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Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.
Verse 1. Come. Both Gentiles and Jews are admonished of the world’s end before judgment. Worthington.
For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and angry with all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over for slaughter.
Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up. The mountains will melt in their blood.
All of the army of the sky will be dissolved. The sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all its armies will fade away, as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig tree.
Verse 4. Away. These strong expressions denote great misery. Calmet. 13. Joel 2:10. Ezekiel 32:27. Calmet.—Book. Hebrew “roll.” Bible.—Some thence foolishly inferred that the destiny of every one might be read in the heavens. Huet. Eus. præp. vi. 11. Philoo. xxiii. Pic. Astrol. viii. 5.—The prophet only means that the heavens shall be devoid of beauty, ( Calmet.) and covered with darkness. Bible.
For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky. Behold, it will come down on Edom, and on the people of my curse, for judgment.
Verse 5. Heaven. Casting down the rebel angels. Saint Jerome—The resolution to destroy the Idumeans, for their cruelty to the Jews, has been taken long ago. All these expressions allude to the last judgment. Calmet.—Idumea. Under the name of Idumea or Edom, a people that were enemies of God and his Church. Challoner.—Assaradon fell upon Edom two years after Sennacherib’s death. Calmet.—No strong place like Bosra, shall rescue any from destruction at the last day. Worthington.
The LORD’s sword is filled with blood. It is covered with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.
Verse 7. The unicorns. That is, the great and mighty. Challoner.
For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
Verse 8. Recompenses. When the persecutors of Sion, that is, of the Church, shall receive their reward. Challoner.—The Idumeans had frequently shown their ill-will towards the Jews. 2 Chronicles 28:17. Amos 1:11. Calmet.—Sion shall perish as the wicked in hell shall be tormented. Worthington.
Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch.
Verse 9. Pitch. The soil was sulphureous, and became neglected, (verse 10) like the territory of Sodom. The people are now no more, and only a few miserable Arabs pitch their tents there.
It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.
But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.
Verse 11. Line. Intimating entire destruction. Lamentations 2:8 and 4 Kennicott. 11:13. Calmet.—Yet God will not punish more than people deserve. Menochius.
They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing.
Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.
Verse 13. Dragons, Thannim. Calmet. 13:22. Bible.—Ostriches, or swans.
The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest.
Verse 14. Monsters. Lit. “Ass-centaurs.” Bible.—Hebrew “fishermen shall find islands.” Calmet. 13:21.—Ones. Goats.—Lamia. Hebrew lilith. Chal. “owl,” the bird of Minerva, or the Moon, which the Arabs style Alilat. Calmet.—Dicodorus (20) relates that Lamia was an African queen, who having last her children, was changed into a beast, and destroyed all the children she could catch; and the Jews deal still more in fables, ( Calmet.) asserting that Lilith was the first wife of Adam, and so forth Buxtorf. Syn. 2.
literally, lilith, which could also be a night demon or night monster
The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate.
Verse 15. Ericius. Hebrew “kippoz, ( Bible.) hath its nest.” It may denote the serpent, acontias. Bochart.—All this shews the desolation of the country.
Search in the book of the LORD, and read: not one of these will be missing. None will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.
Verse 16. Read what I have written.—The other. All these beasts will be there, ( Calmet.) or all these declarations will be verified. Bible.
He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.