Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 9:18
For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up [like] the lifting up of smoke.
18. The smouldering embers of wickedness burst out in a raging fire: see Hosea’s image of the oven, Isa 7:4; Isa 7:6.
For wickedness thickets ] Render, For wickedness burned like a fire that consumes thorns and thistles, and it set fire to the thickets, &c., cf. Isa 10:17-18. Both wickedness and the punishment of it are likened to an unquenchable fire; Job 31:12; Deu 32:22. First the thorns and thistles are kindled, then the fire catches the trees.
they shall mount smoke ] and they roll upward in a pillar of smoke; lit. “a lifting up of smoke.” The word for “roll upward” does not occur again; it contains an alliteration with that for “thickets.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
18 21. Third strophe. As in ch. Isa 3:1-7, the removal of the pillars of the state is followed by wild confusion and civil war. The state of things alluded to can be partly realised from passages in the book of Hosea, e.g. Isa 4:2, Isa 5:11 f., Isa 6:8 f., Isa 7:7, Isa 10:3; Isa 10:13; and cf. 2Ki 15:23-25.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For wickedness – This commences the third part of the prophecy, which continues to the end of the chapter. It is a description of prevailing impiety. The effects and prevalence of it are described by the image of a raging, burning flame, that spreads everywhere: first among the humble shrubbery – the briers and thorns, then in the vast forests, until it spreads over the land, and sends a mighty column of flame and smoke up to heaven.
Burneth as the fire – Spreads, rages. extends as fire does in thorns and in forests. In what respects it burns like the fire, the prophet immediately specifies. It spreads rapidly everywhere, and involves all in the effects. Wickedness is not unfrequently in the Scriptures compared to a fire that is shut up long, and then bursts forth with raging violence. Thus Hos 7:6 :
Truly, in the inmost part of it, their heart is like an oven,
While they lie in wait;
All the night their baker sleepeth;
In the morning it burneth like a blazing star.
As an oven conceals the lighted fire all night, while the baker takes his rest, and in the morning vomits forth its blazing flame; so all manner of concupiscence is brooding mischief in their hearts, while the ruling faculties of reason and conscience are lulled asleep, and their wicked designs wait only for a fair occasion to break forth. – Horsely on Hosea; see also Isa 50:2; Isa 65:5.
It shall devour – Hebrew, It shall eat. The idea of devouring or eating, is one which is often given to fire in the Scriptures.
The briers and thorns – By the briers and thorns are meant, doubtless, the lower part of the population; the most degraded ranks of society. The idea here seems to be, first, that of impiety spreading like fire over all classes of people; but there is also joined with it, in the mind of the prophet, the idea of punishment. Wickedness would rage like spreading fire; but like fire, also, it would sweep over the nation accomplishing desolation and calamity, and consuming everything in the fire oft Gods vengeance. The wicked are often compared to thorns and briers – fit objects to be burned up; Isa 33:12 :
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime;
As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.
And shall kindle – Shall burn, or extend, as sweeping fire extends to the mighty forest.
In the thickets of the forests – The dense, close forest or grove. The idea is, that it extends to all classes of people – high as well as low.
And they shall mount up – The Hebrew word used here – yit’abeku from ‘abak – occurs nowhere else. The image is that of a far-spreading, raging fire, sending columns of smoke to heaven. So, says the prophet, is the rolling, raging, consuming fire of the sins of the nation spreading over all classes of people in the land, and involving all in widespread desolation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 9:18-21
For wickedness burneth as the fire
Wickedness as fire
Wickedness, i.., the constant willing of evil, is a fire which man kindles in himself. And when the grace of God, which stifles and checks this fire, is at an end, it breaks forth The fire of wickedness is nothing else but Gods for so wrath is called as breaking forth from within and spreading itself inwardly more and more, and then passing outwards into word and deed; it is Gods own wrath; for all sin carries this within itself as its own punishment. (F. Delitzsch.)
Sin compared to a great fire
The prophet affirms that there are resemblances between a fire and sin. It is not a common fire to which he refers, such as is employed for domestic or public purposes. It is a great conflagration which burns the humble shrubbery, the gigantic forest, extends over the land, and sends a mighty column of smoke and flame up to heaven
I. THE ORIGIN OF A GREAT FIRE. Recently we read an account of a great fire, and the paragraph closed with these words: the origin of the fire is unknown The same with the origin of sin. We know it had a beginning, for God only is from everlasting. We know it had a beginning before Eve and Adam felt its power, since they were tempted: We know it began with him who is called Satan and the father of lies. Still, there are three questions about it which we cannot answer.
(1) Where did it begin?
(2) When did it begin!
(3) How did it begin?
II. THE PROGRESS OF A GREAT FIRE. Place one spark amid combustible material in London. Let it alone. It will leap from point to point, house to house, street to street, until the whole city is in flames. Sin has spread in as exactly similar way. One sin, to the individual; one wrong action, to the family; one immoral look, to thousands; one crime, to a kingdom.
III. THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF A GREAT FIRE. Wood, coal, etc., it transforms into its own essence, because it makes fire of these. It is even so with sin. It turns everything, over which it gains the slightest control, into its own nature–that is into a curse. The desire to possess, sin has turned in a different direction, and made it an autocratic passion. Take the principle of ambition in the same Way. Take commerce in the same way. Thus the richest blessings, yea, all the which God has given to us, sin can so transform that they shall become curses.
IV. THE DESTRUCTIVE ENERGY OF A GREAT FIRE. Who can calculate the amount of property in London alone, which has been destroyed by fire! But the destruction which sin has caused in London is infinitely greater and more momentous. Some have bodies, once beautiful, now bloated and withered by sin. Some have feelings, once tender, now petrified by sin. Some whose intellectual powers were once strong, now feeble by sin. Some, who were once full of hope, now hopeless by sin. The destruction Which sin has caused is awful.
V. THE TERMINATION OF A GREAT FIRE. It terminates when an the material is reduced to ashes. Can the fire of sin ever he put out in this way? The body in the grave is scorched by it no more; but what of the soul? Look at the rich man. He is tormented, in pain, not by a literal flame, but by the fire of sin. He will be so forever, because the soul is immortal. A great fire has been terminated by a superior quenching power. There is also an element which can completely remove sin from the soul. What is it? Ask those in heaven, and those on earth, who have been saved. They all say that they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (A. MAuslane, D. D.)
Sin mirrored as fire
The Bible is full of the figurative and analogic.
I. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN THE FORMS IN WHICH IT EXISTS. Fire is found to exist in two states–the insensibly latent, and the sensibly active.
1. In an insensible state, heat is everywhere. Even in solid masses of ice it is to be found. Sir Humphrey Davy, it is said, quickly melted pieces of ice by rubbing them together in a room cooled below the freezing point. It is so with sin. It is found in every part of the human world; it sleeps, perhaps, even in the most innocent of our kind. All it wants is the contact of some tempting circumstance to bring it out into an active flame. The virtue of some men is but vice sleeping. As savages light their fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, so men stir up the latent of depravity by mutual contact. There is sufficient latent fire around us to burn up the globe, and there is sufficient latent sin in humanity to turn earth into hell
2. But fire is active as well as latent. In its active state you see it flaming on your hearths, illuminating your cities, working your manufactures, propelling your fleets, drawing your carriages, flashing in the lightning and thundering in the earthquake. Sin is terribly active in our world, active in every department of life:–in commerce, in politics, and religion To use the language of the text, It mounts up like the lifting up of smoke: the smoke of this fire of sin pollutes and darkens every sphere of life.
II. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS TENDENCY TO SPREAD ITSELF. What a great fire a little spark will kindle! Fire is essentially diffusive; so is sin. How true it is that one sinner destroyeth much good.
III. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS POWER OF CHANGING EVERYTHING TO ITS OWN NATURE. It has turned alcohol into intemperance, merchandise into fraud, government into tyranny, aggression into the demon of war. When Archimedes, to gratify his vengeance on the Romans, brought down the genial rays of heaven by magic glass to burn up their ships, he only dramatised the universal fact that sin ever strives to turn the greatest blessing to the greatest curse.
IV. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS REPELLING ENERGY. Philosophers tell us that fire is that principle in nature which counteracts attraction, and keeps the various particles of matter at their proper distance. It is that repulsive force which prevents atoms from coming into close contact, and sometimes drives them far apart. It turns the solid bodies into liquids and liquids into vapours. Apply fire to the compact tree, and it will break it into a million atoms, and send these atoms abroad on the wide fields of air. Were it not for heat, all parts of the universe would rush together into one solid mass, whose parts would press together in closer contact than the heaviest stone. Sin is a repulsive principle. It separates man from man, family from family, nation from nation–all from God!
V. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS DEVOURING CAPABILITY. It consumes something far more valuable than the most beautiful forms of material nature, or the most exquisite productions of human art–it consumes man. You cannot walk the streets of any great city, without meeting men whose bodies are being consumed by sin. Sin devours the soul. It dries up its fountain of Divine feeling, it sears its conscience, it withers its intellect, it blasts its prospects and its hopes.
VI. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS POWER TO INFLICT PAIN. There is no element in nature capable of inflicting more suffering on the body than fire. But sin can inflict greater suffering: the fires of remorse are a thousand times more painful than the flames that enwrapped the martyrs. A wounded spirit who can bear? The fire of sin in the soul will burn to the lowest hell. Ask Cain, Belshazzar, Judas, concerning the intensity of moral suffering.
VII. SIN IS LIKE FIRE IN ITS SUSCEPTIBILITY OF BEING EXTINGUISHED. You have seen a raging fire go out from one of two causes; either because it has consumed the body on which it fed and reduced it to ashes, or because of the application of some quenching force. The fire of sin will never go out for the former reason–the object on which it feeds is indestructible: if it is ever to be destroyed, it must be extinguished by some outward force. Thank God! there is a moral element on earth to put out sin; the river of mediatorial influences that rolls from the throne of God has quenched the fire of sin in the case of millions, and is as efficacious to do so now as ever. (Homilist.)
