Withered Tree

Isaiah 34 prophesies about Yahweh’s assault on the nations and their armies.  They will be slaughtered, their corpses will rot on the earth, adn the mountains will be drenched with their blood (vv. 1-3).  Instead of sacrificial smoke with its pleasing aroma, the stench of corpses will “go up” (v. 3).  Even the hosts of heaven will “rot” (v. 4), as the sky rolls up like a scroll.

Isaiah shifts the imagery from rotting corpses to a collapsing sky to the withering of a tree.  The hosts that rot are compared to trees withering away – stars are like fruit hanging down from the leafy canopy of the heavens.  The hosts of heaven will wither “as a leaf withers from the vine, or as withers from the fig tree (v. 4).

Which of course reminds us of Jesus withering fig trees.  Given the context of Isaiah, Jesus’ withering of the tree is a sign of the Lord’s great slaughter of the nations’ armies, a sign that the host of heaven (the starry descendants of Abraham) will wither and rot like dried up grapes or figs, a sign that the Lord will bare His sword and make a great sacrificial slaughter (vv. 5-10).  It is a sign that the city will be desolated, a haunt for pelicans and owls and hedgehogs (v. 11).