Isaiah is aware that God is permitting these states to invade Judah, but he is also aware that God will judge them. God then pronounces judgment on them, including the nation of Edom [1].
"Edom, because of her relentless hatred toward Israel, is singled out from the nations as the object of God’s fury. She was to suffer a fate like that of Babylon."[2] To Edom, God says in Isaiah 34:8 (ESV):
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1. The Edomites were Semites, closely related in blood and in language to the Israelites. They dispossessed the Horites of Mount Seir; though it is clear, from Gen. 36, that they afterwards intermarried with the conquered population. Edomite tribes settled also in the south of Judah, like the Kenizzites (Gen. 36:11), to whom Caleb and Othniel belonged (Josh. 15:17). The southern part of Edom was known as Teman. - Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
2. Criswell, W. A., Patterson, P., Clendenen, E. R., Akin, D. L., Chamberlin, M., Patterson, D. K., & Pogue, J. (Eds.). (1991). Believer’s Study Bible (electronic ed., Is 34:5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson
3. Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (pp. 1300–1301). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
"God has scheduled a day of justice at the end of history. The wrong he will punish is opposition to the cause of Zion." [3]
For the great suffering and persecution of God's people, throughout the ages and around the world, there is a day of reckoning. Paul writes,
“since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6–10, ESV)
Peter encourages us in his first letter recorded in 1 Peter 4:16–19 (ESV),
16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
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1. The Edomites were Semites, closely related in blood and in language to the Israelites. They dispossessed the Horites of Mount Seir; though it is clear, from Gen. 36, that they afterwards intermarried with the conquered population. Edomite tribes settled also in the south of Judah, like the Kenizzites (Gen. 36:11), to whom Caleb and Othniel belonged (Josh. 15:17). The southern part of Edom was known as Teman. - Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers.
2. Criswell, W. A., Patterson, P., Clendenen, E. R., Akin, D. L., Chamberlin, M., Patterson, D. K., & Pogue, J. (Eds.). (1991). Believer’s Study Bible (electronic ed., Is 34:5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson
3. Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (pp. 1300–1301). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
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