Wickedness as fire
I. WICKEDNESS. Of this wickedness there are divers sorts, each of which may be distinguished by the objects on which it terminates.
1. When immediately directed against God, it is discovered by an absurd contempt of His providences and ordinances, His commandments, promises, and threatenings, and a virulent opposition to the interests of His kingdom and glory.
2. When its operations are aimed against men, it is perpetrated by harassing, oppressing and persecuting those who are entitled to acts of justice, beneficence, and charity, and by disturbing the peace and good order of human society.
3. When it chiefly respects the persons themselves by whom it is acted, the most daring iniquities are committed, forbidden by the law of nature, the law of nations, and the law of God, in order to gratify their ungovernable desires, and to promote their interest, honour, or pleasure.
II. WICKEDNESS BURNETH AS FIRE. The amiable endowments of the person in whom it burns, the good dispositions and laudable desires with which his mind is furnished, will fall a sacrifice to its rage. It will enfeeble the understanding, harden the conscience, deprave the heart, hurt the memory, weaken the senses, debilitate the whole frame; it will entirely eat away peace of mind, and lead on to contention, confusion, and every evil work. It will devour the strength and vigour of the body, bring on untimely old age, and shorten the now short life of man. It will consume his honour and reputation, and leave behind it indelible marks of disgrace and reproach, that shall not be wiped away. It will burn up his riches and possessions; for by means of it a man is often brought to a piece of bread, and a nation involved in irremediable destruction. (R. Macculloch.)
Wickedness is destruction
There is to be internecine war: Manasseh shall fly at Ephraim, and Ephraim at Manasseh, and they who could agree upon nothing between themselves always agree in flying together against Judah. This is what wickedness will bring the world to–to murder, to mutual hatred and distrust, to perdition. We do not understand the power of wickedness, because at present, owing to religious thinking and action and moral civilisation, mere are so ninny mitigating circumstances, so many relieving lights; but wickedness in itself let loose upon the earth, and the earth is no longer the abode of green thing of fair flower, or singing bird, of mutual trust and love: it becomes a pandemonium. If we could consider this deeply, it would make us solemn. We do not consider it; we are prepared to allow it as a theory or a conjecture, but the realisation of it is kept far from us. The wicked man kills himself; puts his teeth into the flesh of his own arm, and gnaws it with the hunger of a wild beast. That is what wickedness comes to! It is not an intellectual error, not a slight and passing mistake, not a lapse of judgment, or a momentarily lamentable act of misconduct which can easily be repaired: the essence of wickedness is destruction. Wickedness would no sooner hesitate to kill a little child than to snap a flower. The thing that keeps the world from suicide is the providence of God. Were God to take away the restraining influences which are keeping society together, society would gall into mutual enmity, and the controversy could only end in mutual death. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. Do not blame the judgment, blame the sin; do not say, How harsh is God, say, How corrupt, how blasphemous is man! (J. Parker, D. D.)
Injury inflicted on the body politic
A nation is sometimes spoken of as a person constituted of a soul, and the various parts of a human body. In this political body there are those who act the part of the arms, by whom its strength is exerted, and its safety preserved. On this principle I explain this prediction, they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm. Every one almost was to be employed in cruelly harassing and devouring those whose business it was to support and defend the interests of the nation. Unmindful of the laws of nature, the ties of friendship and gratitude, they would vex and destroy those useful members of the community with whom they were nearly connected, and to whom they were obliged for their efforts in their behalf. (R. Macculloch.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 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,” Ps 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,” Isa 33:12. Both these ideas seem to be joined in Ps 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, &c. So Ezekiel: “Behold, I will kindle a fire, and it shall devour every green tree, and every dry tree,” Eze 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Wickedness burneth, i.e. shall burn you, as it follows, shall devour. Your
iniquity shall be your ruin, as God threatens, Eze 18:30.
The briers and thorns; either,
1. The wicked, who are oft compared to briers and thorns, as 2Sa 23:6; Isa 27:4; or rather,
2. The low and mean persons; for these are opposed to
the thickets of the forest, in the next clause. In the thickets of the forest; in the wood, where the trees are tall, and stand thick, having their boughs entangled together, which makes them more ready both to catch and to spread the fire.
Like the lifting up of smoke; sending up smoke like a vast furnace. Heb. with height or pride of smoke, i.e. with aspiring smoke, which in that case riseth high, and spreadeth far, and filleth all the neighbouring air.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18-21. Third strophe.
burnethmakethconsumption, not only spreading rapidly, but also consuminglike fire: sin is its own punishment.
briers . . . thornsemblemof the wicked; especially those of low rank (Isa 27:4;2Sa 23:6).
forestfrom the humbleshrubbery the flame spreads to the vast forest; itreaches the high, as well as the low.
mount up like . . .smokerather. “They (the thickets of the forest)shall lift themselves proudly aloft [the Hebrew is froma Syriac root, a cock, expressing stateliness ofmotion, from his strutting gait, HORSLEY],in (in passing into) volumes of ascending smoke” [MAURER].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For wickedness burneth as the fire,…. That is, the punishment of their sins, as the Targum interprets it; the wrath of God for sin, which is poured out like fire, and consumes as that does; unless wicked men are meant, who are consumed with the fire of divine vengeance; the sense is the same:
it shall devour the briers and thorns; sinners and ungodly, so the Targum paraphrases it; and Aben Ezra observes, they are the wicked; who are compared to briers and thorns, for their unfruitfulness in themselves, harmfulness to others, and for their weakness to stand against the fury of incensed Deity, see 2Sa 23:6:
and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest. Kimchi thinks there is a gradation in these words, that as fire first begins to burn the thorns, and smaller wood, and then the greater; so wickedness consumes first the little ones, who are the thorns, and after that it kindles in the thickets of the forest, who are the great ones; so the commonwealth of Israel is compared to a forest; and the thorns, briers, and thickets, may denote the common people and their governors, who all being guilty of wickedness, should not escape the vengeance of God:
and they shall mount up [like] the lifting up of smoke: or lift up themselves, or be lifted up; so Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret the word; but Jarchi thinks it has the signification of , “to be perplexed”: and gives the sense of it thus; they are perplexed, and shut up with the strength of smoke that burns: others take it to be a word of the same meaning with ; and render it, “they shall pulverize”, or “go into dust in the lifting up of smoke” d; and denotes the dissolution of the commonwealth; but perhaps it may be better rendered, “though they shall walk proudly” (or behave haughtily), their “pride” shall be as “smoke”, which soon vanishes away; since the word, which is only here used, in the Syriac language signifies to walk proudly, as a cock with two crests e.
d “et epulverabitur erectione fumi”, Cocceius; “adeo ut in minutissimum pulverem abeant elato fumo, [vel] elatione fumi”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. e “Et superbient, (fastuose se gerent,) at superbia (vel quorum superbia) fumus, h. e. fumi instar, evanescit, interibit, quod etiam Armenis indigiat, isfud vacobulum `Abac’ , Syr. galus, gallinaceus, superbo gradu incedens et bicristatus”, Castel. Lexicon Polyglott. col. 12.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Strophe 3. “For the wickedness burneth up like fire: it devours thorns and thistles, and burns in the thickets of the wood; and they smoke upwards in a lofty volume of smoke. Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts the land is turned into coal, and the nation has become like the food of fire: not one spares his brother. They hew on the right, and are hungry; and devour on the left, and are not satisfied: they devour the flesh of their own arm: Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: these together over Judah. With all this His anger is not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still.” The standpoint of the prophet is at the extreme end of the course of judgment, and from that he looks back. Consequently this link of the chain is also past in his view, and hence the future conversives. The curse, which the apostasy of Israel carries within itself, now breaks fully out. Wickedness, i.e., the constant thirst of evil, is a fire which a man kindles in himself. And when the grace of God, which damps and restrains this fire, is all over, it is sure to burst forth: the wickedness bursts forth like fire (the verb is used here, as in Isa 30:27, with reference to the wrath of God). And this is the case with the wickedness of Israel, which now consumes first of all thorns and thistles, i.e., individual sinners who are the most ripe for judgment, upon whom the judgment commences, and then the thicket of the wood ( sib – che ,
(Note: The metheg ( gaya) in (to be pronounced sib – che ) has simply the caphonic effect of securing a distinct enunciation to the sibilant letter (in other instances to the guttural, vid., arboth , Num 31:12), in cases where the second syllable of the word commences with a guttural or labial letter, or with an aspirate.)
as in Isa 10:34, from sebac , Gen 22:13 = sobec ), that is to say, the great mass of the people, which is woven together by bands of iniquity ( vattizzath is not a reflective niphal, as in 2Ki 22:13, but kal, to kindle into anything, i.e., to set it on fire). The contrast intended in the two figures is consequently not the high and low (Ewald), nor the useless and useful (Drechsler), but individuals and the whole (Vitringa). The fire, into which the wickedness bursts out, seizes individuals first of all; and then, like a forest fire, it seizes upon the nation at large in all its ranks and members, who “ whirl up (roll up) ascending of smoke,” i.e., who roll up in the form of ascending smoke ( hith’abbek , a synonym of hithhappek , Jdg 7:13, to curl or roll). This fire of wickedness was no other than the wrath ( ebrah ) of God: it is God’s own wrath, for all sin carries this within itself as its own self-punishment. By this fire of wrath the soil of the land is gradually but thoroughly burnt out, and the people of the land utterly consumed: to be red-hot (lxx , also the Targum), and to be dark or black (Arabic atame , late at night), for what is burnt out becomes black. Fire and darkness are therefore correlative terms throughout the whole of the Scriptures. So far do the figures extend, in which the prophet presents the inmost essence of this stage of judgment. In its historical manifestation it consisted in the most inhuman self-destruction during an anarchical civil war. Destitute of any tender emotions, they devoured one another without being satisfied: gazar , to cut, to hew (hence the Arabic for a butcher): zero’o , his arm, according to Jer 19:9, equivalent to the member of his own family and tribe, who was figuratively called his arm (Arabic adud : see Ges. Thes. p. 433), as being the natural protector and support. This interminable self-immolation, and the regicide associated with the jealousy of the different tribes, shook the northern kingdom again and again to its utter destruction. And the readiness with which the unbrotherly feelings of the northern tribes towards one another could turn into combined hostility towards Judah, was evident enough from the Syro-Ephraimitish war, the consequences of which had not passed away at the time when these prophecies were uttered. This hostility on the part of the brother kingdoms would still further increase. And the end of the judgments of wrath had not come yet.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Verse 18-21: THE SAD EFFECTS OF SIN
1. Verse 18 pictures the burning anger of the Lord, by which the. wicked are devoured, (Isa 1:7; Nah 1:9-10; Mal 4:1).
2. It is through the wrath of “the Lord of hosts” (Isa 10:6) that:
a. The land is darkened – burned and left desolate, (Joe 2:3).
b. The people are as fuel for the fire, (Isa 1:31; Isa 34:6).
c. And in this situation “no man spares his brother”; each considers only himself, (Mic 7:2; Mic 7:6; Jer 5:26).
