The general judgment of the wicked.
34:1. 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.
34:2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury
upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to
slaughter.
34:3. Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall
rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
34:4. And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens
shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down
as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree.
And all the host of the heavens.... That is, the sun, moon, and stars.
34:5. For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.
Idumea.... Under the name of Idumea, or Edom a people that were enemies
of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of
God and his church.
34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with
the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of
marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great
slaughter in the land of Edom.
34:7. And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the
mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with
the fat of fat ones.
The unicorns.... That is, the great and mighty.
34:8. For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of
recompenses of the judgment of Sion.
The year of recompenses, etc.... When the persecutors of Sion, that is,
of the church, shall receive their reward.
34:9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the
ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become
burning pitch.
34:10. Night and day it shall not be quenched, 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.
34:11. The bittern and ericius 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.
34:12. The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather
upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.
34:13. And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the
thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of
dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.
34:14. And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry
out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for
herself.
34:15. There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young
ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow
thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.
34:16. Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one
of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which
proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath
gathered them.
34:17. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it
to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to
generation they shall dwell therein.