Bible Commentaries

Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it.

Come near, ye nations. — In this chapter and the next, the prophet, for the terror of the wicked, and comfort of the godly, summeth up what he had said before concerning the destruction of the enemies and the restoration of the Church. Eusebius, De Praep. Evang., lib. xi. with many other ancients, will have this chapter to be understood to be the end of the world and the last judgment; and further saith that Plato hath taken this place of the prophet Isaiah into his writings, and made it his own. Litera vero huius vaticinii de extremo iudicio non loguitur; but this cannot be the literal sense of the text, saith Scultetus. The Jewish doctors will needs understand these two chapters as a prophecy of their return into the Holy Land, when once Idumea shall be destroyed; and for this they allege Lamentations 4:22 , which yet proveth it not.

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For the indignation of the LORD [is] upon all nations, and [his] fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations. — Is, or shall be, upon all the Church’s enemies, whether of former or latter time; even his "boiling wrath," as the Word signifieth.

He hath utterly destroyed them. — Or, He will make an anathema of them, as Isaiah 34:5 , the "people of my curse," devoted to destruction.

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Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

Their slain also shall be cast out. — Buried with the burial of an ass, Jeremiah 22:19 which Cicero somewhere calleth sepulturam insepultam and unburied grave. This may also befall such as for God’s sake are slain all the day long; but to them it is no such judgment: Coelo tegitur qui caret urna.

And their stink shall come up out of their carcases. — They stink alive as goats, as whited tombs, as walking dunghills; and now their dead carcases also shall stink above ground.

And the mountains shall be melted with their blood. — Iuste omnino, because they moistened the earth with the blood of God’s people, and dunged the land with their dead carcases.

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And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling [fig] from the fig tree.

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved. — Inusitati supplicii atrocitas sic designatur. So great shall be the slaughter of the nations, that the heavenly bodies shall seem to be sensible of it, and amazed at it, and the whole heaven to be rolled together as a scroll, lest it should be forced to behold it. In a bloody fight between Amurath III, King of Turks, and Lazarus, Despot of Servia, many thousands fell on both sides; the Turkish histories, to express the terror of the day, vainly say that the angels in heaven, amazed with that hideous noise, for that time forgot the heavenly hymns wherewith they always glorify God.

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For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment.

For my sword shall be bathed in heaven. — Heb., Drunk, or drenched - i.e., In coelo decretum est ut inebrietur; whencesoever the sword comes, it is bathed in heaven, hath its commission from God (Jeremiah 47:6-7 ; see Jeremiah 46:9 ), and as a drunken man reeleth to and fro, so the sword, when once in commission, roveth up and down, and rideth circuit usually. Ezekiel 14:17

Behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, — i.e., Upon the Edomites, who were assidui et acerrimi hostes Iudaeorum, bitter enemies to the Jews, though both nations came from Isaac, both were circumcised; so are now the Romish Edomites to the Churches of Christ, with whose blood they are red all over. Revelation 17:6 The Hebrews understand here by Idumea, Rome.

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The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, [and] with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, … — That is, It maketh clean work, as the blood and fat were in sacrifices consumed, Leviticus 1:16-17 and this execution was no less pleasing to God than some solemn sacrifice.

For the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah. — The metropolis of Idumea; Ptolemy calleth it Botsra. And it prefigured Rome, saith Piscator, the chief city and seat of Antichrist’s kingdom.

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And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

And the unicorns shall come down. — Monocerotes, qui interimi possunt, capi non possunt, creatures of untameahle fierceness; or rhinoceros, as the margin hath it - he meaneth the great ones.

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For [it is] the day of the LORD’S vengeance, [and] the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

For the controversy of Zion, — i.e., Of the Church, both Jewish and Christian, saith Piscator. compare Revelation 18:2

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