Isaiah 34:8
For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
Sermons
The Lord's ControversyR. Tuck Isaiah 34:8
The Divine IndignationW. Clarkson Isaiah 34:1-15
EdomF. Delitzsch.Isaiah 34:1-17
Edom's PunishmentF. Delitzsch.Isaiah 34:1-17
Isaiah 34, and 35J. Parker, D. D.Isaiah 34:1-17
The Sins and Punishment of EdomE. Johnson Isaiah 34:1-17














The year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. Fausset says, "When Judah was captive in Babylon, Edom in every way insulted over her fallen mistress, and killed many of those Jews whom the Chaldeans had left, and hence was held guilty of fratricide by God (Esau, their ancestor, having been brother to Jacob): this was the cause of the denunciations of the prophets against Edom (Isaiah 63:1; Jeremiah 49:7; Ezekiel 25:12-14; Ezekiel 35:3-15; Joel 3:19; Amos 1:11, 12; Obadiah 1:8, 10, 12-18; Malachi 1:3, 4).' The Israelites were familiar with the law of retaliation. It was the pervading law of men as gathered into tribes, and their basis-idea of justice. Moses adopted it for his legal system, but qualified its operation, preparing the way for an entire change from personal retaliation for offences, to a calm, unbiased, systematic consideration of the case of all wrong-doers, and adjustment of punishments on a fixed scale. So far as the idea of retaliation was right as between men, it may be applied as between God and men, and it is introduced in this verse. Edom took advantage of Israel's weakness to act unbrotherly, and to encroach. Therefore the Lord has a controversy with Edom; and he will surely retaliate, bringing judgments upon them.

I. RETALIATION AS A PRIMITIVE IDEA OF JUSTICE, "It was an ethical maxim, extensively accepted among ancient nations, that men must suffer the same pains that they have inflicted on others. The later Greeks called this the Neoptolemictisis, from the circumstance that Neoptolemus was punished in the same way in which he had sinned. He had murdered at the altar, and at the altar he was murdered." Show how natural the retaliatory idea seems to children. The old sentiment still lingers in men's minds, so that we have great satisfaction in hearing of cases wherein Providence deals the blow to men which they have dealt to others.

II. RETALIATION DANGEROUS BECAUSE OF THE CHARACTER OF AVENGERS. It would be a safe working principle if men were good, and not subject to unworthy passions. These make men do more than retaliate.

III. RETALIATION AS A PART OF DIVINE DEALING. He has a "year of recompenses" - a time when he will make a man's violent doing fall upon his own pate. All sin is wrong done to him; it calls for due recompense. It must be precisely shown how far the idea of retaliation may be applied to God.

IV. RETALIATION BY GOD IS GUARANTEED BY THE CHARACTER OF GOD. It can never be the expression of personal feeling. It can never be unqualified or excessive. It can never be without its own aim to secure the final good of those on whom it must fall. - R.T.

My sword shall be bathed in heaven.
The text draws back the curtain which separates the visible world from the invisible. It reveals celestial regions, in which there are also great struggles going on. It lifts up our eyes to the grander movements of the world of spirits; and then it declares that the sword which is to be used in fighting what seem to be the petty wars of the Hebrews and the Edomites, is the same sword which has been used in these celestial conflicts; that the means and instruments of righteousness upon the earth must be the same with the means and instruments of righteousness in the heavens.

I. ALL GOOD STRUGGLE IN THE WORLD IS REALLY GOD'S BATTLE, and ought to recognise itself as such. Every special victory of human progress — the victory over slavery, superstition, social wrong, nay, even the victory over tough matter, the subduing of the hard stuff of nature to spiritual uses, — each of these is but a step in the great onward march of God taking possession of His own. Fight your battle with the sword bathed in heaven; so you shall make it victorious, and grow strong and great yourself in fighting it.

II. One of the most marvellous things about Jesus is the UNION OF FIRE AND PATIENCE. He saw His Father's house turned into a place of merchandise, and instantly the whip of small cords was in His hands, and He was cleansing the sacred place with His impassioned indignation. And yet He walked day after day through the streets of Jerusalem, and saw the sin, and let the sinners sin on with only the remonstrance of His pure presence and His pitying gaze. Only in God's own time and in God's own way can the battles of the Lord be fought. There is no self-will in Jesus. He is one with His Father, and lives by His Father's will. His sword was always bathed in heaven.

III. THE BATTLE WHICH GOES ON WITHIN OURSELVES IS GOD'S BATTLE, and is of supreme importance. If the battle be God's, it must be fought only with God's weapons. You want to get rid of your selfishness. You must not kill it with the sword of another selfishness, which thenceforth shall rule in its place. Selfishness can only be cast out by self-forget-fulness and consecration. To count sin God's enemy, and to fight it with all His purity and strength, that is what it means for us that our sword should be bathed m heaven.

(Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

People
Isaiah, Kites
Places
Bozrah, Edom, Jerusalem, Zion
Topics
Cause, Controversy, Gives, Lord's, Payment, Punishment, Recompences, Recompense, Recompenses, Retribution, Strife, Uphold, Vengeance, Wrongs, Zion, Zion's
Outline
1. The judgments wherewith God revenges his church
11. The desolation of her enemies
16. The certainty of the prophecy

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 34:8

     9210   judgment, God's

Isaiah 34:8-10

     4369   sulphur

Isaiah 34:8-14

     4540   weeds

Library
Opposition to Messiah Ruinous
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel T here is a species of the sublime in writing, which seems peculiar to the Scripture, and of which, properly, no subjects but those of divine revelation are capable, With us, things inconsiderable in themselves are elevated by splendid images, which give them an apparent importance beyond what they can justly claim. Thus the poet, when describing a battle among bees, by a judicious selection of epithets
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

The Holy Spirit in Relation to the Father and the Son. ...
The Holy Spirit in relation to the Father and the Son. Under this heading we began by considering Justin's remarkable words, in which he declares that "we worship and adore the Father, and the Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels that attend Him and are made like unto Him, and the prophetic Spirit." Hardly less remarkable, though in a very different way, is the following passage from the Demonstration (c. 10); and it has a special interest from the
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

How the Simple and the Crafty are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 12.) Differently to be admonished are the simple and the insincere. The simple are to be praised for studying never to say what is false, but to be admonished to know how sometimes to be silent about what is true. For, as falsehood has always harmed him that speaks it, so sometimes the hearing of truth has done harm to some. Wherefore the Lord before His disciples, tempering His speech with silence, says, I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now (Joh. xvi. 12).
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Questions.
LESSON I. 1. In what state was the Earth when first created? 2. To what trial was man subjected? 3. What punishment did the Fall bring on man? 4. How alone could his guilt be atoned for? A. By his punishment being borne by one who was innocent. 5. What was the first promise that there should be such an atonement?--Gen. iii. 15. 6. What were the sacrifices to foreshow? 7. Why was Abel's offering the more acceptable? 8. From which son of Adam was the Seed of the woman to spring? 9. How did Seth's
Charlotte Mary Yonge—The Chosen People

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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