Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up; and the mountains will melt in their blood.
Parallel translations
- 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.
- BSB Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.
- NKJV Also their slain shall be thrown out; Their stench shall rise from their corpses, And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
- NASB So their slain will be thrown out, And their corpses will give off their stench, And the mountains will be drenched with their blood.
- NLT Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land. The mountains will flow with their blood.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The judgment is graphic and total, with the slain unburied and the land soaked in their blood.
Overview
The vivid imagery of corpses, stench, and blood-drenched mountains conveys the severity and certainty of God's judgment on the nations. Such language, common in prophetic oracles, is meant to shock hearers into recognizing the weight of divine wrath against sin. It warns of the real consequences of rebellion and magnifies the mercy offered in the gospel.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Joel 2:20But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its bad smell will rise.” Surely he has done great things.
- Ezek 39:4You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you, and all your hordes, and the peoples who are with you: I will give you to the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the animals of the field to be devoured.
- Isa 34:7The 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.
- Ezek 14:19“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal;
- Ezek 39:11It shall happen in that day, that I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the valley of those who pass through on the east of the sea; and it shall stop those who pass through: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude; and they shall call it The valley of Hamon Gog.
- Amos 4:10“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- 2 Kgs 9:35–37They went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands.
- Ezek 38:22With pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.
- Isa 14:19–20But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.
- Jer 22:19He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” says Yahweh, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves;
- Rev 14:20The wine press was trodden outside of the city, and blood came out of the wine press, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.
- Rev 16:3–4The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. Every living thing in the sea died.
- Ezek 32:5–6I will lay your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your height.
- Ezek 35:6therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you: since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 34:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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