word translated hairy. So in a rough, red, mountainous land dwelt the rough and ruddy Edom or Esau, who thought more of hunting and sport than of birthrights or divine promises, and became a type for all subsequent ages of those who prefer profane things to patient continuance in well-doing in the way of God's commandments. The boundaries of Edom are nowhere plainly specified in any passage in the scriptures, but are deducible from many scattered allusions. This is ably done by Conder, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, in a brief but very thorough article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. It is interesting to see such thorough British knowledge of a country with which Britain is hereafter to have so much to do. The general result of scriptural investigation is to show that Edom lay to the East of the Arabah, or valley that runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah, in the Red Sea. Its northern boundary appears to have been the river Arnon, and its southern the sea, while its eastern extension was indefinite. From Deut. ii. 8 and Judges xi. 18, which refer to the circuit that Israel made round Edom in the days of the Exodus, it appears that the Arabah was not reckoned in Edom. Mount Hor is said to be in the border of Edom (Num. xx. 23: xxxiii. 37), and Kadesh Barnea is described (Num. xx. 16), as "a city in the uttermost parts" of Edom's border. Elath and Ezion Geber were the ports of Edom (Deut. ii. 8; 1 Kings ix. 26), whence (from the latter) Solomon's navy went to Ophir. The water has apparently receded many miles since those days, as is also the case in the Gulf of Suez. It may be remarked here that the Arabah is divided by a watershed, south of Petra, which is some 650 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. From this the waters descend northwards nearly 2,000 feet to the Dead Sea, which is 1,292 feet below the Mediterranean ; while to the South they of course run into the Gulf of Akabah. Mount Hor is about 3,000 feet above the Mediterranean, and the Edom hills were visible, as Josephus tells us, from the tower of Psephinus in Jerusalem, where Titus pitched his tent (Wars, v. 4, §3). A magnificent prospect is now obtained from the top of the Russian tower on the Mount of Olives. Bozrah, of which such fearful things are written in Isaiah, was the capital of Edom in his days and long before (Gen. xxxvi. 33). After lying forgotten for many centuries, it was rediscovered by Burckhardt early in the 19th century. It is identified with " Buseirah on the plateau of Mount Seir, about 25 miles south of Kerak in Moab." There is another Bozrah once mentioned in the scriptures (Jer. xlviii. 24), a city of Moab, probably the same as Bezer in the tribe of Reuben, the city of refuge (Deut. iv. 43; Josh. xx. 8). This is not to be confounded with Edom's capital, which is the subject of the prophecies by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos. In later times Edom extended his border, so that in the Greek and Roman periods the " Idumea" of the references of the book of Maccabees and Josephus is of much wider extent than Edom of old. Hebron, in the days of Judas Maccabeus, was an Idumean city, smitten by him when he " fought against the children of Esau" (1 Mace. v. 65). Josephus speaks of the lot of Simeon as including part of Idumea (Ant., v. 1, § 22), which shows that in his days Idumea stretched further westward than ancient Edom, for it was a special divine declaration that not a foot breadth of Esau's land was to be given to Israel (Deut. ii. 5). This brings us to the question of the history of Edom from the days of the Exodus and onward. When Yahweh became Israel's salvation in the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, Moses in his song of thanksgiving made mention of the amazement that would seize the dukes of Edom at the prowess of the seed of Jacob (Ex. xv. 15). Towards the end of the sojourn in the wilderness, Israel came to "the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh," and requested permission to pass through Edom. This being refused, they made a circuit by the way of Mount Hor, where Aaron died, and Israel then passed round Edom on the East (Num. xx.). Thenceforward we hear no more of Edom till DAVID'S day, when he smote and garrisoned Edom and reduced the country to tribute (2 Sam. viii.). This is celebrated in Psalm lx., among other victories, in all of which David is but a type of his " Greater Son," who shall inherit all these countries. Then SOLOMON, in his apostacy, married Edomite wives among others, and God stirred him up a " Satan" in the royal family of Edom—" Hadad the Edomite, . . . of the king's seed " (1 Kings xi.). Long afterwards, when Judah was invaded by the Assyrians and Babylonians, Edom kept up the traditional enmity which is rebuked by Obadiah with such detail, and which was visited by the subjection of Edom to the Babylonian yoke (Jer. xxvii., xlix.). It would be to this judgment, proximately, that Isaiah, in ch. xxxiv., probably refers. In the days of the MACCABEANS, as we have seen, Judas warred against " Esau," and took Hebron. Later on Hyrcanus more completely subdued Edom, and by a remarkable providence, paved the way for that Idumean dynasty, under which Messiah himself sufered, and which was the cause of the overthrow and affliction of Jacob until this day. Graetz, in his History of the Jews, thus refers to it :— " Hyrcanus laid siege to their two fortresses, Adora and Marissa; and after having demolished them, he bade the Idumeans choose between the adoption of Judaism and exile. They chose the former alternative, and became, outwardly, followers of that faith. The temples of the Idumean idols were of course destroyed, but the priests secretly adhered to their worship. Thus, after more than a