3. There is no satisfaction or peace for such a rebellious people; but perpetual trouble so long as their stubbornness persists. God will send both famine and warfare, in an effort to turn them back to Himself.
4. Still, the Lord’s anger against them is not assuaged; “but His hand is stretched out still”.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
18. For wickedness burneth as the fire. The Prophet attacks the wicked, who are accustomed to defend themselves by laying the blame on God. Either they practice evasions, in order to convince themselves that they are innocent, or, when they have been convicted, they still extenuate their guilt, as if the severity of God were beyond proper bounds. Never, certainly, do they acknowledge that God is just in punishing them, till they are compelled to acknowledge it; and even though they do not venture to excuse themselves publicly, still they fret and murmur. With the view of repressing such insolence, the Prophet compares the calamities to burning, but shows that the wickedness of men is the wood and fuel, by which the anger of God is kindled: as if he had said, “All exclaim and make loud complaints that the wrath of God burns violently, and yet they do not consider that their own sins are the fans by which it is inflamed, and that those sins supply the fuel, and that even themselves are consumed by the inward fire of their crimes.”
It shall devour the briers and thorns. The meaning is, that this flame will seize every part of Judea. Two things are here expressed, that the punishment of sin proceeds from the judgment of God, and yet that the blame lies with the sinners themselves, that they may not remonstrate with God as if he had dealt cruelly with them. There is a beautiful gradation; for we perceive that it usually happens that a fire, kindled in the lowest part of any place, gathers strength by degrees, spreads wider and wider, and ascends to the higher parts. Such will the wrath of God be; for Isaiah shows that it does not all at once seize the wicked, but is gradually kindled, till it utterly destroy them. At first the Lord proceeds gently, but if a light chastisement produce no good effect, he increases and doubles the punishment. If he see that we are obstinate, his wrath burns to the uttermost, so as to destroy us altogether, and consume us like a thick forest. Lastly, as the Prophets elsewhere declare, we must be like chaff and straw as soon as the wrath of God is kindled. (Psa 83:14)
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE DESTRUCTIVENESS OF SIN
Isa. 9:18-19. For wickedness burneth as the fire, &c.
One of the grandest and most fearful scenes in nature is a forest on fire. This is the figure Isaiah employs to describe the destruction that was coming upon sinful and stubborn Israel [952] That destruction would be all-comprehending and irresistible. Even the poorest would not be spared, and the wealthiest could not escape. And all this woe, at which it behoved the people to tremble, is attributed to the wickedness in which they delighted. Wickedness burneth as the firea comprehensive statement eternally true.
[952] Civil war and foreign invasion shall rage through this reprobate people like the fire with which the husbandman clears the ground of briers and thorns. The wickedness of the land becomes its own punishment, and burns with a fury which is indeed the wrath of God, while its fuel is the people themselves.Strachey.
Wickedness, i.e., the constant thirst of evil is a fire which a man kindles in himself. And when the grace of God which damps and restrains this fire is all over, it is sure to burst forth. The fire, into which this wickedness bursts forth, seizes individuals first of all; and then, like a forest fire, it seizes upon the nation at large in all its ranks and members, who roll up in the form of ascending smoke. In its historical manifestation, this judgment consisted in the most inhuman self-destruction during an anarchial civil war.Delitzsch.
The picture of guilt grows darker still. It is like destroying fire in the jungle of a forest. The confusion and misery thus caused are like the volumes of smoke that mount up in whirling eddies from such a conflagration.Birks.
I. Consider how true it is in regard to individuals. The forest-firewhat a trivial thing it may seem in its commencement! It was but a little heap of dried leaves and sticks which a thoughtless traveller kindled, that by means of the little fire thus produced he might cook his evening meal. He had no conception how that fire would spread. So the wickedness that ultimately consumes and utterly destroys, often commences in what seems a little transgression, e.g., the few glasses of wine taken at a wedding-breakfast by one who has been a total abstainer; the little act of dishonesty that is undetected, &c. (Jas. 3:5). Many of the passions by which millions are consumedavarice, lust, intemperance, &c.seem little things in their commencement (H. E. I. 4497, 4498, 45134518).
2. It makes progress according to its own laws, utterly regardless of the desires of the onlookers. It will not stop at any line which they may prescribe. No man can accomplish a desire to burn down just one acre of a forest. If he kindles a fire in the forest at all, it will advance as far and as long as there is fuel for it. So no man can determine beforehand the measure of the power which permitted wickedness shall acquire over him; the fire which a man kindles in the forest of his own passions will go burning on long after he may wish it to stop.
3. Its power grows continually. It acquires a marvellous intensity and fervour as it proceeds (H. E. I. 409, 4500, 4501, 45344537).
4. Consequently it proceeds with ever-accelerating rapidity. Here again the moral analogy is frightfully accurate.
5. Consequently, too, its range continually widens. That which began as a little point becomes a vast circle constantly expanding. Things that seemed so far off as to be absolutely safe are speedily included in the ring of flame. So the fire of ungodliness which was kindled in one passion hastens through the whole nature, and destroys every vestige of virtue and nobility; it seizes every faculty of mind and heart [955]
6. It is remorselessly undistinguishing in its effects. The fair flowers and the poisonous weeds, the stately cedars and the misshapen brambles, it consumes alike. So again with the sinner: the wickedness that consumes him spares nothing. In workhouses, lunatic asylums, prisons, how many most terrible proofs there are of the truth of this declaration! Once the owners of many choice possessions, and with prospects as fair as those of any of us, they are now like the forest region after the fireblackened and desolate.
[955] Oftentimes a ruling sin will have power little by little to colour the whole life with its own tints; to assimilate everything there to itself, as in ever-widening circles to absorb all into its own vortex, being as it were a gulf, a maelstrom, into which all that was better and nobler in the man is irresistibly attracted and drawn, and is there swallowed up, and for ever disappears.Trench.
See also the Outline: THE TOW AND THE SPARK, pp. 6971.
II. Consider how true this is of nations. Wickedness consumes the nations prosperity, happiness, strength, and ultimately its existence [958]
[958] See Outline: INIQUITY A BURDEN, p. 13.
From all this there are many lessons to be learned.
1. He is a fool who makes a sport of sin (Pro. 10:23). He is infinitely more foolish than the child who plays with fire.
2. He is a fool who does not stamp out the fires of unholy passion the instant that he perceives them beginning to kindle upon him. In dealing with sin, or in dealing with fire, our only safety lies in the promptest and most energetic action [961] H. E. I. 4733, 4734).
3. Those nations are guilty of suicidal folly who legalise vice in any form.
4. Those who pander to a nations vices are traitors of the worst kind [964]R. A. B.
[961] When the heart begins once to be kindled, it is easy to smother the smoke of passion, which else will fume up into the head and gather into so thick a cloud that we shall lose the very sight of ourselves, and what is best to be done.Sibbes.
[964] See Outline: INIQUITY A BURDEN, p. 13.
When a fire is first broken out in a chimney, it may with much less labour be quenched than when it has seized the timber of the house. What small beginnings had those fires which have conquered stately palaces, and turned famous cities into ruinous heaps!Suinnock.
In this message the prophet affirms that there are resemblances between a fire and sin. It is not a common fire to which he refers, such as is employed for domestic or public purposes. It is a great conflagration which burns the humble shrubbery, the gigantic forest, extends over the land, and sends a mighty column of smoke and flame up to heaven. By attending to this comparison some of the characteristics of sin will vividly appear.
I. The origin of a great fire. Recently we read an account of a great fire, and the paragraph closed with these words: The origin of the fire is unknown. Suppositions were made, conjectures were offered, still a deep mystery which may never be unravelled. The same with the origin of sin. We know it had a beginning, for God only is from everlasting. We know it had a beginning before Eve and Adam felt its power, since they were tempted. We know it began with him who is called Satan and the father of lies. Still, there are three questions about it which we cannot answer.
(1) Where did it begin?
(2) When did it begin?
(3) How did it begin. These questions might have been answered; they have not, because such information is not required by us in this stage of our unending history.
II. The progress of a great fire. Place one spark amid combustible material in London. Let it alone. What will be the result? It will leap from point to point, house to house, street to street, until the whole city is in flames. Sin has spread in an exactly similar way. One sin, to the individual; one wrong action, to the family; one immoral look, to thousands; one crime, to a kingdom. The sin of one woman away in the East, some sixty centuries ago, has spread itself amongst the whole race; and there is not one who has not felt, to some extent, its scorching power.
