Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Sentence on the Nations. Blessings in Store for God’s People

These chapters are now generally considered non-Isaianic and referred to the period of the exile, on two grounds: (a) the literary style is unlike Isaiah’s. (b) The strong feeling against Edom points to a date subsequent to the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, when the Edomites exulted in the city’s fall and sided against the Jews, conduct which provoked bitter resentment (Obadiah 1:10-16; Lamentations 4:21-22; Psalms 137:7).

Isaiah 34.

1-4. The judgment upon the nations,

5-17. and upon Edom in particular.

Isaiah 35. The blessings in store for God’s redeemed people.

1. While Edom becomes a desert, for God’s people, on the other hand, the desert places burst into bloom, the fairest parts of Palestine sharing their fertile beauty with the waste places (Isaiah 35:2).

7. Parched ground] RM ’mirage’: this which so often deceives travellers in the desert will become a real lake.

Dragons] RV ’jackals.’

8. An highway] by which the exiles may return through the desert.

9. Cp. Isaiah 51:11.