The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.
Parallel Translations
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The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.
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And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
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And the wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Isaiah 34:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 23:22 God brings them out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox.
- Psalms 68:30 Rebuke the wild animal of the reeds, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the peoples. Being humbled, may it bring bars of silver. Scatter the nations that delight in war.
- Jeremiah 50:27 Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.
- Numbers 24:8 God brings him out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. He shall consume the nations his adversaries, shall break their bones in pieces, and pierce them with his arrows.
- Deuteronomy 33:17 Majesty belongs to the firstborn of his herd. His horns are the horns of the wild ox. With them he will push all the peoples to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim. They are the thousands of Manasseh.”
- Job 39:9-10 “Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough? Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?
- Psalms 92:10 But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. I am anointed with fresh oil.
- Jeremiah 46:21 Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation.
- Jeremiah 50:11 “Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The mighty and rich shall be as well destroyed…
The mighty and rich shall be as well destroyed as the inferiors.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with…
Isa 34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
Ver. 7. And the unicorns shall come down.] Monocerotes, qui interimi possunt, capi non possunt, creatures of untameahle fierceness; or rhinoceros, as the margin hath it - he meaneth the great ones.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The unicorns, Heb. the reemim. But what kind of…
The unicorns, Heb. the reemim. But what kind of beast this is, whether that beast which is commonly called an unicorn, which seems to be but a fiction in the judgment of the learned, or a rhinoceros, or a wild ox or bull, it is needless to trouble the ordinary reader about it; and the learned may consult my Latin Synopsis upon Num 23:22 about it. It is confessed that it was a beast of great strength and fierceness; and it is certain that it is metephorically used in this place, to signify their princes and potentates.
Shall come down; shall be humbled and cast down. The LXX. and Syriac render it,
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they shall fall down, as such beasts do when they have received a deadly blow. With them; with the lambs, and goats, and rams, last mentioned, Isa 34:6.
With fatness; with the fat of the slain sacrifices, which shall he mingled with it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the unicorns shall come down with them,.... With…
And the unicorns shall come down with them,.... With the lambs, goats, and rams; that is, either the rhinoceros, as some, there being no such creature as the unicorn; or the buffaloes, as (m) others; these "shall fall", as the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions render it, they shall be slain, as well as the rest; meaning, that along with the common soldiers, and inferior officers, the general officers should fall; and so the Targum,
"and the mighty shall be slain with them.''
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R. Abraham Seba says (n) he read in a certain book, that the word here should not be read "unicorns", but "the Romans shall come down", &c.:
and the bullocks with the bulls: or, as the Targum,
"and the rulers with the princes;''
the same with the kings, captains, and mighty men in Rev 19:18,
and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness; Or, "their land shall be inebriated" (o), or made drunk, with blood; and the dust thereof thickened by it, and made clods of with it, as the parched earth is watered with a plentiful shower, and the dust laid with it: this is a just retaliation to the whore of Rome, who has been made drunk with the blood of the saints, and now blood shall be given her to drink, even her own, with which she shall be filled, and welter and wallow in the clods of it, Rev 17:6.
(m) So Gussetius understands it of a larger sort of oxen, Comment. Ebr. p. 783. (n) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 47. 3. (o) "et inebriabitur", Pagninus, Montanus, Piscator.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The unicorns - It is confessed, this was a…
The unicorns - It is confessed, this was a beast of great strength and fierceness; and it is used in this place to signify their princes and potentates, who shall be humbled and cast down. Them - With the lambs, and goats, and rams. Fatness - With the fat of the slain sacrifices, mingled with it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 7. The unicorns shall come down] ראמים reemim,…
Verse 7. The unicorns shall come down] ראמים reemim, translated wild goats by Bishop Lowth. The ראם reem Bochart thinks to be a species of wild goat in the deserts of Arabia. It seems generally to mean the rhinoceros.