III. The transforming power of a great fire. Wood, coal, &c., it transforms into its own essence, because it makes fire of these. It is even so with sin. It turns everything, over which it gains the slightest control, into its own naturethat is, into a curse. The desire to possess, sin has turned it in a different direction, and made it an autocratic passion. Take the principle of ambition in the same way. Take commerce in the same way. Thus the richest blessings, yea, all the blessings which God has given to us, sin can so transform that they shall become curses.
IV. The destructive energy of a great fire. Who can calculate the amount of property in London alone which has been destroyed by fire? But the destruction which sin has caused in London is infinitely greater and more momentous. Some have bodies, once beautiful, now bloated and withered by sin. Some have feelings, once tender, now petrified by sin. Some whose intellectual powers were once strong, now feeble by sin. Some, who were once full of hope, now hopeless by sin. The destruction which sin has caused is awful. And this it must ever do to all who touch it. Avoid it, therefore, more than anything else. Herein only is safety.
V. The termination of a great fire. It terminates when all the material is consumed and reduced to ashes. Can the fire of sin ever be put out in this way? The body in the grave is scorched by it no more; but what of the soul? Look at the rich man. He is tormented, in pain, not by a literal flame, but by the fire of sin. He will be so for ever, because the soul is immortal.
A great fire has been terminated by a superior quenching power. There is also an element which can completely remove sin from the soul. What is it? Nothing can be more important than the true answer to this question. Health must depart, trade must be left, money not required. Our souls must live for ever. With sin, no heaven, but hell. How delivered? Ask those in heaven, and those on earth, who have been saved. They all say that the fires of unholy passion have been quenched in them, and their guilt removed, by the blood of the Lamb. Apply at once to the same source.A. MAuslane, D.D.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
3.
ISRAELS PERVERSITY
TEXT: Isa. 9:18-21
18
For wickedness burneth as the fire; it devoureth the briers and thorns; yea it kindleth in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19
Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts is the land burnt up; and the people are as the fuel of fire: no man spareth his brother.
20
And one shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
21 Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh; and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
QUERIES
a.
How does wickedness burn?
b.
What is the meaning of snatching on the right hand ?
c.
Were they literally to eat the flesh of their own arms ?
PARAPHRASE
The consequences of your wickedness will consume you like a fire that burns up all vegetation. Gods graciousness will be replaced by Gods all-consuming wrath. He will devour everything in His anger. The people will be as fuel for the fires of His righteous indignation. They will fight against one another to steal one anothers food, but they will never have enough. Finally they will even eat the flesh of their own people. Manassah against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manassah in civil war and then both Manassah and Ephraim in a truce long enough to unite against Judah. Yet even after all of this, Gods anger is not yet satisfied. His hand is still heavy upon them, to punish them.
COMMENTS
Isa. 9:18-21 CIVIL WAR: The plague of wickedness has infected the whole society and its culture. Rich and poor, powerful and weak, educated and illiterate alike are contaminated with evil. It has spread like fire spreads through dry stubble and forest. The fire which is about to consume the people and their land is the mighty moral rule of God which inevitably must fall upon those who break all moral bounds. The people were about to experience the removal of Gods grace. When that happens man is left alone to the consequences of his perversity and when that happens man consumes himself. Some commentators seem to think the statement, they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm means figurative cannibalism. However, literal cannibalism is not unknown to ancient history or modern history (Cf. 2Ki. 6:24-31; Jer. 19:9, etc.). In modern times the people of Russia in the siege of Leningrad (WW II) are reported to have eaten human flesh to survive starvation. Social and moral anarchy resulted in civil warbrother killing and robbing brother. And all these woes were but the beginning of tribulation on this once favored people. The hand of God was stretched out still. The end was not yet. That came with foreign conquest, captivity and slavery.
QUIZ
1.
What is the fire that is about to consume the people and land?
2.
Does the Bible mention literal cannibalism anywhere? Where?
3.
What brought on the civil war?
4.
Why was this tribulation not the end of Israels woes?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(18) It shall devour the briers and thorns . . .The words are obviously figurative for men who were base and vile, as in 2Sa. 23:6; but the figure may have been suggested by Isa. 7:23-24. The outward desolation, with its rank growth of underwood, was to the prophets eye a type of the moral condition of his people. And for such a people sin becomes the punishment of sin, and burns like a fire in a forest thicket, leaving the land clear for fresh culture and a better growth. (Comp. Isa. 33:11-12; Jas. 3:5; Heb. 6:8.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. We have passed two strophes, and here enter on the third, which closes the chapter. They are apparently artificial and antiphonic. Possibly the prophet pronounced the grave causes of judgment upon judgment, and his disciple-adherents added the gloomy refrain. The scene may have occurred in the temple court, where were gathered, as by appointment, the king, nobles, false prophets and leaders, and the people. More gladly did they this time listen than if themselves were the immediate objects of the denounced judgments. They were, however, familiar enough with them as of their own deserving; and, probably, in their minds were likely to be yet more. There can be little doubt of Isaiah’s large indirect influence on the affairs of state. But Ahaz was so committed to an Assyrian policy, and so entangled by it, that the prophet’s statesmanship was less apparent in his reign; but obviously more in that of Hezekiah, his son and successor.
For wickedness Prevailing impiety and blasphemy.
Burneth as the fire Extends as fire does among thorns and thickets. Or, it smoulders, when long pent up, then bursts forth irresistibly. See Hos 7:6. Wickedness produces its own punishment.
Briers and thorns An image, probably, of the lower grades of the population, where the fires of corruption and punishment are first seen.
Thickets of the forest Among ranks grading upward, till high and low receive the conflagration together.
Mount up like smoke The “smoke” of their destruction ascendeth to heaven.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Third Chastisement. The Disintegration Of Their Society ( Isa 9:18-21 ).
Analysis.
a For wickedness burns like a fire, it devours the thorns and the thistles, yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upwards in clouds of smoke (Isa 9:18).
b Through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, is the land burnt up, the people also are as fuel for the fire (or ‘as the fuel of fire’), no man spares his brother (Isa 9:19).
b And one will snatch on the right hand, and be hungry. And he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied, they will eat every man the flesh of his own arm (Isa 9:20).
a Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh, and they together will be against Judah. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still (Isa 9:21).
In ‘a’ wickedness is all-devouring and consumes thorns and thistles, and in the parallel wicked Israel are against thorny Judah. In ‘b’ the people are fuel, and even brothers are not spared, while in the parallel the people will desperately eat anything, even ‘the flesh of his own arm’.
Isa 9:18
‘For wickedness burns like a fire,
It devours the thorns and the thistles,
Yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest,
And they roll upwards in clouds of smoke.’
The new leadership was inadequate and the result was the open rise of wickedness. And wickedness always eventually results in destruction. It is self-destroying. Thus here it is pictured as being like a fire which destroys all in its path. It begins with the briars and thistles, which here refer to those who perpetrate the wickedness, but then it spreads and becomes a great forest fire, burning the thickets and producing huge plumes of smoke, thus affecting everyone. This is then defined in the following verses as being as a result of the wrath of Yahweh and as resulting in civil unrest which eventually affects everyone, even the highest.
We should learn from this that sin self-multiplies. It may begin in a small way but it soon becomes a forest fire. Thorns and thistles are often used as emblems of the wicked (Mic 7:4; Nah 1:10; 2Sa 23:6), and their burning as a figure for the punishment of sinners (Isa 33:12; Psa 118:12; 2Sa 23:7), especially by means of foreign enemies (Isa 10:17; Isa 32:13).
Isa 9:19-21
‘Through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts,
Is the land burnt up.
The people also are as fuel for the fire (or ‘as the fuel of fire’).
No man spares his brother.
And one will snatch on the right hand, and be hungry.
And he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied.
They will eat every man the flesh of his own arm.
Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh,
And they together will be against Judah.’
‘Through the wrath of Yahweh of hosts is the land burnt up.’ Isaiah boldly depicts all that results as due to the wrath of Yahweh ‘bursting out’ (which lies at the root of the word used for ‘wrath’) and burning up the land. The lesson is that Yahweh lies behind everything. Nothing happens outside His control. He is over all. But we must recognise that a part of this is not direct action but the result of the restraints and consequences that He has built into creation, and Israel are in fact bringing their troubles on their own head as a result of the bursting out of their own sinfulness.
(Thus there was a human explanation for all that happened. It is just that Isaiah is bringing out that behind the human situation was always the hand of Yahweh).
The deterioration of the leadership has resulted in civil unrest and famine which spreads like a fire. Neighbour attacks neighbour. Everyone looks to his own interests. Men are desperate for food, looking everywhere and snatching it wherever it is to be found, but unable to obtain enough to be satisfied. Self-preservation takes over. There will be no tribal loyalty, (Manasseh and Ephraim were brother tribes), and Israel will also turn on Judah their brother nation in order to find sustenance.
‘They will eat every man the flesh of his own arm.’ Not cannibalism but unneighbourliness and disloyalty. They will eat at the expense of those nearest to them, and of those on whom they depend (their arm). As a result of the rejection of the covenant, which has not been replaced by anything acceptable by all, there is a moral void in Israel which weak leadership has allowed to break out and take over.
Isa 9:21
‘For all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.’
But still God did not remove His anger from them, and continued to stretch out His hand against them, because they did not repent and seek His face.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 9:18-21. For wickedness, &c. For wickedness burneth as a fire, (and it shall devour the briers and thorns) and it burns up the thickets of the forest, and they mount up curled, like, &c. We have here in the 18th verse the third fault, the power of reigning and barefaced impiety, which is said to burn as the fire; the punishment whereof is denounced in the subsequent verses, which, as usual, is assimilated to the vice; namely, destructive factions, which shall overthrow their nation: Having rendered themselves hateful to God by their crimes, they shall perish by those very crimes; and by their dissention and internal factions, arising from the wickedness of their own dispositions, shall fall into mutual destruction; and inflamed by the lust of envy, avarice, and impurity, they shall perish in this very fire, as the prophet speaks in another place, chap. Isa 50:11. The latter state of the Israelitish government abundantly proves the exactness of this prophet’s prediction. See 2Ki 6:28; 2Ki 10:30; 2Ki 17:1; 2Ki 18:34-35. Jer 19:8 and Vitringa.
