Ver. 1. Come near, ye nations.] In this chapter and the next, the prophet, for the terror of the wicked, and comfort of the godly, summeth up what he had said before concerning the destruction of the enemies and the restoration of the Church. Eusebius, with many other ancients, will have this chapter to be understood to be the end of the world and the last judgment; and further saith that Plato hath taken this place of the prophet Isaiah into his writings, and made it his own. Litera vero huius vaticinii de extremo iudicio non loguitur; but this cannot be the literal sense of the text, saith Scultetus. The Jewish doctors will needs understand these two chapters as a prophecy of their return into the Holy Land, when once Idumea shall be destroyed; and for this they allege Lamentations 4:22, which yet proveth it not. De Praep. Evang., lib. xi.
Ver. 2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations.] Is, or shall be, upon all the Church’s enemies, whether of former or latter time; even his “boiling wrath,” as the Word signifieth. He hath utterly destroyed them.] Or, He will make an anathema of them, as Isaiah 34:5, the “people of my curse,” devoted to destruction.
Ver. 3. Their slain also shall be cast out.] Buried with the burial of an ass, (Jeremiah 22:19) which Cicero somewhere calleth sepulturam insepultam and unburied grave. This may also befall such as for God’s sake are slain all the day long; but to them it is no such judgment: Coelo tegitur qui caret urna. And their stink shall come up out of their carcases.] They stink alive as goats, as whited tombs, as walking dunghills; and now their dead carcases also shall stink above ground. And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.] Iuste omnino, because they moistened the earth with the blood of God’s people, and dunged the land with their dead carcases.
Ver. 4. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved.] Inusitati supplicii atrocitas sic designatur. So great shall be the slaughter of the nations, that the heavenly bodies shall seem to be sensible of it, and amazed at it, and the whole heaven to be rolled together as a scroll, lest it should be forced to behold it. In a bloody fight between Amurath III, King of Turks, and Lazarus, Despot of Servia, many thousands fell on both sides; the Turkish histories, to express the terror of the day, vainly say that the angels in heaven, amazed with that hideous noise, for that time forgot the heavenly hymns wherewith they always glorify God.
Ver. 5. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven.] Heb., Drunk, or drenched— i.e., In coelo decretum est ut inebrietur; whencesoever the sword comes, it is bathed in heaven, hath its commission from God (Jeremiah 47:6,7; see Jeremiah 46:9), and as a drunken man reeleth to and fro, so the sword, when once in commission, roveth up and down, and rideth circuit usually. (Ezekiel 14:17) Behold, it shall come down upon Idumea,] i.e., Upon the Edomites, who were assidui et acerrimi hostes Iudaeorum, bitter enemies to the Jews, though both nations came from Isaac, both were circumcised; so are now the Romish Edomites to the Churches of Christ, with whose blood they are red all over. (Revelation 17:6) The Hebrews understand here by Idumea, Rome.
Ver. 6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, &c.] That is, It maketh clean work, as the blood and fat were in sacrifices consumed, (Leviticus 1:16,17) and this execution was no less pleasing to God than some solemn sacrifice. For the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah.] The metropolis of Idumea; Ptolemy calleth it Botsra. And it prefigured Rome, saith Piscator, the chief city and seat of Antichrist’s kingdom.
Ver. 7. And the unicorns shall come down.] Monocerotes, qui interimi possunt, capi non possunt, creatures of untameahle fierceness; or rhinoceros, as the margin hath it—he meaneth the great ones.
Ver. 8. For the controversy of Zion,] i.e., Of the Church, both Jewish and Christian, saith Piscator. [compare Revelation 18:2]
Ver. 9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch.] Like the lake of Sodom, which is near to Idumea, and whereof Josephus writes, that an ox, having all his legs bound, will not sink into it, the water is so thick and pitchy. Strabo, though a stranger to this prophecy, attesteth the accomplishment of it. Lyra saith that in some part of Idumea there is still ascending a smoke of fire and brimstone, as out of Mount Etna in Sicily. And Hyperius thinketh that the Edomites are here further threatened with hell torments. It should seem so by the next words. Alludit ad vicinam et situ et scelare et clade Sodomam -Lib. v. De Bell. Jud. Geog., lib. xvi.
Ver. 10. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke of it shall go up for ever.] See Revelation 14:11,18:18 19:3. And observe how John the divine picks out the choicest passages of the Old Testament, and polishes therewith his Revelation. None shall pass through it for ever,] i.e., Incolendi animo, to dwell there; passengers did pass through it, and wondered at God’s dreadful judgments thereon. (Jeremiah 49:17)
Ver. 11. The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it.] God cannot satisfy himself in saying what he will do to the Edomites, because they had dealt by revenge, and had taken vengeance with a despiteful heart to destroy the Church, for the old satanical hatred. [as Ezekiel 25:15] He will turn in those animalis faeda, fera et terribilia, to dwell in their land; whereby is noted extreme devastation, which is here in many exquisite words (more propemodum poetico) described. And he shall stretch out upon it.] So that men shall in vain think of rebuilding and repeopling it.
Ver. 12. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom.] The Venetians have magistrates called pregadi; because at first men were prayed to take the office, and to help to govern the State: but here were none left for such a purpose.
Ver. 13. , A court for owls.] Or, Ostriches. See on Isaiah 34:11.
Ver. 14. The wild beasts of the desert.] Heb., Ziim et jiim. See Isaiah 13:21,22, where these monstrous creatures are said to dance: whence Basil noteth, that men learned of devils to dance, and another saith that a dance is a circle, the centre whereof is the devil, the circumference all his angels. And the satyr shall cry to his fellow.] Heb., The rough or hairy one. Chald., Daemones inter se colludent, the devils shall play among themselves; Satan is a rough harsh spirit; so are his. See Leviticus 17:7. Conr. Clingius.
Ver. 15. There shall the great owl make her nest.] Heb., Kippoz. The Hebrews themselves agree not what creatures these are here mentioned, so far are they fallen from the knowledge of the Scripture. Their tale about Lilits, once Adam’s first wife, but now a screech owl or an evil spirit, is not worthy the mentioning.
Ver. 16. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord.] Sciscitamini ex libro Domini, the Holy Bible, which Bishop Bonner’s chaplain called, in scorn of the martyrs, Your little pretty God’s book. Another Bohemian blasphemer for Biblia called it Vitlia, which in the Bohemian language signifieth vomit. But let us search the Scriptures—and particularly this prophecy commanded to be written in a book (Isaiah 30:8) -and compare the truth of these predictions with the events. None shall want her mate.] Some write of the asp, he never wandereth alone without his companion; and none of these birds of desolation want their mate; so craft and cruelty do ever go together in the Church’s enemies.
Ver. 17. And he hath cast the lot for them,] i.e., For those creatures of prey aforementioned. From generation,] i.e., For many generations.