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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 34:14 and LXX Isaiah 34:14

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

The Hebrew version of Isaiah describes ruined Edom filled with wild goats and howling desert animals. The Greek Septuagint translates them as demons and donkey-centaurs, importing Greek hybrid creatures into the description of desolation.

Passages

Isaiah 34:14

Hebrew Bible
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.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

LXX Isaiah 34:14

Septuagint
13 And thorns shall spring up in their cities, and in her strong holds: and they shall be habitations of monsters, and a court of ostriches. 14 And demons shall meet with donkey-centaurs, and they shall cry one to the other: there shall donkey-centaurs rest, having found for themselves a place of rest. 15 There the hedgehog has made its nest, and the earth has safely preserved its young: there the deer have met, and seen one another's faces.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

“... What is meant by ‘donkey centaur’ must remain speculative. In both passages (Isaiah 13:22; 34:14) this odd creature corresponds to ʾiyyîm. Again, the choice makes it evident that the writer did not have the normative animal world in view. His use of daimonia at the beginning of Isaiah 34:14 (for ṣiyyîm; ‘wild animals’) points us in the direction of sinister supernatural entities. ...”
Michael S. Heiser, Demons: What the Bible Really Says about the Powers of Darkness (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020), 55.

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 34:14 and LXX Isaiah 34:14

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