SUMMARY
In God’s day of vengeance, everything and everyone that stands in the way of God’s salvationSalvation can mean saved from something (deliverance) or for something (redemption). Paul preached that salvation comes through the death of Christ on the cross which redeemed sinners from death and for a grace-filled life. will be destroyed.
ANALYSIS
God’s vengeance is a terrible thing to behold. Once again, it is essential to understand several points: (1) the divine wrath is never capricious, never directed against the nations and foreigners simply because they are other, but only because they oppose God’s saving work and God’s liberation of the oppressed; (2) this total destruction uses the Divine WarriorGod was the divine warrior who successfully led Israel into battle (as reported in Miriam's Song in the book of Exodus). This term is later applied to Jesus, especially in the book of Revelation where he rides forth as a divine warrior leading the armies... image of Canaanite mythology; it is symbolic language, not documentary history; (3) with images like the rotting away of the heavens and the rolling up of the skies (34:4), this material crosses from prophecyProphecy is the gift, inspired by God, of speaking and interpreting the divine will. Prophets such as Amos, Isaiah, and Ezekiel spoke words of judgment and comfort to the people of Israel on behalf of God. into the realm of apocalyptic (like the book of Revelation); it symbolically describes the final battle against evil, when all things are put right and God rules supreme; it does not describe real or desired warfare in the present age.
Nevertheless, the text does make clear God’s enduring anger against everything that opposes God’s work in the world. God will respond in different ways, including the long-suffering and patient waiting for the conversion of the wicked (Exodus 34:6; MatthewA tax collector who became one of Jesus' 12 disciples. 13:24-30; Romans 2:4); this final cataclysmic battle is a symbolic depiction of the overcoming of evil itself in God’s own future.
Edom is taken symbolically as a representative of evil–that which stands in the way of God–because historical Edom stood in the way of the Israelites on their wilderness journey toward the promised land (Numbers 20:14-21).
The Divine Warrior image, a common theme of Canaanite mythology, is taken over frequently by Israel when the issue is Good and Evil itself, when a particular event or battle is seen to have cosmic significance. It is used, for example, in Moses’ song after the exodus (Exodus 15:3) and several other times in IsaiahIsaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century BCE (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)--preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. (see 59:15b-19 and especially 63:1-6, the text from which the Battle Hymn of the Republic takes the image of “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored”).
Pictures of the Divine Warrior sometimes include descriptions of the symbolic armor of God (59:17), which in the New Testament is given to believers to protect them against “the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11-17).
Chapters 34 and 35 mark the end of the first part of the book of Isaiah, and together they look forward to what is to come, describing God’s great transformation–the total judgment of the wicked (chapter 34) and the final salvation of the faithful (chapter 35).
