God Warns the Whole Earth of the Wrath to Come

Isaiah 34

All the stars in the sky will dissolve. The sky will roll up like a scroll, and its stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine, and foliage on the fig tree. (Isa 34:4)

Main Idea: God warns the nations on earth of his coming judgment on the whole earth and on all the armies of the earth, with Edom as a symbolic representative of God’s enemies.

1. God Summons the Nations to Listen (34:1).
   1. Doomsday scenarios underestimate what will come.
   2. God graciously warns all nations.
   3. God’s word is sufficient for their salvation.
2. God’s Wrath Is on All Nations and Their Armies (34:2-4).
   1. God has an overwhelming wrath; no nation is exempt.
   2. Overwhelming slaughter includes heaven and earth.
3. Edom Represents God’s Enemies (34:5-15).
   1. Edom is a historical and representative nation.
   2. God upholds Zion’s cause.
   3. Edom’s judgments are a foretaste of hell.
4. God’s “Scroll” Is Written, and Every Line Will Be Fulfilled (34:16-17).
   1. God’s “scroll” is his sovereign plan.
   2. Wild animals overtake Edom.
   3. All the days ordained for each nation are already written in God’s book.
5. Isaiah 34 Prepares Us for the Second Coming of Christ.
   1. The signs in the heavens: the “falling of the stars”
   2. The gathering of the kings of the earth and their armies for slaughter
   3. Deeper issue: deliverance from hell

God Summons the Nations to Listen

Isaiah 34:1

People are constantly fascinated by doomsday scenarios, ruminations on what future catastrophes await the human race:

• Some huge meteorite will hit the planet and make the human race instantly extinct.
• Radiation blasts from solar flares will heat up the earth’s core to such a level that life on earth will be impossible.
• A gamma-ray burst from elsewhere in the galaxy could make its way to earth and end it all.
• The destruction of the earth’s ozone layer will produce rampant global warming that will lead to the extinction of the human race.
• The eruption of a super volcano could disrupt the earth’s climate enough to wipe out humanity.
• A supervirus will become airborne and wipe out the human race by disease.
• Some nation or terrorist group will use thermonuclear weapons to trigger a worldwide conflagration resulting in total annihilation.
• Overpopulation will cause a depletion of the earth’s food sources resulting in widespread starvation.
• Robots designed with superior artificial intelligence and mechanical power will rebel against the human race and wipe us all out.
• An evil genius will create some doomsday machine that will detonate and destroy the earth.
• Aliens will invade and conquer our race with their superior intellect and technology.

Anyone who watches enough movies or reads enough fiction will be able to line up these doomsday scenarios with popular depictions. Yet amazingly, however horrific any of these depictions may be, all of them actually understate the danger to the human race because every single one of them leaves out the most terrifying threat of all: the just wrath of an almighty and omniscient God. No doomsday scenario crafted by the imagination of some literary genius will ever supersede what the Bible proclaims about the future of our race and of our planet. Isaiah 34 gives a powerful foretaste of the terrifying future of the human race and the universe.

The chapter begins with God summoning the whole earth to warn everyone about the universality of his coming wrath (v. 1). This is sheer grace from a holy God; he is not obligated to give such warnings, but he gives them for the salvation of his chosen people from every nation. The elect will heed these warnings and flee to Christ; the reprobate will scoff and blow them off.

God’s Wrath Is on All Nations and Their Armies

Isaiah 34:2-4

We learn two lessons: (1) God has an overpowering wrath against sin; (2) this wrath is against every single nation on earth without exception. There is not one righteous nation on earth whose leaders and policy makers exist for and render all decisions simply for the glory of God and of Christ. Jesus asserted, “Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters” (Matt 12:30). So any president, prime minister, dictator, or king who makes decisions and sends forth his nation’s armies on some mission, if their motive is not the glory of Christ, God is against them. Therefore, God’s wrath is against every single army on the face of the earth. He will “set them apart for destruction” (v. 2).

The prophecy goes far beyond this, for the words reach into the heavenly realms to throw down the celestial bodies and to roll up the heavens like a scroll (v. 4). These words may speak of Satan’s demonic army being routed by God’s angelic army and hurled down or of the total destruction of the present universe, including the stars, in order to make way for the new heaven and new earth. Hebrews 1:10-12 makes it plain that the heavens will be rolled up and changed like a robe, and Isaiah 34:4 also predicts it.

These verses have an “already and not yet” aspect to them. In every generation God’s wrath moves out against all the godlessness and wickedness of every nation and individual, and God’s use of one wicked nation to punish another wicked nation has been a major theme of the tapestry of human history. When Hitler’s Nazi armies were slaughtering and being slaughtered by Stalin’s Soviet armies, it was a partial fulfillment of this prophecy. But the fullest and final fulfillment is yet to come; it will immediately precede the second coming of Christ, as we will see in a moment.

Edom Represents God’s Human Enemies

Isaiah 34:5-15

The prophecy of Isaiah 34 goes from the universal to the specific in one sense in verses 5-15, as the words focus on Edom, the ancient foe of Israel. Edom was the nation descended from Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. Edom was a literal, historical nation, frequently at war with Judah and Israel. Here they are called by God, “the people I have set apart for destruction” (v. 5). Verse 6 also specifically mentions Edom, as well as Bozrah, which was the capital city of that small nation.