thousand years of enmity, Jacob and Esau were again united—the elder serving the younger brother. . . . The enforced union of the sons of Edom with the sons of Jacob was fraught with disasters to the latter. It was through the Idumeans and the Romans that the Hasmonean dynasty wasoverthrown, and the Judean nation destroyed." This Conquest by Hyrcanus happened about B.C. 130 ; and, according to the reckoning of Josephus, the Edomites, by the circumcision of their flesh, " were hereafter no other than Jews" (Ant. xiii. 9, §1). Herod the Great was one of these " Jews"! No wonder Paul has some trenchant remarks on circumcision of the flesh, and of the heart (Rom. ii. 28-29; Phil. iii. 2-3; Col. ii. 11). After this, ANTIPATER, the Idumean, took the side of the Romans when, in B.C. 63, Pompey sent Scaurus against Petra ; and this led ultimately, to his son Herod the Great being proclaimed King of Judea by the Senate in B.C. 40. Such was the relation of Edom to the House of Jacob when the time came for the manifestation of Messiah. Afterwards, the Idumeans formed a faction in the history of the siege of Jerusalem, when they participated in the fall of the Jewish State before the Romans. Idumea itself was annexed to Rome under Trajan in A.D. 105, so that thenceforth we must, as it were, seek Edom in Borne: a quest only too easy for the unhappy sons of Jacob under that "dreadful and terrible" dominion. When Christianity arose, is was represented in a manner in Edom until the uprise of MOHAMMEDANISM. And it is remarkable that this scourge of God upon the Eastern Empire came out of Edom into Syria. The Christians of the country were put under tribute. From the time of the Crusades, Edom appears to have no history: and it is only just emerging, as it were, from the obscurity of centuries, with the revival of the East in preparation for the world-shaking events that will usher in the Kingdom of God. The ground of Edom's responsibility to the judgments of God, and the nature of his " blasphemy," is revealed in the prophets. Amos tells us that God would not turn away His judgments from Edom, " because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever" (i., ii.). We see this as we glance down his history. As it is said in Ezekiel, he " greatly offended" by his dealings against the house of Judah (ch. xxv. 12). Because of this, God said that His vengeance should come upon Edom by the hand of Israel; which, whatever fulfilment it may have had already in the days of the Maccabees and subsequently, certainly remains to be more signally fulfilled in the day of Christ (Isa. xi. 14). Ezekiel likewise (ch. xxxv.) speaks by the Spirit " against Mount Seir," because of the " perpetual hatred." It was considered "blasphemy" by God that Edom said that the mountains of Israel were laid waste and given to him to consume (v. 12). This was boasting against God and making Him a liar concerning the everlasting covenant with Abraham and David. Therefore, " Thus saith the Lord God ; When the whole earth rejoiceth I will make thee desolate" (v. 14). The kind of blasphemy that Edom thus exhibited is fashionable in Christendom, which mocks at the promises made to the house of Jacob, and thinks to possess the mountains of Israel. There will be a great awakening when " the Heir " returns, like Jacob from the house of Laban, to enter upon his inheritance. In the crisis of his return he has to do with Edom. Isaiah in another place (ch. lxiii.) sees him coming to Zion by the way of the Exodus of old. He speaks of him as Zion's " Salvation"— " his reward with him and his work before him " ; and he asks the question, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ?" And the answer is, " I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." And the question is then asked, " Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat ? " The answer of the Saviour is, *' I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the peoples there was none with me : for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart and the year of my redeemed is come." This is the same crisis as that spoken of in chapter xxiv. 8, as " the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion." It is that day of judgment which Jesus himself avoided mentioning in the synagogue at Nazareth, when he read a short portion of Isa. Ixi., and stopped short before the words, " the day of vengeance of our God." There is a time and place for the vengeance just as there was for his preaching " the acceptable year of the Lord," and for his suffering death under Herod and Pilate. In the crisis of the day of vengeance, or at " the time of the end," Edom is represented by the angel who enlightened Daniel concerning Messiah, as escaping the dominion of the King of the North when he overruns many countries and occupies the glorious Land (Dan. xi. 41). As pointed out by Dr. Thomas in Elpis Israel and Eureka, we recognise in Britain's occupation of these ancient territories the Edom and Moab of " the time of the end," and in Russian aggression the overspreading power of the rival " King of the North." Britain's part in Egypt is already notorious, and " the precious things of Egypt" are being developed apace by the irrigation works just completed. The next thing is the standing up of Michael the Great Prince in the time of the dead (Dan. xii.). Then, after the judgment scene is past, he goes forth with his conquering heroes to subdue the peoples after the type of Israel of old. Moses and Joshua will be with him, and Caleb, and all the faithful remnant of the days of the Exodus, besides the hosts of all subsequent times. They will come upon the old familiar country with unspeakably different sensations from those of the days of their mortal pilgrimage. It is impossible to speculate how far history may repeat itself