The Lord Will Judge Edom

¹Come near, you nations, and listen!

Pay attention, you people!

The earth and everything it contains must listen,

the world and everything that lives in it.

²For the Lord is angry at all the nations

and furious with all their armies.

He will annihilate them and slaughter them.

³Their slain will be left unburied,[#tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”]

their corpses will stink;

the hills will soak up their blood.

⁴All the stars in the sky will fade away,[#tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”]

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.

⁵He says, “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers.[#tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.; #tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] my sword is drenched in the heavens.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has תראה (“[my sword] appeared [in the heavens]”), but this is apparently an attempt to make sense out of a difficult metaphor. Cf. NIV “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.”sn In v. 4 the “host of the heaven” refers to the heavenly luminaries (stars and planets, see, among others, Deut 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kgs 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:4-5; 2 Chr 33:3, 5) that populate the divine/heavenly assembly in mythological and prescientific Israelite thought (see Job 38:7; Isa 14:13). As in 24:21, they are viewed here as opposing God and being defeated in battle.]

Look, it now descends on Edom,

on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”

⁶The 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.

⁷Wild oxen will be slaughtered along with them,[#tn Heb “will go down”; NAB “shall be struck down.”]

as well as strong bulls.

Their land is drenched with blood,

their soil is covered with fat.

⁸For the Lord has planned a day of revenge,[#tn Heb “for a day of vengeance [is] for the Lord.”]

a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion.

⁹Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch[#tn Heb “her”; the referent (Edom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.]

and her soil into brimstone;

her land will become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it will burn;[#tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”]

its smoke will ascend continually.

Generation after generation it will be a wasteland

and no one will ever pass through it again.

¹¹Owls and wild animals will live there,[#tn קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (cf. Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). קִפּוֹד (qippod) may also refer to a type of bird (NAB “hoot owl”; NIV “screech owl”; TEV “ravens”), but some have suggested a rodent may be in view (cf. NCV “small animals”; ASV “porcupine”; NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”).; #tn Heb “will possess it” (so NIV).]

all kinds of wild birds will settle in it.

The Lord will stretch out over her

the measuring line of ruin

and the plumb line of destruction.

¹²Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom

and all her officials will disappear.

¹³Her fortresses will be overgrown with thorns;

thickets and weeds will grow in her fortified cities.

Jackals will settle there;

ostriches will live there.

¹⁴Wild animals and wild dogs will congregate there;[#tn Heb “will meet” (so NIV); NLT “will mingle there.”]

wild goats will bleat to one another.

Yes, nocturnal animals will rest there

and make for themselves a nest.

¹⁵Owls will make nests and lay eggs there;[#tn Hebrew קִפּוֹז (qippoz) occurs only here; the precise meaning of the word is uncertain.; #tn For this proposed meaning for Hebrew מָלַט (malat), see HALOT 589 s.v. I מלט.]

they will hatch them and protect them.

Yes, hawks will gather there,

each with its mate.

¹⁶Carefully read the scroll of the Lord ![#tn Heb “Seek from upon the scroll of the Lord and read.”sn It is uncertain what particular scroll is referred to here. Perhaps the phrase simply refers to this prophecy and is an admonition to pay close attention to the details of the message.]

Not one of these creatures will be missing,

none will lack a mate.

For the Lord has issued the decree,

and his own spirit gathers them.

¹⁷He assigns them their allotment;[#tn Heb “and he causes the lot to fall for them.” Once again the pronominal suffix (“them”) is feminine plural, referring to the birds mentioned in v. 15b or to all of the creatures listed in vv. 14b-15 (all of which are identified with feminine nouns).]

he measures out their assigned place.

They will live there permanently;

they will settle in it through successive generations.