Isaiah 9:18

16 For ^athe leaders of this people cause them to err,
And those who are led by them are destroyed.

17 Therefore the Lord ^awill have no joy in their young men,
Nor have mercy on their fatherless and widows;
For everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer,
And every mouth speaks¹ folly.
^bFor all this His anger is not turned away,
But His hand is stretched out still.

18 For wickedness ^aburns as the fire;
It shall devour the briers and thorns,
And kindle in the thickets of the forest;
They shall mount up like rising smoke.

19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts
^aThe land is burned up,
And the people shall be as fuel for the fire;
^bNo man shall spare his brother.

20 And he shall¹ snatch on the right hand
And be hungry;
He shall devour on the left hand
^aAnd not be satisfied;
^bEvery man shall eat the flesh of his own arm.

21 Manasseh shall devour Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh;
Together they shall be ^aagainst Judah.
^bFor all this His anger is not turned away,
But His hand is stretched out still.

Commentaries:

Adam Clarke

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Isaiah 9:18

For wickedness - Wickedness rageth like a fire, destroying and laying waste the nation: but it shall be its own destruction, by bringing down the fire of God' s wrath, which shall burn up the briers and the thorns; that is, the wicked themselves. Briers and thorns are an image frequently applied in Scripture, when set on fire, to the rage of the wicked; violent, yet impotent, and of no long continuance. "They are extinct as the fire of thorns," Psalms 118:12. To the wicked themselves, as useless and unprofitable, proper objects of God' s wrath, to be burned up, or driven away by the wind. "As thorns cut up they shall be consumed in the fire," Isaiah 33:12. Both these ideas seem to be joined in Psalms 58:9 : -

"Before your pots shall feel the thorn,

As well the green as the dry, the tempest shall bear them away."

The green and the dry is a proverbial expression, meaning all sorts of them, good and bad, great and small, etc. So Ezekiel: "Behold, I will kindle a fire, and it shall devour every green tree, and every dry tree," Ezekiel 20:47. D' Herbelot quotes a Persian poet describing a pestilence under the image of a conflagration: "This was a lightning that, falling upon a forest, consumed there the green wood with the dry." See Harmer' s Observations, Vol. II., p. 187.

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Isaiah 9:18

A Verse and a Thought,Every Morning

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