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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 34

1 Come near, you nations, and listen! Pay attention, you people! The earth and everything it contains must listen, the world and everything that lives in it. 2 For the Lord is angry at all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will annihilate them and slaughter them. 3 Their slain will be left unburied, their corpses will stink; the hills will soak up their blood. 4 All the stars in the sky will fade away,⁠ the sky will roll up like a scroll;⁠ all its stars will wither, like a leaf withers and falls from a vine or a fig withers and falls from a tree.⁠ 5 He says, “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. Look, it now descends on Edom, on the people I will annihilate in judgment.” 6 The Lord’s sword is dripping with blood, it is covered with fat; it drips with the blood of young rams and goats and is covered with the fat of rams’ kidneys. For the Lord is holding a sacrifice in Bozrah,⁠ a bloody slaughter in the land of Edom.⁠ 7 Wild oxen will be slaughtered along with them, as well as strong bulls. Their land is drenched with blood, their soil is covered with fat. 8 For the Lord has planned a day of revenge, a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion.⁠ 9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch⁠ and her soil into brimstone; her land will become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it will burn; its smoke will ascend continually.⁠ Generation after generation it will be a wasteland, and no one will ever pass through it again.⁠ 11 Owls and wild animals will live there, all kinds of wild birds will settle in it.⁠ The Lord will stretch out over her the measuring line of ruin and the plumb line of destruction. 12 Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom, and all her officials will disappear. 13 Her fortresses will be overgrown with thorns; thickets and weeds will grow in her fortified cities. Jackals will settle there; ostriches will live there. 14 Wild animals and wild dogs will congregate there; wild goats will bleat to one another.⁠ Yes, nocturnal animals will rest there and make for themselves a nest. 15 Owls will make nests and lay eggs there; they will hatch them and protect them. Yes, hawks will gather there, each with its mate. 16 Carefully read the scroll of the Lord! Not one of these creatures will be missing, none will lack a mate. For the Lord has issued the decree, and his own Spirit gathers them. 17 He assigns them their allotment; he measures out their assigned place. They will live there permanently; they will settle in it through successive generations.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 34:10 and Baruch 4:35

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

Isaiah 34 describes Edom’s land transformed into burning pitch, with smoke rising forever. Baruch reuses this imagery of unending fire and wasteland but redirects it toward Babylon, adapting Isaiah’s language about Edom to depict another enemy.

Passages

Isaiah 34:10

Hebrew Bible
8 For the Lord has planned a day of revenge, a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion. 9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch and her soil into brimstone; her land will become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it will burn; its smoke will ascend continually. Generation after generation it will be a wasteland, and no one will ever pass through it again. 11 Owls and wild animals will live there, all kinds of wild birds will settle in it. The Lord will stretch out over her the measuring line of ruin and the plumb line of destruction. 12 Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom, and all her officials will disappear.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Baruch 4:35

Deuterocanon
33 For as she rejoiced at your fall and was glad of your ruin, so she will be grieved at her own desolation. 34 And I will take away her pride in her great multitude and her boasting will be turned into mourning. 35 For fire will come upon her from the Everlasting for many days; and she will be inhabited by demons for a long time. 36 O Jerusalem, look around you toward the east, and behold the joy that comes to you from God. 37 Behold, your sons come, whom you sent away. They come gathered together from the east to the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing in the glory of God.
200–50 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Baruch

References

"... The main source for verse 4:35 is evidently Isaiah 13:20–21, an oracle about the desolation of Babylon, which shares several key terms with Baruch, such as κα- τοικέω “to inhabit,” δαιμόνιον “demon,” and, with variations, the expression αἰῶνα χρόνον “eternal time.” The latter is changed in Baruch to πλείονα χρόνον “a longer time,” and the word αἰών is altered to the divine title αἰώνιος “eternal”... A similar passage can be found in Isaiah 34:10–14, an oracle against Edom, where - although in a less concentrated manner - all of the above mentioned terms occur (αἰῶνα χρόνον in 34:10; κατοικέω in 34:11; δαιμόνιον in 34:14). This pericope of Isaiah presupposes additionally the burning of the enemy when the author writes that ἀναβήσεται ὁ καπνὸς αὐτῆς “her smoke shall rise up” (34:10). The idea that Babylon will be consumed by fire occurs in the Book of Jeremiah - as scholars generally remark—but passages like Jeremiah 27 (Masoretic 50):32, 42, or 28 (Masoretic 51):32 do not seem to directly influence the present verse ..."
Géza G. Xeravits, “The Biblical Background of the Psalms in Baruch 4:5–5:9,” in Studies on Baruch: Composition, Literary Relations, and Reception, ed. Sean A. Adams (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 97–133.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 34:10 and Baruch 4:35

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