Isaiah — Chapter 34
Synopsis Capitis
Synopsis: The great day of vengeance — total destruction of Edom as a type of God's judgment on all the enemies of His people. Cosmic imagery: the heavens rolled up like a scroll (v.4), the sword of God drunk with blood (v.5-7), Edom's streams turned to pitch (v.9). Lapide reads Edom as the type of all reprobate nations and ultimately of the damned in hell. The 'book of the Lord' (v.16) is an unusual reference — Lapide discusses whether Isaiah is referring to his own scroll or to the heavenly book of God's decrees.
Verse 1
Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that cometh forth of it. Universal assembly called to witness God's judgment on all nations. The universal scope of the summons signals that this goes beyond Idumaea to a judgment of all peoples.
Verse 4
Et tabescent omnes virtutes caelorum, et complicabuntur sicut liber caeli
All the host of heaven shall decay and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll — applied by John (Apoc 6:14) to the signs preceding the Last Judgment. Lapide: prophetic hyperbole for the total collapse of worldly powers (stars = princes, v.4), extended at the Last Day to the actual transformation of the physical cosmos. 'Complicabuntur sicut liber' = the heavens unrolled (opened) at creation will be rolled back up like a finished book at the end of time. A beautiful image of creation's completion — the story finished, the book closed.
Verse 9
And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. Idumaea's streams converted to burning pitch and brimstone = the same fate as Sodom (Gen.19). Lapide: this typifies hell, whose rivers are rivers of fire and brimstone (Rev.21:8).
Verse 11
And the pelican and the urchin shall possess it: and the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation. The wild creatures inhabiting desolate Idumaea: listed by Lapide with extensive natural-history commentary (pelican, hedgehog, ibis, raven, onocentaur, satyr, lamia, basilisk). These are partly real animals and partly demonic apparitions — demons who take on grotesque animal forms to inhabit and haunt abandoned sacred sites (per Athanasius's Life of Anthony).
Verse 14
And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there the lamia hath lain down, and found rest for herself. 'Hairy ones' (pilosi) = demons appearing as goat-like satyrs; lamia = female demons who devour children (cognate with Lilith in Rabbinical tradition). Lapide: the desolate places abandoned by true worship become the habitations of demons, exactly as Christ warned in Matt.12:43-44. The 'satyrs' dancing in desolate Idumaea = the demonic occupation of sites abandoned by God.