REFLECTIONS.1st, The former chapter concluded with a dismal scene of desolations; but here to the righteous there ariseth up light in the darkness, through that glorious Saviour, whose coming, like the sun, should dispel the clouds, and whose power should subdue every foe before him.
1. He is spoken of as the light of his people. There had been grievous vexations and ravages committed by Pul and Tiglath-Pileser, kings of Assyria; and more deplorable ones when Salmanezer carried away the Jews captive into Assyria; but, though the last under the Romans should be most terrible, there should be one alleviation of them, which the former had not. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; Christ the sun of righteousness arisen, who favoured Galilee with so much of his presence, preaching, and miracles: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, in a state of affliction under the Roman yoke, but more especially under the blindness and ignorance of their fallen minds, and exposed to eternal death, by reason of sin, upon them hath the light shined, the light of the glorious gospel, dispensed by Jesus and his Apostles. Note; (1.) In the midst of the deepest distresses, a sense of Christ’s presence and love alleviates every burden. (2.) Every man by nature is a child of darkness, and his ways lead down to death and hell, till Christ the light of life arises upon his soul, pardoning, quickening, and leading him into the paths of peace. (3.) We might much better want the light of the sun, than the light of the gospel; for with the gospel the blind may find the way to heaven.
2. As the Saviour of his people, causing them to rejoice in him. Thou hast multiplied the nation; increased the number of faithful converts, either among the Jews in Galilee, or from the nations who dwelt among them; from whose sojourning there it was called, Galilee of the nations; and hast increased the joy of it (we read not increased, but the marginal reading of our English Bibles seems much preferable); the gospel being glad tidings of great joy to all who receive it: they joy before thee, according to the joy of harvest; more delighted with the blessed fruits of gospel grace, than with plenty of corn and wine; and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil of conquered enemies, such as now sin, Satan, death, and hell, are become, through the victory of our Redeemer. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian; Christ, like the mighty Gideon, by the trumpet of his gospel, and the light of truth committed to earthen vessels, his ministers, hath delivered his people from the yoke of Satan and sin, more burdensome to the soul than the oppression of Midian to Israel. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, but this of a different nature, shall be with burning, and fuel of fire, by the power of the Spirit of God, operating like fire upon the sinner’s heart, and burning up his vile affections, as fire doth the fuel. Note; (1.) When Christ entered the lists in the behalf of his faithful people, his foes fell as lightning from heaven before him. (2.) Whoever has felt the bitterness and bondage of sin, and groaned under it, being burdened, will hear the glad tidings of salvation, through the Redeemer, with transport. (3.) They who are delivered from the power of sin and Satan, will ascribe the whole of their salvation to the Redeemer’s almighty grace; for it is his right hand which hath gotten for us the victory.
3. The glorious person of our Redeemer and Saviour is set forth under a variety of views, expressive of his excellent greatness, and admirably adapted to encourage the faith and hope of his people. For unto us a child is born, one in the human nature, born for our sake, to be a Saviour to the uttermost, unto us a son is given; the Son of God, already appointed by the declarations and promises of God, and as certainly to be incarnate as if he had then been on the earth; and lest the views of his humanity might lessen him in our eyes, the infinitely transcendant dignity of his person is insisted upon; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; invested with all power in heaven and earth, and especially establishing his throne in the hearts of his people: and his name shall be called, Wonderful; his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, are full of wonders; his love, grace, redemption, amazingly great and glorious; and all he is and doeth, justly challenges the admiration of angels as well as men; Counsellor, which may be joined with wonderful: he is of the sacred Three, by whose infinite wisdom all things were created, and by whose providence and grace the whole world, above and beneath, is administered; and to his teaching are his faithful people indebted for their salvation, who, in every difficulty guided by his counsel, are safely brought at last to glory; The mighty God, very God as well as very man, sharing in all the incommunicable attributes of Deity, self-existence, eternity, omnipotence, &c. and mighty therefore to save all that come to him as their Redeemer; The everlasting Father, though in person distinct from God the Father, yet one with him in essence and the unity of the godhead; and particularly the Father of eternity to his faithful people, to whom he is the author of everlasting salvation; The Prince of peace; the procurer of peace between God and man, the giver of it to the troubled conscience; his faithful subjects are all peaceable; and, ruling in their hearts, he keeps them in perfect peace while reposing upon him, and will bring them shortly to everlasting peace and rest in glory. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end; from small beginnings it shall increase more and more, till the ends of the earth remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim; all animosities between his people will subside, and, oh that the time were come for this happy union of all true believers in one heart and one mind! upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, the Redeemer, the Son of David after the flesh, will be exalted, to order it, the kingdom of his Israel, and to establish it with judgment and justice, confirming his people in righteousness and true holiness, and executing judgment on their enemies, henceforth even for ever; for his dominion is that which shall not be destroyed; he ever lives and ever reigns, not only in time, but to eternity: the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this; his faithfulness is engaged to fulfil his promise, his power almighty to accomplish his purposes; and therefore not a jot or tittle shall fail. Happy, therefore, are those souls who are brought under this government of Jesus, and, by experience of his grace, establishing that kingdom within them, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, can say with humble confidence, My King and my God.
2nd, The same prophetic word which brings tidings of mercy to some, denounces the judgments of God on others. They who disregard his anger shall feel the lighting down of his indignation, and know by dire experience how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. The kingdom of Israel hath her shortly-approaching doom denounced; a moment’s respite is in mercy given; before God strikes he warns, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1. A high charge is brought against them for sundry crimes and misdemeanours against the Majesty of heaven.
(1.) They braved God’s threatenings with daring insolence. Though the Assyrians had demolished their houses in the siege, they vaunted how soon they would restore them in greater magnificence, changing the bricks for hewn stone; and when the sycamores were cut down for the besieger’s use, to burn, or to facilitate their approaches, they boasted that they would supply their place with cedars. Note; Impenitence under warning providences is a sad symptom of approaching ruin.
(2.) They were incorrigible, nor in their deepest distresses deigned to humble their souls and seek to God. Note; If corrections bring us not to our knees now, God’s fierce wrath will be poured out, and prayer come too late to be heard.
(3.) Their magistrates and ministers concurred in hastening the judgment by their ill example and lying promises. The leaders of this people, or they who bless this people, deceive them, encouraging their false hopes, and seeing visions of peace for them when there is no peace. Note; When ministers, instead of zeal against men’s sins, suffer them to continue undisturbed, and speak smooth things to flatter them to their ruin, the case is desperate. The sick patient must needs die, if the physician administer poison instead of medicine.
(4.) Hypocrisy and falsehood were reigning sins. They who kept up the form of religion, were as abominable as the profane and abandoned sinner; the one renounced openly all respect to God; the others approached him with their lips, while their hearts were far from him, or, trusting in the meritoriousness of their outward duties and devotions, fatally deceived themselves to their ruin.
2. A heavy punishment is threatened, temporal and eternal.
[1.] The ruin of their country. The adversaries of Rezin, whom Ahaz had hired, 2Ki 16:7-9 succeeding in the reduction of Damascus, and incorporating the Syrian forces with their own, should fall upon Israel on one side, and the Philistines on the other, so that they should be grievously spoiled. Note; God sends lesser judgments first; and if these prove ineffectual, he has heavier in store; for,
[2.] Because, by their continued impenitence, his wrath was not turned away, but his hand stretched out still, he will make more terrible havock among them; neither young nor old, high nor low, priest nor people, should escape: nor would God extend the least compassion to the most miserable object. Note; (1.) When God visits for sin, the highest in station shall be among the first to suffer; crowns themselves plead no privilege at his bar. (2.) The minister, who speaketh lies to curry favour with the great, connives at their sins, or, indolently negligent, is a blind leader of the blind, will shortly appear a character the most detestable and base, and receive a punishment proportioned to his guilt and perfidy. (3.) The wickedness of the poor is as much remembered as the sins of the rich, and their want and wretchedness here will be no exculpation, rather an aggravation, of their sins, that when they had less of this world to ensnare them, they did not more carefully seek a better.
[3.] Intestine broils shall destroy them as well as the sword of the enemy; they should bite and devour one another, and even the nearest relations not spare their own flesh and blood; various instances of which appeared when their desolations drew near, and the ravages that the tribes made on each other opened an easier conquest for their enemies. Note; Nothing so weakens God’s church as causeless divisions, and perverse disputes; for in the heat of religious controversy, the power of godliness is usually lost, and Satan reaps the spoil.
[4.] The wrath of God, terrible and eternal, would yet pursue them: their wickedness would kindle a fire of vengeance, which nothing could quench, and the smoke of their torment would ascend up for ever and ever: the darkness and distress of their outward situation were but faint images of their future prospects, when, as fuel for the flames, they should lie down in torment without end: for as in all their temporal judgments their obstinacy provoked a repetition of the strokes, so in the eternal punishment of the wicked God’s wrath will never be turned away, but his hand be stretched out still, for his wrath will be for ever wrath to come.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
3. ISRAEL DEVOURING ITSELF BY THE FLAMES OF DISCORD
CHAPTER Isa 9:18-21 (Isa 9:17-20)
18 (17)
FOR wickedness burneth as the fire:
It shall devour the briers and thorns,
And shall kindle in the thickets of the forest,
And they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
19 (18)
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened,
And the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
No man shall spare his brother.