in the possible unfriendliness of the latter-day Edom (at first) to the Prophet like unto Moses, and His people. Certain it is that there are sanguinary scenes to be enacted in the ancient country, and that nothing but carnage will effectually humble the powers that be, whether British, Russian, or any other; all of whose ignorant ambitions amount to nothing more than a blasphemous setting aside of the revealed purpose of God in the earth, and lust for universal dominion upon their own principles. Habakkuk, as well as Isaiah, saw that Edom and the South were connected with the incoming of Messiah in the day of vengeance. Habakkuk's sublime prayer, which was set to music for the temple service, says : —" God cometh from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran" (ch. iii.). The "Holy One" is the Lord Jesus, who comes to fulfil " the oath to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham" in the setting up of the everlasting Kingdom of God in Israel and the destruction of the enemy. Habakkuk looked forward to " rest in the day of trouble," which is what Paul also preached (2 Thess. ii.). It is a work of difficulty accurately to trace the great divine programme of events in these countries subsequent to the return of Christ. Dr. Thomas has made a notable essay in this direction when commenting on Rev. x., and the position of the angel of the rainbow there spoken of. To this we must now refer readers, in the full assurance that the events of the near future will further illustrate these great developments. The passage in question is to be found in Eureka, Vol. ii., pp. 544-566. Because Esau and Jacob stand for two manners of people —the people of the curse, and the people of the blessing—the wrestlers with God for His blessing (Jacob-Israel), and the despisers and sellers of the birthright (Esau-Edom)—some passages of the Scripture are not very intelligible if this fact be lost sight of. Paul, illustrating the fact that " they are not all Israel which are of Israel," refers not only to Ishmael and Isaac, but also to Esau and Jacob, as we have seen (Rom. ix.). 

And just as Home annexed the territory of Idumea, so Eome spiritually appropriated the principles of Edom in opposition to " the hope of Israel," and has been hostile to the Jews and to the saints in all the times of her supremacy. With regard to the Jews themselves, they have not been slow to recognise the Roman inheritance of Esau's antagonism to Jacob. When Constantius sent Gallus to the East to operate against the Persians in the middle of the 4th Cent. A.p., the Roman legions were quartered in the cities of Judea. Their taxes and levies were very oppressive, and the rabbis denounced them in such language as the following: " In the same way as when a garment hanging on a hedge of thorns has been disengaged from one side it is immediately torn by the other, so does it happen to us under the rule of Esau (Rome). . . . Wicked Esau behaves with artful cunning towards Israel." So when the Goths came in on the Roman Empire, and the unhappy Jews were between two fires, this was an example of their lamentations : " See, 0 Lord, how many are mine enemies! If Esau (Rome) hated Jacob, he hath at least some specious ground . . . but what hath Israel done to the barbarians and to the Goths ? " The Roman Captivity was referred to among the Jews as the galuth Edom. And the experiences of " Jews inwardly" in Roman Christendom liave harmonised with those of the natural seed of Israel. This spiritual extension of Edom, as it were, is visible particularly in Obadiah's prophecy. There Edom and Jacob, the house of Esau and the house of Jacob, Mount Zion and the Mount of Esau, are contrasted in their relations one to the other until the coming crisis, in which the captivity of Israel returns, "and saviours shall come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." Ια the execution of this judgment, it is said that "all the heathen " shall drink of the cup of Yahweh's indignation, which, as in Isaiah xxxiv., shows the wide scope of the prophecy. As a matter of later revelation, it is the European Powers who are to make war upon Christ at his coming at a time when the land of Edom shall be in the occupation of their British rival. But British Power itself must be humbled by Messiah as David conquered Edom of old, for, in its ecclesiastical relationship, it is only the daughter of the Roman Mother, and but little less antagonistic to the way of God. The friendship for the Jews (which, however, as regards the nation, is only a matter of political expediency), and the traditional veneration for the Bible (now more and more assailed in high quarters), are the mitigating features in the British case. The " streams of pitch" to which Edom's waters are to be reduced are in striking contrast with the " streams and broad rivers of the glorious Lord in Zion" (xxxiv. 9, compared witli xxxiii. 21). The literal fate of Sodom and Gomorrha, of which this reminds us, is associated with the fate of the Roman city and system (Rev. xi. 8; xvii.), that is to be overthrown, as they were for their wickedness. The desolation of Edom, that is still a monument of God's indignation, to all that pass by, speaks not only of the past, but of the overthrow that awaits the great anti-Jewish world of the latter days. " They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing." But the fallen tabernacle of David shall be raised up and built as in the days of old, " that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord that doeth this" (Amos ix.). We are of those heathen upon whom God's name is called, and we look for the time when Jacob shall be redeemed out of his time of trouble, and caused to inherit the high places of his enemies in " the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion."