Isaiah 34:3
in Isaiah 34Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies shall come up; and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
KJV
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.
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This verse in Isaiah 34
Commentary
8 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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 Isa 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.
This site's exposition
Come near, O nations, to listen
on Isaiah 34:1-4
The chapter opens beyond Edom with a summons to the whole world: Come near, O nations, to listen. The LORD is angry with all the nations, and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll. Revelation 6:14 uses the same image at the sixth seal.
This site's exposition
Their slain will be left unburied
Their slain lie unburied, the last disgrace in the ancient world, with the dead too many for anyone to bury. Matthew Henry sets the mountains flowing with blood beside the blood up to the horses' bridles at Revelation 14:20. Both overstatements make the reader feel the LORD's fury.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
(Chapter 34, Verse 1, etc.) Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth and all that fills it hear, the world and all that springs from it. For the Lord's indignation is against all the nations, and His fury is against all their armies; He has utterly destroyed them and given them over to slaughter. Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will be drenched with their blood.
The Medieval Church1 voice
And the throwing out of their corpses: their slain shall be cast forth, without burial: his stench shall ascend (Joel 2:20). Second, as to the end of their tyrants: the mountains, that is, the tyrants, shall be melted with their blood, that is, because of …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
These expressions are hyperbolical (as St. John's vision of blood to the horse-bridles, Rev. xiv. 20 ), and are made use of because they sound very dreadful to sense (it makes us even shiver to think of such abundance of human gore), and are therefore proper to express the terror of God's wrath, which is dreadful beyond conception and expression.
): They shall be cast out, and none shall pay them the respect of a decent burial; but their stink shall come up out of their carcases, that all people by the odious smell, as well as by the ghastly sight, may be made to conceive an indignation against sin and a dread of the wrath of God.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Their slain also shall be cast out,....
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְחַלְלֵיהֶ֣ם | vechaleihem | and slain [ones] their | H2491 → | 94 times |
| יֻשְׁלָ֔כוּ | yushlakhu | they will be thrown out | H7993 → | 125 times |
| וּפִגְרֵיהֶ֖ם | ufigreihem | and corpses their | H6297 → | 22 times |
| יַעֲלֶ֣ה | yaaleh | it will go up | H5927 → | 890 times |
| בָאְשָׁ֑ם | vaesham | stench their | H889 → | |
| וְנָמַ֥סּוּ | venamasu | and they will melt away | H4549 → | 21 times |
| הָרִ֖ים | harim | mountains | H2022 → | 546 times |
| מִדָּמָֽם׃ | midamam | from blood their | H1818 → | 360 times |
וְחַלְלֵיהֶ֣םand slain [ones] their
vechaleihemH2491 →94 times
יֻשְׁלָ֔כוּthey will be thrown out
yushlakhuH7993 →125 times
וּפִגְרֵיהֶ֖םand corpses their
ufigreihemH6297 →22 times
יַעֲלֶ֣הit will go up
yaalehH5927 →890 times
בָאְשָׁ֑םstench their
vaeshamH889 →
וְנָמַ֥סּוּand they will melt away
venamasuH4549 →21 times
הָרִ֖יםmountains
harimH2022 →546 times
מִדָּמָֽם׃from blood their
midamamH1818 →360 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Joel 2:20The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its…
it leads to
- Zechariah 14:8
And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike.
- Deuteronomy 11:24
Every place where the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Western Sea.
- Amos 4:10
“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you…
- Zechariah 14:8
Through
Ezekiel 39:4On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast.
it leads to
- Ezekiel 33:27
Tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘As surely as I live, those in the ruins will fall by the sword, those in the open field I will give to be…
- Ezekiel 39:17–20
And as for you, son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says: Call out to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble and come together from all…
- Ezekiel 33:27
Through
Isaiah 34:7And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.
it leads to
- Numbers 23:22
God brought them out of Egypt with strength like a wild ox.
- Psalms 68:30
Rebuke the beast in the reeds, the herd of bulls among the calves of the nations, until it submits, bringing bars of silver. Scatter the nations who delight in war.
- Numbers 23:22
Through
Ezekiel 14:19Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast,
it leads to
- Ezekiel 38:22
I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed. I will pour out torrents of rain, hailstones, fire, and sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him.
- Ezekiel 38:22
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Isaiah
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.