Isaiah 34:9-15 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And the streams thereof, &c.— The prophet, whose copiousness of speaking is every where inexhausted, paints, in the most chosen figures, an image of the land and city desolated by war, wasted by fire, and devoted to eternal devastation, by the divine judgment; which should not only be deprived of its inhabitants, and left to impure beasts and birds, accustomed to dwell in desarts and desolate places, but also, by the desolation brought upon it, should be rendered uninhabitable, and present the appearance of the infernal flame, like another Sodom and Gomorrah, sending forth continually black smoke and horrid smells. This is the sense of the period, as must be plain to every one. See ch. Isaiah 13:19, &c. where the desolation of Babylon is set forth in similar terms. Though Rome pagan, and the Roman powers, have already suffered great desolation from the Goths and others, yet Vitringa is of opinion, that this prophesy has not yet had its full completion, but will hereafter have it in the destruction of papal Rome. The state of Italy, and the sulphureous soil in the vicinity of Rome, render the probability of this devastation greater.