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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 34:4 and 2 Peter 3:10

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

2 Peter uses apocalyptic language from Isaiah 34 to describe a dramatic unraveling of the heavens and the reversal of cosmic order. Both describe the sky rolling up and stars falling to signal divine judgment, on the earth and on corrupt heavenly beings.

Passages

Isaiah 34:4

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

2 Peter 3:10

New Testament
9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; when it comes, the heavens will disappear with a horrific noise, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze, and the earth and every deed done on it will be laid bare. 11 Since all these things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must you be, conducting your lives in holiness and godliness, 12 while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of this day, the heavens will be burned up and dissolve, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze!
120–130 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Peter

References

"... Likewise, the oracle in Isaiah 34:1–17, which begins with judgment on the “host of heaven” and the picture of the sky rolling up as a scroll (verse 4), and then focuses on the earth, specifically Edom (verses 5–10), utilizes classic images of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ... The picture that Juza discerns in 2 Peter 3:10 (consistent with the theophanic descent of YHWH in the Old Testament) is of God destroying the demonic forces in the heavens and stripping away the upper layer of the cosmos in order to expose the earth to divine judgment. This allows for the ambiguity of stoicheia, referring to both the heavenly bodies and the corrupt powers in the heavens. Not only does this ambiguity make sense of 2 Peter 3, but also the dual reference to the heavens and corrupt heavenly powers fits the Sodom and Gomorrah judgment tradition, since this tradition came to understand the sin of Sodom as involving the idolatrous worship of heavenly bodies and the evil spirits associated with them. This ambiguity is also consistent with the Septuagint translation of the first line of Isaiah 34:4 ..."
J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 192.

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 34:4 and 2 Peter 3:10

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