Isaiah 34:3

Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

34:1-8 Here is a prophecy of the wars of the Lord, all which are both righteous and successful. All nations are concerned. And as they have all had the benefit of his patience, so all must expect to feel his resentment. The description of bloodshed suggests tremendous ideas of the Divine judgments. Idumea here denotes the nations at enmity with the church; also the kingdom of antichrist. Our thoughts cannot reach the horrors of that awful season, to those found opposing the church of Christ. There is a time fixed in the Divine counsels for the deliverance of the church, and the destruction of her enemies. We must patiently wait till then, and judge nothing before the time. Through Christ, mercy is exercised to every believer, consistently with justice, and his name is glorified.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Their slain also shall be cast out - They would lie unburied. The slaughter Would be so extensive, and the desolation would be so entire, that there would not remain enough to bury the dead (compare the notes at Isaiah 14:19).

And the mountains shall be melted with their blood - The expression here is evidently hyperbolical, and means that as mountains and hills are wasted away by descending showers and impetuous torrents, so the hills would be washed away by the vast quantity of blood that would be shed by the anger of Yahweh.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. cast out—unburied (Isa 14:19).

melted—washed away as with a descending torrent.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Shall be cast out into the fields, where they shall lie unburied, and be left for a prey to all ravenous birds and beasts; whereby he implies, either the vast numbers which shall be slain, so as they could not have time or place to bury them; or the curse of God upon them, and the people’s contempt and abhorrency of them.

The mountains about Jerusalem, where they are supposed to be gathered to fight against Jerusalem, as the Assyrians now were, and as other enemies afterward would be, Zechariah 12:2 14:2.

Shall be melted with their blood; shall be filled with their blood, which shall run down abundantly from the mountains with great force, and dissolve and carry down part of the earth of the mountains with it, as great showers of rain frequently do.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Their slain also shall be cast out,.... Upon the open fields, and there lie unburied, and become meat for the fowls of heaven, who are invited to them as to a supper, even the supper of the great God, Revelation 19:17,

and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses; so that they shall become loathsome and abominable to the living, and none shall care to come near thereto bury them; an emblem of their loathsome and abominable sins, the cause of this destruction:

and the mountains shall be melted with their blood; an hyperbolical expression, denoting the great number of the slain upon the mountains, and the great quantity of blood shed there; which should run down in large streams, and carry part of them along with it, as large and hasty showers of rain wash away the earth, and carry it along with them; such an hyperbole see in Revelation 14:20.

Geneva Study Bible

Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. Cf. Joel 2:20; Amos 4:10.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - Cast out; i.e. refused burial - thrown to the dogs and vultures (comp. Jeremiah 22:19; Jeremiah 36:30). Such treatment of the dead was regarded as a shame and a disgrace. It was on some occasions an intentional insult (Jeremiah 22:19); but here the idea is rather that it would be impossible to bury the slain on account of their number. In ancient times corpses often lay unburied on battle-fields (Herod., 3:12). The mountains shall be molted with their blood. When the feelings of the prophet are excited, he shrinks from no hyperbole. Here he represents the blood of God's enemies as shed in such torrents that mountains are melted by it. Isaiah 34:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

What the prophet here foretells relates to all nations, and to every individual within them, in their relation to the congregation of Jehovah. He therefore commences with the appeal in Isaiah 34:1-3 : "Come near, ye peoples, to hear; and he nations, attend. Let the earth hear, and that which fills it, the world, and everything that springs from it. For the indignation of Jehovah will fall upon all nations, and burning wrath upon all their host; He has laid the ban upon them, delivered them to the slaughter. And their slain are cast away, and their corpses - their stench will arise, and mountains melt with their blood." The summons does not invite them to look upon the completion of the judgment, but to hear the prophecy of the future judgment; and it is issued to everything on the earth, because it would all have to endure the judgment upon the nations (see at Isaiah 5:25; Isaiah 13:10). The expression qetseph layehōvâh implies that Jehovah was ready to execute His wrath (compare yōm layehōvâh in Isaiah 34:8 and Isaiah 2:12). The nations that are hostile to Jehovah are slaughtered, the bodies remain unburied, and the streams of blood loosen the firm masses of the mountains, so that they melt away. On the stench of the corpses, compare Ezekiel 39:11. Even if châsam, in this instance, does not mean "to take away the breath with the stench," there is no doubt that Ezekiel had this prophecy of Isaiah in his mind, when prophesying of the destruction of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 39).