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.

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!

 Notes and 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 ..."

Middleton, J. Richard A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (p. 192) Baker Academic, 2014

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