20 (19)
And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry;
And he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied:
They shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:
21 (20)
Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh;
And they together shall be against Judah.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
But his hand is stretched out still.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
On Isa 9:17. , in the older writings found only in Deu 9:4-5; Deu 25:2; in Isaiah only here; beside this only in post Isaiah writings; so that the expression seems to be a reminiscence of Deuteronomy. perhaps a reminiscence of Num 11:3.The form occurs only once more in Isa 33:12, and there it is undoubtedly passive. Consider in addition that here the preposition occasions surprise if thereby the object of the kindling is expressed (GESEN. would take this in a partitive sense, Thes., p. 172, sub. A. 2), whereas occurs often (Amo 1:14; Jer 17:27; Jer 21:14; Jer 43:13, etc.) thus it seems to me more probable that is to be taken as passive of . As to the form, see EWALD, 197, a. is . . The root seems related to whereby the meaning is approximated to turn ones-self, to roll, whirl (comp. Jdg 7:13): they whirled up in height of the smoke. The construction is analogous to Isa 5:6;Isa 34:13; Pro 24:31. must be regarded as accusative, and of that species that follows verbs of fulness. The expression recalls Psa 89:10.
On Isa 9:18. . . burnt up, charred. often with ; Exo 2:6; 1Sa 15:3; 1Sa 15:9; 1Sa 15:15; 1Sa 23:21, etc. Here stands for as Jer 50:14; Jer 51:3.
On Isa 9:19. means secuit, and is used of cutting through the middle a living body (1Ki 3:25 sq.) or a dead one (2Ki 6:4), comp. a cutting implement, 2Sa 12:31. It is better then to translate it, to hew, than to bite.
On Isa 9:20. The accusatives , depend on , whereas depends on the notion of the hostile onslaught that lies in Isa 9:19 a.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. This strophe plainly divides into two parts. In the first (Isa 9:17-18 a.), the dissension is described figuratively. In the following, the Prophet himself explains the figure.
2. For wickednessfuel of the fire.
Isa 9:18-19 (Isa 9:17-18). The for appears to introduce the proof not only for ver. (16b), but also for (16a). For the impregnation with badness, that is declared of the whole people, ver. (16), displays itself as real, if its condition may be compared to an all-devouring conflagration. The badness burns like fire; not as a fire that devours only thorns and thistles (comp., on Isa 9:6) the lowlier products of the open field, but also the thickets (the standing timber, Isa 10:34), of the forests, consequently seizes on the entire vegetation of the land, high and low. The fire of Isa 9:17 is the fire of sin, consequently a fire hateful to God, and which therefore bears no blessing in it, but a curse. The Prophet therefore can say that the effect of this fire is at the same time an effect of divine wrath. This effect is that the land looks burnt up, charred, while the people dwelling in it are become food of the fire. So far the figure.
4. No man shall sparestretched out still.
Isa 9:19-21 (Isa 9:18-20). With these words the Prophet explains the figure. It is plain that he means the fire of dissension. This he first characterizes negatively by saying, that one behaves himself pitilessly, unsparingly against the other; then positively by describing how the rough, selfish men direct their attacks now on the right, now on the left. But these attacks do no good: for those attacking get no blessing thereby; they remain hungry after as well as before. They do harm in fact. For it appears that those men of violence have raged against themselves, and (comp. Jer 19:9) have, so to speak, devoured their own flesh. In what sense he means this, the Prophet explains Isa 9:20 (21) a: The tribes of the northern kingdom were divided among themselves, but united for hostility against Judah. It is to be noticed that he does not say; Israel and Judah were mutually hostile; but names only Ephraim and Manasseh as embroiled in mutual strife. Judah, however, appears outside of their communion and the object of their common hatred, while, moreover, there is no reference to a hostility of Judah against Israel. Thus it appears that the Prophet represents the flames of discord as raging only in the bounds of the Ten Tribes. This is another proof that the entire passage, Isa 9:7 to Isa 10:4 is directed only against the northern kingdom. Manasseh and Ephraim are mentioned because these two tribes were descendants of uterine brothers, the sons of Joseph. From of old there was jealousy between these tribes (comp. 1Sa 10:27; 2Sa 20:1; 1Ki 12:16; 1Ki 15:27 sqq.; 1Ki 16:21 sqq.; 2Ki 9:14, etc.). From the first the Ten Tribes were little inclined to Davids dynasty (2Sa 2:8 sqq.); but their own history is a continued alternation of conspiracy and murder. It may be said that the Israelites did themselves more harm than all foreign foes could ever have done. Thus dissension was the destruction of Israel. And still even this is not the last stage of the divine judgment.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 7:1. Hierosolyma oppugnatur, etc. Jerusalem is assaulted but not conquered. The church is pressed but not oppressed.Foerster.
2. On Isa 7:2. Quando ecclesia, etc. When the Church is assaulted and Christ crucified over again in His elect, Rezin and Pekah, Herod and Pilate are wont to form alliance and enter into friendly relations. There are, so to speak, the foxes of Samson, joined indeed by the tails, but their heads are disconnected.Foerster.He that believes flees not (Isa 28:16). The righteous is bold as a lion (Pro 28:1). Hypocrites and those that trust in works (work-saints) have neither reason nor faith. Therefore they cannot by any means quiet their heart. In prosperity they are, indeed, overweening, but in adversity they fall away (Jer 17:9). Cramer.
3. On Isa 7:9. (If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.) Insignis sententia, etc. A striking sentiment that may be adapted generally to all temptation, because all earnest endeavor after anything, as you know, beguiles us in temptation. But only faith in the word of promise makes us abide and makes sure whatever we would execute. He warns Ahaz, therefore, as if he said: I now promise you by the word, it shall be that those two kings shall not hurt you. Believe this word! For if you do not, whatever you afterwards devise will deceive you: because all confidence is vain which is not supported by the word of God.Luther.
4. On Isa 7:10-12. Wicked Ahaz pretends to great sanctity in abstaining from asking a sign through fear of God. Thus hypocrites are most conscientious where there is no need for it: on the other hand, when they ought to be humble, they are the most insolent. But where God commands to be bold, one must be bold. For to be obedient to the word is not tempting God. That is rather tempting God when one proposes something without having the word for it. It is, indeed, the greatest virtue to rest only in the word, and desire nothing more. But where God would add something more than the word, then it must not be thought a virtue to reject it as superfluous. We must therefore exercise such a faith in the word of God that we will not despise the helps that are given in addition to it as aids to faith. For example the Lord offers us in the gospel all that is necessary to salvation. Why then Baptism and the Lords Supper? Are they to be treated as superfluous? By no means. For if one believes the word he will at the same time exhibit an entire obedience toward God. We ought therefore to learn to join the sign with the word, for no man has the power to sever the two.
But do you ask: is it permitted to ask God for a sign? We have an example of this in Gideon. Answer: Although Gideon was not told of God to ask a sign, yet he did it by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not according to his own fancy. We must not therefore abuse his example, and must be content with the sign that is offered by the Lord. But there are extraordinary signs or miracles, like that of the text, and ordinary ones like Baptism and the Lords Supper. Yet both have the same object and use. For as Gideon was strengthened by that miraculous event, so, too, are we strengthened by Baptism and the Lords Supper, although no miracle appears before our eyes. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, also asked the Lord to show him the right wife for Isaac by means of a sign of His own choosing, (Gen 24:14).
It ought to be said that this asking a sign (opening the Bible at a venture, or any other book) does not suit Christian perfection (Heb 6:1). A Christian ought to be inwardly sensible of the divine will. He ought to content himself with the guarantees that God Himself offers. Only one must have open eyes and ears for them. This thing of demanding a sign, if it is not directly an effect of superstition (Mat 12:39; Mat 16:4; 1Co 1:22), is certainly childish, and, because it easily leads to superstitious abuses, it is dangerous.
5. On Isa 7:13. Non caret, etc. That the Prophet calls God his God is not without a peculiar emphasis. In Zec 2:12 it is said, that whoever touches the servants of God touches the pupil of Gods eye. Whoever opposes teacher and preacher will have to deal with God in heaven or with the Lord who has put them into office.Foerster.
6. On Isa 7:14. The name Immanuel is one of the most beautiful and richest in contents of all the Holy Scripture. God with us comprises Gods entire plan of salvation with sinful humanity. In a narrower sense it means God-man (Mat 1:23), and points to the personal union of divinity and humanity, in the double nature of the Son of God become man. Jesus Christ was a God-with-us, however, in this, that for about 33 years He dwelt among us sinners (Joh 1:11; Joh 1:14). In a deeper and wider sense still He was such by the Immanuels work of the atonement (2Co 5:19; 1Ti 2:3). He will also be such to every one that believes on Him by the work of regeneration and sanctification and the daily renewal of His holy and divine communion of the Spirit (Joh 17:23; Joh 17:26; Joh 14:19-21; Joh 14:23). He is such now by His high-priestly and royal administration and government for His whole Church (Mat 28:20; Heb 7:25). He will be snch in the present time of the Church in a still more glorious fashion (Joh 10:16). The entire and complete meaning of the name Immanuel, however, will only come to light in the new earth, and in the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:3; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5).Wilh. Fried. Roos.
Isa 8:7. On Isa 8:5 sqq. Like boastful swimmers despise small and quiet waters, and on the other hand, for the better display of their skill, boast of the great sea and master it, but often are lost in it,thus, too, did the hypocrites that despised the small kingdom of Judah, and bragged much and great things of the power and splendor of the kingdom of Israel and of the Syrians; such hypocrites are still to be found now-a-dayssuch that bear in their eye the admiranda Romae, the splendor, riches, power, ceremonies and pomp of the Romish church, and thereupon set their bushel by the bigger-heap. It is but the devils temptation over again: I will give all this to thee.Cramer.Fons Siloa, etc. The fountain of Siloam, near the temple, daily reminded the Jews that Christ was coming.Calvin on Joh 9:7.
8. On Isa 8:10. When the great Superlatives sit in their council chambers and have determined everything, how it ought to be, and especially how they will extinguish the gospel, then God sends the angel Gabriel to them, who must look through the window and say: nothing will come of it.Luther.Christ, who is our Immanuel, is with us by His becoming man, for us by His office of Mediator, in us by the work of His sanctification, by us by His personal, gracious presence.Cramer.
