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Isa. 34: 11 is of extreme importance because of the illumination which it throws upon
other extremely important passages:
"But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall
dwell in it; and He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of
emptiness" (Isa. 34: 11).
The unclean birds that possess the land of Edom are an accepted symbol of judgment
and desolation and do not call for extended comment. The line and the stone refer to
measurement and weight:
"I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of
Ahab" (II Kings 21: 13).
This passage not only uses these words as symbols of judgment, as in Isa. 34: 11,
but, by substituting "plummet" for "stone", enables us to decide what is intended by the
stone in Isa. 34: In Zech. 4: 10 the word "plummet" is actually "a stone of tin", as
the margin shows.
As a symbol of perfectly unbiased judgment, a judgment that, by its very nature, must
be free from all partiality, the plumbline is among the most suggestive.
"Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will
set a plumbline in the midst of My people Israel: I will not again pass them by any more.
And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid
waste" (Amos 7: 8, 9).
In Isa. 28: we have the same figure,
"Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail
shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place"
(Isa. 28: 17).
II Kings 21: 13, Amos 7: and Isa. 28: also use this symbol of the searching
inquisition of Israel, but Isa. 34: reveals that at the time of the end the same scrutiny
is to be turned upon the Edomite. The chief importance however of this passage is not in
the easily recognized symbols of line and stone, but in the words translated "confusion"
and "emptiness". In the original they are tohu and bohu, and occur together on the
opening page of the O.T.:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without
form and void (tohu and bohu) and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Gen. 1: 1, 2).
From these verses it is clear that the primal creation had passed under the judgment of
"line and plummet" because of some failure (the pride and fall of Satan, as we believe),
and had become involved in ruin. From Isa. 45: 18 we learn that the Lord did not
create the earth tohu, "in vain", and we also find that the word tohu is placed in contrast
with the word "inhabited". In Isa. 34: 10, 12 we read "none shall pass through it",
"none shall be there", while in Jer. 4:, where the words "without form and void" again
appear, the context speaks of earthquake, darkness, no man, and desolation. Upon