Isaiah 34:9

"And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever. But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he will stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest. There shall the dart-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shade; yea, there shall the kites be gathered, everyone with her mate."

"Streams into pitch ... dust into brimstone ..." (Isaiah 34:9). "These words, along with the haunted ruins of Isaiah 34:11ff bring both Sodom and Babylon to mind";[6] and they provide part of the evidence here that the final judgment is the theme. However, it is evident that both the earthly judgments against Edom and that of the Final Day are mingled in the description. This is true because other pictures of the final destruction of Adam's race declare that "no living thing whatever" will be left (Zephaniah 1:1-3).

The judgments against Sodom and Gomorrah and that of Babylon are both typical of the Final Day; and for that reason, the comparison suggested here enables us to classify the judgment against Edom in the same way. Like Babylon, Edom will be nothing but a waste land generation after generation. This, of course, has already happened.

The word rendered "night-monster" in Isaiah 34:14 comes from a proper name in the Hebrew, Lilith, which is of uncertain interpretation.[7] There is some possibility that it might refer to a demon. Peake believed that all of the creatures mentioned here as dwelling in deserted and wasted Edom were "Satyrs,"[8] that is, "gods, or gods that looked like goats, demonic creatures."[9]

"Isaiah 34:15, then is meant to mirror the total absence of any human beings."[10] And, in view of the first three verses of Zephaniah, where God promised to destroy every living creature, it could be that only spiritual beings such as demons in the service of the devil would inhabit places such as Babylon and Edom were doomed to be.