9. On Isa 8:14-15. Christ alone is set by God to be a stone by which we are raised up. That He is, however, an occasion of offence to many is because of their purpose, petulance and contempt (1Pe 2:8). Therefore we ought to fear lest we take offence at Him. For whoever falls on this stone will shatter to pieces (Mat 21:44). Cramer.
10. On Isa 8:16 sqq. He warns His disciples against heathenish superstition, and exhorts them to show respect themselves always to law and testimony. They must not think that God must answer them by visions and signs, therefore He refers them to the written word, that they may not become altogether too spiritual, like those now-a-days who cry: spirit! spirit! Christ says, Luke 16 : They have Moses and the prophets, and again Joh 5:39 : Search the Scriptures. So Paul says, 2Ti 3:16 : The Scripture is profitable for doctrine. So says Peter, 2Pe 1:9 : We have a sure word of prophecy. It is the word that changes hearts and moves them. But revelations puff people up and make them insolent. Heim and Hoffmann after Luther.
Chap. 911. On Isa 9:1 sqq. (2). Postrema pars, etc. The latter part of chap. 8 was (legal and threatening) so, on the other hand, the first and best part of chap. 9 is , (evangelical and comforting). Thus must ever law and gospel, preaching wrath and grace, words of reproof and words of comfort, a voice of alarm and a voice of peace follow one another in the church. Foerster.
12. On Isa 9:1 (2). Both in the Old Testament and New Testament Christ is often called light. Thus Isaiah calls Him a light to the gentiles, Isa 42:6; Isa 49:6. The same Prophet says: Arise, shine (make thyself light), for thy light is come, Isa 60:1. And again Isa 9:19 : The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light. In the New Testament it is principally John that makes use of this expression: The life was the light of men, Joh 1:4, and the light shined in the darkness, Joh 9:5. John was not that light, but bore testimony to the light, Joh 9:8. That was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, Joh 9:9. And further: And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, Joh 3:19. I am the light of the world, (Joh 8:12; Joh 9:5; comp. Joh 12:35).
13. On Isa 9:1 (2). The people that sit in darkness may be understood to comprise three grades. First, the inhabitants of Zebulon and Naphtali are called so (Isaiah 8:23), for the Prophets gaze is fixed first on that region lying in the extreme end of Palestine, which was neighbor to the heathen and mixed with them, and on this account was held in low esteem by the dwellers in Judah. The night that spreads over Israel in general is darkest there. But all Israel partakes of this night, therefore all Israel, too, may be understood, as among the people sitting in darkness. Finally, no one can deny that this night extends over the borders of Israel to the whole human race. For far as men dwell extends the night which Christ, as light of the world, came to dispel, Luk 1:76 sqq.
14. On Isa 9:5 (6). Many lay stress on the notion child, inasmuch as they see in that the reason for the reign of peace spoken of afterwards. It is not said a man, a king, a giant is given to us. But this is erroneous. For the child does not remain a child. He becomes a man: and the six names that are ascribed to Him and also the things predicted of His kingdom apply to Him, not as a child, but as a man. That His birth as a child is made prominent, has its reason in this, that thereby His relation to human kind should be designated as an organic one. He does not enter into humanity as a man, i.e. as one whose origin was outside of it, but He was born from it, and especially from the race of David. He is Son of man and Son of David. He is a natural offshoot, but also the crowning bloom of both. Precisely because He was to be conceived, carried and born of a human mother, and indeed of a virgin, this prophecy belongs here as the completion and definition of the two prophetic pictures Isa 7:10 sqq.; Isa 8:1 sqq.He came down from heaven for the sake of us men, and for our bliss (1Ti 1:15; Luk 2:7). For our advantage: for He undertook not for the seed of angels, but for the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16). Not sold to us by God out of great love, but given (Rom 5:15; Joh 3:16). Therefore every one ought to make an application of the word to us to himself, and to learn to say: this child was given to me, conceived for me, born to me.Cramer.Cur oportuit, etc. Why did it become the Redeemer of human kind to be not merely man nor merely God, but God and man conjoined or ? Anselm replies briefly, indeed, but pithily: Deum qui posset, hominem, qui deberet. Foerster.
15. On Isa 9:5 (6). You must not suppose here that He is to be named and called according to His person, as one usually calls another by his name; but these are names that one must preach, praise and celebrate on account of His act, works and office. Luther.
16. On Isa 9:6. Verba pauca, etc. A few words, but to be esteemed great, not for their number but for their weight. Augustine. Admirabilis in, etc. Wonderful in birth, counsellor in what He preaches, God in working, strong in suffering, father of the world to come in resurrection, Prince of peace in bliss perpetual. Bernard of Clairvaux. In reference to a child is born, and a son is given, Joh. Cocceius remarks in his Heb. Lex. s. v. : respectu, etc., in respect to His human nature He is said to be born, and in respect to His divine nature and eternal generation not indeed born, but given, as, Joh 3:16, it reads God gave His only begotten Son.
In the application of this language all depends on the words is born to us, is given to us. The angels are, in this matter, far from being as blessed as we are. They do not say: To us a Saviour is born this day, but; to you. As long as we do not regard Christ as ours, so long we shall have little joy in Him. But when we know Him as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, as a gift that our heavenly Father designed for us, we will appropriate Him to ourselves in humble faith, and take possession of all His redeeming effects that He has acquired. For giving and taking go together. The Son is given to us; we must in faith receive Him. J. J. Rambach, Betracht. ber das Ev. Esaj., Halle, 1724.
On Isa 9:6 (7). The government is on His shoulders. It is further shown how Christ differs in this respect from worldly kings. They remove from themselves the burden of government and lay it on the shoulders of the privy counsellors. But He does not lay His dominion as a burden on any other; He needs no prime minister and vicegerent to help Him bear the burden of administration, but He bears all by the word of His power as He to whom all things are given of the Father. Therefore He says to the house of Jacob (Isa 46:3 sq.): Hearken unto me ye who were laid on my shoulders from your mothers womb. I will carry you to old age. I will do it, I will lift, and carry and deliver,on the contrary the heathen must bear and lift up their idols, (Isa 46:1; Isa 46:7).Rambach. In the first place we must keep in mind His first name: He is called Wonderful. This name affects all the following. All is wonderful that belongs to this king: wonderfully does He counsel and comfort; wonderfully He helps to acquire and conquer, and all this in suffering and want of strength. (Luther, Jen. germ. Tom. III. Fol. 184 b.). He uses weakness as a means of subduing all things to Himself. A wretched reed, a crown of thorns and an infamous cross, are the weapons of this almighty God, by means of which He achieves such great things. In the second place, He was a hero and conqueror in that just by death, He robbed him of his might who had the power of death, i.e., the devil (Heb 2:14); in that He, like Samson, buried His enemies with Himself, yea, became poison to death itself, and a plague to hell (Hos 13:14) and more gloriously resumed His life so freely laid down, which none of the greatest heroes can emulate.Rambach.
17. On Isa 9:18 (19) sqq. True friendship can never exist among the wicked. For every one loves only himself. Therefore they are enemies one of another; and they are in any case friends to each other, only as long as it concerns making war on a third party.
Isaiah 10-18. On Isa 10:4. (Comp. the same expression in chap. 10). Gods quiver is well filled. If one arrow does not attain His object, He takes another, and so on, until the rights of God, and justice have conquered.
19. On Isa 10:5-7. God works through men in a threefold way. First, we all live, move and have our being in Him, in that all activity is an outflow of His power. Then, He uses the services of the wicked so that they mutually destroy each other, or He chastises His people by their hand. Of this sort the Prophet speaks here. In the third place, by governing His people by the Spirit of sanctification: and this takes place only in the elect.Heim and Hoffmann.
20. On Isa 10:5 sqq. Ad hunc, etc. Such places are to be turned to uses of comfort. Although the objects of temptation vary and enemies differ, yet the effects are the same, and the same spirit works in the pious. We are therefore to learn not to regard the power of the enemy nor our own weakness, but to look steadily and simply into the word, that will assuredly establish our minds that they despair not, but expect help of God. For God will not subdue our enemies, either spiritual or corporal, by might and power, but by weakness, as says the text: my strength is made perfect in weakness. (2Co 12:9).Luther.
21. On Isa 10:15. Efficacia agendi penes Deum est, homines ministerium tantum praebent. Quare nunc sibilo suo se illos evocaturum minabatur (cap. Isa 5:26; Isa 7:18); nunc instar sagenae sibi fore ad irretiendos, nunc mallei instar ad feriendos Israelitas. Sed praecipue tum declaravit, quod non sit otiosus in illis, dum Sennacherib securim vocat, quae ad secandum manu sua et destinata fuit et impacta. Non male alicubi Augustinus ita definit, quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse; quod peccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenebras prout visum est dividentis (De praedest Sanctt.).Calvin Inst. II. 4, 4.
22. On Isa 10:20-27. In time of need one ought to look back to the earlier great deliverances of the children of God, as to the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or later, from the hand of the Midianites. Israel shall again grow out of the yoke.Diedrich.
Isaiah 11-23. On Isa 11:4. The staff of His mouth. Evidence that the kingdom of Christ will not be like an earthly kingdom, but consist in the power of the word and of the sacraments; not in leathern, golden or silver girdles, but in girdles of righteousness and faith.Cramer.
24. On Isa 11:10 sqq. If the Prophet honors the heathen in saying that they will come to Christ before Israel, he may be the more readily believed, when Isa 11:11 sqq., he gives the assurance that the return out of the first, the Egyptian exile, shall be succeeded by a return out of the second, the Assyrian exile, (taking this word in the wider sense of Isaiah). It is manifest that the return that took place under Zerubbabel and Ezra was only an imperfect beginning of that promised return. For according to our passage this second return can only take place after the Messiah has appeared. Farthermore, all Israelites that belong to the remnant of Israel, in whatever land they may dwell, shall take part in it. It will be, therefore, a universal, not a partial return. If now the Prophet paints this return too with the colors of the present (Isa 11:13 sqq.), still that is no reason for questioning the reality of the matter. Israel will certainly not disappear, but arise to view in the church of the new covenant. But if the nation is to be known among the nations as a whole, though no more as a hostile contrast, but in fraternal harmony, why then shall not the land, too, assume a like position among the lands? But the nation can neither assume its place among nations, nor the land its place among lands, if they are not both united: the people Israel in the land of their fathers.
