Isaiah 34:9

"For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion."

Key Reflection

The people of Isaiah's time would have recognized this verse as part of a larger prophecy about divine judgment and restoration, specifically focused on Zion (Jerusalem) and its surroundings. The imagery of a "day of vengeance" and a "year of recompense" evokes a sense of God’s wrath against those who wronged His people, drawing from historical cycles of justice where enemies were punished and the land laid waste as a form of retribution.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

And the streams thereof -The idea here is, that there would be as great and awful a destruction as if the streams everywhere should become pitch or resin, which would be set on fire, and which would fill the land with flame. This image is very striking, as we may see by supposing the rivers and streams in any land to flow not with water, but with heated pitch, turpentine, or tar, and that this was all suddenly kindled into a flame. It cannot be supposed that this is to be taken literally.

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