With blood - "With their blood"] מדמם middamam; so two ancient MSS. of Kennicott's the Syriac, and Chaldee.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 34:7-8. And the unicorns shall come down —…
Isa 34:7-8. And the unicorns shall come down — The word ראמים, reemim, here rendered unicorns, is the same with that used Num 23:22, where see the note. Bishop Lowth renders it here, wild goats; and Dr. Waterland, stags. But many learned men prefer the marginal reading, rhinoceros. It is impossible to determine precisely what sort of a creature is meant, but it is allowed by all that it was a beast of great strength and fierceness, and that it is here used metaphorically, together with the bullocks and bulls, for princes and potentates, which should be brought down and humbled, or should fall down, as Bishop Lowth reads it, according to the LXX. and Syriac, namely, as beasts do when they have received a deadly blow; that is, they shall be sacrificed, with the lambs, goats, and rams, the inferior people, mentioned Isa 34:6. And their land shall be soaked with blood — Hebrew, רותה, watered, as with rain coming oft upon it, and in abundance; and their dust — Their dry and barren land; made fat with fatness — With the fat of the sacrifices, namely, of the slain men, mingled with it. For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance — This is the time which God hath long since appointed and fixed to vindicate the cause of his oppressed and persecuted people against all their enemies; for the controversy of Zion — Dr. Waterland reads, for the avenging of Zion. Upon the whole, “the meaning of this period,” from Isa 34:5, “is, that on a certain day of judgment, which is elsewhere called the great day of the Lord’s vengeance, a mighty slaughter should be made of the hardened enemies of the church, (which had been a long time oppressed and afflicted by them,) with the effusion of much blood, and the destruction of many great, noble, and powerful men. The figure is taken from the master of a family, who, preparing a great feast, and a sacrifice, finds it necessary to slay many lambs, rams, and fatted animals, so that his knife may be said to be inebriated with the blood and fat of the slain.” As to the application of this prophecy, in which the Edomites are particularly mentioned, it may be observed that they, together with the rest of the neighbouring nations, were ravaged and laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, and the general devastation spread through all these countries by him may be the event which the prophet had first in view in this chapter: but, as Bishop Lowth observes, “this event, as far as we have any account of it in history, seems by no means to come up to the terms of the prophecy, or to justify so highly wrought and so terrible a description. And it is not easy to discover what connection the extremely flourishing state of the church or people of God, described in the next chapter, could have with those events, or how it could be the consequence of them, as it is there represented to be. By a figure, very common in the prophetical writings, any city or people, remarkably distinguished as enemies of the people and kingdom of God, is put for those enemies in general. This seems here to be the case with Edom and Bozra. It seems, therefore, reasonable to suppose, with many learned expositors, that this prophecy has a further view to events still future; to some great revolutions to be effected in later times, antecedent to that more perfect state of the kingdom of God upon earth, and serving to introduce it, which the Scriptures warrant us to expect.” Vitringa is of opinion, that Papal, as well as heathen Rome, red or drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus, is here meant. And he observes, that “Rome, which, in the Hebrew, signifies fortification, well answers to Bozra, which signifies a fortified city.” Is not the destruction of the anti-christian powers foretold in the xviith, xviiith, and xixth chapters of the Revelation by St. John, here intended by Isaiah? and especially the destruction in Armageddon, termed the great day of God Almighty, Rev 16:14, and that described Isa 19:17-19? Certainly these terrible destructions are to prepare the way for that millennial reign of Christ, described Revelation 20., and which seems to be intended in the next chapter of this prophecy.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And the unicorns - Margin, ‘Rhinoceros’ (ראמים re'ēmı̂ym from…
And the unicorns - Margin, ‘Rhinoceros’ (ראמים re'ēmı̂ym from ראם re'êm). This was evidently an animal well known in Palestine, since it is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament (Num 23:22; Deu 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa 22:21; Psa 29:6; Psa 92:10, in all which places it is translated unicorn, or unicorn). The derivation of the word is uncertain, and it has been regarded as doubtful what animal is intended. The corresponding Arabic word denotes the oryx, a large and fierce species of the antelope. Gesenius, Schultens, De Wette, and Rosenmuller suppose that the buffalo is intended by the word. Bochart regards it as denoting the gazelle, or a species of the antelope. It can hardly, however, be regarded as so small an animal as the gazelle. The gazelle is common in the neighborhood of mount Sinai; and when Laborde passed through that region his companions killed four, ‘the father and mother, and two little animals a fortnight old.’ He says of them: ‘These creatures, which are very lively in their movements, endeavored to bite when they were caught; their hair is a brown yellow, which becomes pale and long as the animals grows old.