Yet in Scripture, Edom (Esau) is also representative of the reprobates of the earth, those who live and die as rebels against God. In Malachi 1:2-4 God uses his consistent settled judgments against Edom as evidence of his electing love toward the Jews, the descendants of Jacob. The statement “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau” (Mal 1:3) is chosen by the apostle Paul to teach the doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation in Romans 9:13. So in Isaiah 34 it is reasonable to see Edom as not only a historical nation but a representative one: God’s wrath falls on the reprobates from every tribe and nation on earth.

God declares that when his sword has “drunk its fill in the heavens, it will then come down on Edom and on the people I have set apart for destruction” (v. 5). So God will punish the satanic forces behind the reprobate nations on earth then descend to punish their earthly slaves. The slaughter will be overwhelming, as the prophecy uses gory sacrificial language to depict the carnage: there will be a “great slaughter in the land of Edom” (v. 6).

Significantly, verse 8 links the slaughter to God’s zeal to uphold Zion’s cause against her earthly enemies. Again and again, God makes plain his commitment to punish those who persecuted his people. In his complex plan he allows the “Edom” nations of the earth to trample his people for a time (Dan 7:23-26); but God ordains the final triumph of his people by his own personal intervention from heaven, ultimately in the second coming of Christ. Verses 9-10 depict the devastation of Edom in language that gives a foretaste of hell itself. The smoke rising forever from Edom’s burned-out land prefigures the smoke rising eternally from the lake of fire in Revelation 14:10-11. To fulfill his careful plan, God stretches out over Edom a measuring line of total destruction (Isa 34:11); the words are reminiscent of the total chaos of the universe in Genesis 1:2: “Now the earth was formless and empty.” In effect, God is saying he will speak Edom out of orderly creation; total desolation will be her lot.

God’s “Scroll” Is Written, and Every Line Will Be Fulfilled

Isaiah 34:16-17

The final insight from this terrifying chapter comes in understanding the eternal plan of God for all this destruction. Though the final verses speak of wild animals and birds nesting and finding mates, the real focus is on the “scroll” of the Lord (vv. 16-17). This is the language of the sovereign plan of God, a plan written down in detail before the foundation of the world. God has written his scroll, and every line will be fulfilled, including where “sand partridges” and “birds of prey” will mate and lay their eggs (v. 15).

Isaiah 34 Prepares Us for the Second Coming of Christ

Isaiah 34 prepares the earth for the second coming of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 24:29-31 Jesus quotes Isaiah 34:4 about the stars falling from the sky and the heavenly bodies being shaken. Revelation 6:12-17 is filled with similar images. When the sixth seal is broken, the stars fall to the earth like late figs from a fig tree, and the sky recedes like a scroll. Revelation 17:13-14 speaks of the ten earthly kings who submit to the antichrist (“the beast” of Rev 13) and who wage war against the Lamb (Jesus Christ) and his followers. Revelation 19:11-21 depicts plainly the second coming of Christ in this context, returning to rescue his people from the terror caused by the antichrist and his wicked henchmen, the “kings of the earth, and their armies” (v. 19) who are gathered to wage war against Jesus and his army. They are slaughtered without mercy by the sword coming from the mouth of Jesus as he rides on his white horse, descending from heaven. The gruesome chapter ends with the birds of the air coming to feast on the flesh of the wicked armies of the nations that assembled to fight Jesus. This is the final consummation of the themes of Isaiah 34:2, God’s wrath against all the unbelieving nations on earth.

Applications

Everyone must be warned to flee the wrath to come by trusting in Christ. The messengers of the gospel should regularly refresh their minds with how terrifying will be the wrath of God against his enemies and should warn the nations as Isaiah has done here. We should also understand the reasons for the universality of God’s wrath against the nations. There is not a political nation on earth that exists solely for the glory of God and of Christ. This should make every Christian be somewhat suspect of overweening patriotism. We must remind ourselves again and again that “our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:20). Finally, we should study the doctrine of the end times and the second coming of Christ and get ready for the vicious worldwide persecution that will accompany that age under the antichrist. We should get our children and our disciples ready for that suffering, confident of final triumph by the return of the King.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How do the doomsday scenarios of Hollywood compare with what is depicted in Isaiah 34 and the book of Revelation?
2. How is this chapter actually a display of God’s grace and patience toward his enemies?
3. What stark descriptions of judgment are displayed in verses 2-4? What language is used?
4. Do you think verse 4 refers to Satan and his wicked army in the heavenly realms, to the actual stars in the sky, or both?
5. How is Edom both a historical nation and a representative one? In Scripture, what does Esau/Edom represent (Mal 1:2-4 and Rom 9:10-13; also Heb 12:16)?
6. According to verse 8, what is the motive given for the slaughter? How is God upholding Zion’s cause?
7. What images fill verses 9-10? How are these verses like a foretaste of hell (Rev 14:10-11)?
8. What does God’s “scroll” represent in verses 16-17? How is it comforting that God has carefully determined details of human history and written them in his “book” before anything began (Ps 139:16)?
9. How do these verses prepare us for the second coming of Christ (Matt 24:29-31)?
10. How could meditation on this chapter, especially verses 1-2, keep us from excessive patriotism and nationalism?