In appearance they resemble the Guinea pig. Their legs are of the same height, but the form of their feet is unique; instead of nails and claws, they have three toes in front and four behind, and they walk. like rabbits, on the whole length of the foot. The Arabs call it El Oueber, and know no other name for it. It lives upon the scanty herbage with which the rain in the neighborhood of springs supplies it. It does not burrow in the earth, its feet not being calculated for that purpose; but it conceals itself in the natural holes or clefts which it finds in the rocks.’ (Journey through Arabia Petrea, pp. 106, 107. Lond. 8vo. 1836.) Taylor (Heb. Con.) supposes it means the rhinoceros; a fierce animal that has a single horn on the nose, which is very strong, and which sometimes grows to the height of thirty-seven inches. The ancient versions certainly regarded the word as denoting an animal with a single horn. It denotes here, evidently, some strong, fierce, and wild animal that was horned Psa 22:21, but perhaps it is not possible to determine precisely what animal is meant. For a more full investigation in reference to the kind of animal denoted by the word reem, see the notes at Job 39:9. Here it represents that portion of the people which was strong, warlike, and hitherto unvanquished, and who regarded themselves as invincible.
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Shall come down - Shall be subdued, humbled, destroyed.
With them - With the lambs and goats mentioned in Isa 34:6. All classes of the people shall be subdued and subjected to the slaughter.
And the bullocks with the bulls - The young bulls with the old. All shall come down together - the fierce and strong animals representing the fierce and strong people.
And their land shall be soaked with blood - Margin, ‘Drunken;’ the same word which is rendered ‘bathed’ in Isa 34:5.
Their dust made fat - Their land manured and made rich with the slain. A battlefield is usually distinguished afterward for its fertility. The field of Waterloo has thus been celebrated, since the great battle there, for producing rank and luxuriant harvests.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The unicorns. That is, the great and mighty. (Challoner)
The unicorns. That is, the great and mighty. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain unicorns--Hebrew, reem: conveying the idea of loftiness, power, and…
unicorns--Hebrew, reem: conveying the idea of loftiness, power, and pre-eminence (see on Job 39:9), in the Bible. At one time the image in the term answers to a reality in nature; at another it symbolizes an abstraction. The rhinoceros was the original type. The Arab rim is two-horned: it was the oryx (the leucoryx, antelope, bold and pugnacious); but when accident or artifice deprived it of one horn, the notion of the unicorn arose. Here is meant the portion of the Edomites which was strong and warlike.
come down--rather, "fall down," slain [LOWTH].
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with them--with the "lambs and goats," the less powerful Edomites (Isa 34:6).
bullocks . . . bulls--the young and old Edomites: all classes.
dust--ground.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 7. For unicorns render with R.V. wild oxen.
7. For unicorns render with R.V. wild oxen.
come down] sc. to the place of slaughter, Jer_48:15, &c.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (7) And the unicorns shall come down with them…
(7) And the unicorns shall come down with them . . .—Better, the aurochs, or wild bulls . . . The Hebrew, rem, which meets us in Deu_33:17; Psa_22:21, has been identified with the buffalo, the antelope (Antilope leucoryx), and by Mr. Houghton, a naturalist as well as a scholar, on the strength of Assyrian inscriptions, pointing to the land of the Khatti (Hittites) and the foot of the Lebanon as its habitat, and of bas-reliefs representing it, with the Bos primigenius of zoologists (Bible Educator, ii. 24-29). Here, the fierce wild beasts stand for the chiefs of the Edomites. (Comp. Psa_22:12; Psa_22:21.) The verb, “shall come down,” as in Jer_48:15; Jer_50:27; Jer_51:40, implies going down to the shambles, or slaughtering house.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The unicorns; Bishop Lowth renders ream by "wild goats;"…
The unicorns; Bishop Lowth renders ream by "wild goats;" Mr. Cheyne by "buffaloes." Probably the wild ox, a native of the trans-Jordanic region, is intended (see Mr. Houghton"s paper on the animals of the Assyrian bas-reliefs, in the "Transactions of the Society of Bibl. Archaeology," vol. 5. p. 336). Shall come down; rather, shall go down; i.e. shall fall and perish. (comp. Jer_1:2-7)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 will fall
will fall
"will die"
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Their land will be drunk with blood
This describes the amount of blood that will soak into the ground by comparing the land to a drunk person. AT: "Their land will be soaked with blood" (See: Personification)
their dust made fat with fatness
Here "dust" means the dirt on the ground. This describes the amount of fat that will soak into the dirt by comparing it to a person that has become fat from eating so much animal fat. AT: "the dirt will be full of the fat of the animals" (See: Personification)
translationWords
cow
slaughter
blood
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.