25. On Isaiah 11 We may here recall briefly the older, so-called spiritual interpretation. Isa 11:1-5 were understood of Christs prophetic office that He exercised in the days of His flesh, then of the overthrow of the Roman Empire and of Antichrist, who was taken to be the Pope. But the most thorough-going of those old expositors must acknowledge, at Isa 11:4, that the Antichrist is not yet enough overthrown, and must be yet more overthrown. If such is the state of the case, then this interpretation is certainly false, for Isa 11:4 describes not a gradual judgment, but one accomplished at once. There have been many Antichrists, and among the Popes too, but the genuine Antichrist described 2 Thessalonians 2, is yet to be expected, and also the fulfillment of Isa 11:4 of our chapter. Thereby is proved at the same time that the peaceful state of things in the brute world and the return of the Jews to their native land are still things of the future, for they must happen in that period when the Antichristian world, and its head shall be judged by Christ. But then, too, the dwelling together of tame and wild beasts is not the entrance of the heathen into the church, to which they were heretofore hostile, and the return of the Jews is not the conversion of a small part of Israel that took place at Pentecost and after. The miracles and signs too, contained in Isa 11:15-16 did not take place then. We see just here how one must do violence to the word if he will not take it as it stands. But if we take it as we have done, then the whole chapter belongs to the doctrine of hope (Hoffnungslehre) of the Scripture, and constitutes an important member of it. The Lord procures right and room for His church. He overthrows the world-kingdom, together with Antichrist. He makes of the remnant of Israel a congregation of believers filled with the Spirit, to whom He is near in an unusual way, and from it causes His knowledge to go out into all the world. He creates peace in the restless creatures, and shows us here in advance what more glorious things we may look for in the new earth. He presents to the world a church which, united in itself, unmolested by neighbors, stands under Gods mighty protection. All these facts are parts of a chain of hope that must be valuable and dear to our hearts. The light of this future illumines the obscurity of the present; the comfort of that day makes the heart fresh. Weber, der Prophet Jesaja, 1875.
Chap. 1226. On Isa 12:4 sq. These will not be the works of the New Testament: sacrificing and slaying, and make pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Holy Sepulchre, but praising God and giving thanks, preaching and hearing, believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth. For to praise our God is good; such praise is pleasant and lovely (Psa 147:1). Cramer.
27. On Chap. 12 With these words conclude the prophetic discourses on Immanuel. Through what obscurity of history have we not had to go, until we came to the bright light of the kingdom of Christ! How Israel and the nations had to pass through the fire of judgment before the sun arises in Israel and the entire gentile world is illumined! It is the, same way that every Christian has to travel. In and through the fire we become blessed. Much must be burnt up in us, before we press to the full knowledge of God and of His Son, before we become entirely one with Him, entirely glad and joyful in Him. Israel was brought up and is still brought up for glory, and we too. O that our end too were such a psalm of praise as this psalm! Weber, Der Pr. Jes. 1875.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
If the Reader will compare this chapter in the several parts of it, with Lev 26 , he will find a solemn explanation given of what is here said, and mark the progression of divine visitations in both. Everything manifests, that when the Lord smites, it is to reform: and when the calamities the Lord sends, (as here marked,) are brought to the highest pitch when men, like an army besieged and without provision, are reduced to the extremity of eating the flesh of their own arm: if these awful visitations be unaccompanied with grace; depend upon it, if the Lord cease to correct, judgments are at hand. Hence the Prophet again repeats, as the running lamentation of each distressing view of the subject, “These are the sad causes of the Lord’s just anger, ” For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 9:18 For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up [like] the lifting up of smoke.
Ver. 18. For wickedness burneth as a fire. ] God will burn up these wicked Israelites, as once he did those sinful Sodomites; for unregenerate Israel is to him as Ethiopia, Amo 9:7 when once scelera abierunt in mores, and there is a general defection of all sorts and states, God will make an utter riddance of them; he will fire the whole forest.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 9:18-21
18For wickedness burns like a fire;
It consumes briars and thorns;
It even sets the thickets of the forest aflame
And they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19By the fury of the LORD of hosts the land is burned up,
And the people are like fuel for the fire;
No man spares his brother.
20They slice off what is on the right hand but still are hungry,
And they eat what is on the left hand but they are not satisfied;
Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm.
21Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh,
And together they are against Judah.
In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away
And His hand is still stretched out.
Isa 9:18-21 These verses describe the judgment of God on the Northern Tribes. The judgment is characterized as a fire that consumes the land. See Special Topic: FIRE . Even the people are fuel for the fire!
The evil of the people is described as
1. no man spares his brother
2. steal but are still hungry
3. eat but are not satisfied (even their own bodies, cf. Jer 19:9; the Targums translate it as fellow and thereby JPSOA his own kindred)
God’s covenant people are against each other!
Isa 9:18 wickedness burns like a fire It is interesting that fire can be positive or negative.
1. here, negative (wickedness)
2. Isa 62:1, positive (salvation)
Context, context, context determines meaning. Be careful of a preset definition of biblical words!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
wickedness = lawlessness. Hebrew. rasha’. App-44.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 9:18-21
Isa 9:18-21
“For wickedness burneth as the fire; it devours the briers and the thorns; yea, it kindleth in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts is the land burnt up; and the people are as the fuel of fire: no man spareth his brother. And one shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: Ephraim, Manasseh, and Manasseh, Ephraim; and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.”
The metaphor of a devastating forest fire is an appropriate one indeed to describe the holocaust that was awaiting God’s rebellious people, as any dweller in western United States could testify.
The closing verses of this paragraph indicate the total breakdown of all law and order, as the Assyrians continue their attack. Civil strife and ruthless internal warfare shall hasten the min. They shall eat one another up!
Despite the primary thrust of these prophecies having been against the Northern Israel, it is quite evident that the kingdom of Judah itself was also involved, but not as extensively. Ephraim remained in the focus here because their punishment was to be complete, their ruin final, and their destruction as a nation total, whereas Judah, although destined to suffer destruction and deportation, would, after seventy years, return in the “small remnant” so often mentioned by Isaiah. This particular phase of the prophecy will be concluded in the first four verses of the next chapter.
Isa 9:18-21 CIVIL WAR: The plague of wickedness has infected the whole society and its culture. Rich and poor, powerful and weak, educated and illiterate alike are contaminated with evil. It has spread like fire spreads through dry stubble and forest. The fire which is about to consume the people and their land is the mighty moral rule of God which inevitably must fall upon those who break all moral bounds. The people were about to experience the removal of Gods grace. When that happens man is left alone to the consequences of his perversity and when that happens man consumes himself. Some commentators seem to think the statement, they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm means figurative cannibalism. However, literal cannibalism is not unknown to ancient history or modern history (Cf. 2Ki 6:24-31; Jer 19:9, etc.). In modern times the people of Russia in the siege of Leningrad (WW II) are reported to have eaten human flesh to survive starvation. Social and moral anarchy resulted in civil war-brother killing and robbing brother. And all these woes were but the beginning of tribulation on this once favored people. The hand of God was stretched out still. The end was not yet. That came with foreign conquest, captivity and slavery.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Social Injustice Condemned
Isa 9:18-21; Isa 10:1-4
The terrible indictment of the preceding paragraphs is continued here. Notice the awful monotony of the refrain, Isa 9:12; Isa 9:17; Isa 9:21; Isa 10:4. Internal anarchy spread with the rapidity of a prairie fire. Jealousy and distrust awoke murderous hatred. Even the ties of brotherhood would not avail to arrest the knife of the assassin. In the horrors of starvation men would consume their own flesh, Isa 9:20. Civil strife would exhaust the forces, which, combined with Gods blessing, might have arrested the invader. The weak would become the spoil of the strong; and there would be no appeal. What pathetic questions are suggested in Isa 10:3! What will ye do? To whom will ye flee? See Heb 9:26-28. What hope is there for the soul that has known and refused the offer of forgiveness in Jesus! Dear soul, make haste to the cleft of the Rock!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
wickedness: Isa 1:31, Isa 30:30, Isa 30:33, Isa 33:12, Isa 34:8-10, Isa 66:16, Isa 66:17, Num 11:1-3, Deu 32:22, Job 31:11, Job 31:12, Amo 7:4, Nah 1:6, Nah 1:10, Mal 4:1, Mat 13:49, Mat 13:50, Mat 25:41, Mar 9:43-50
it shall: Isa 10:16-18, Isa 27:4, Heb 6:8
shall kindle: Eze 20:47, Eze 20:48
mount: Isa 5:24, Psa 37:20, Hos 13:3, Joe 2:20, Rev 14:11
Reciprocal: 1Ki 16:21 – divided Psa 29:9 – discovereth Psa 68:2 – As smoke Isa 10:18 – consume Jer 12:16 – my name Jer 17:27 – then Eze 2:6 – briers Eze 19:14 – fire
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 9:18. For wickedness burneth as fire, &c. Rageth like a fire, destroying and laying waste the nation. We have here the third great evil, on account of which divine vengeance was about to come upon them; namely, the power of reigning and barefaced impiety; the punishment whereof, denounced in the subsequent verses, is, as usual, assimilated to the vice, namely, destructive factions, which should overthrow their republic. Having rendered themselves hateful to God by their crimes, they shall be destroyed by those crimes, by their dissensions, animosities, divisions, tumults, insurrections, and civil broils, arising from the wickedness of their own dispositions, and issuing in their mutual destruction. Inflamed by envy, avarice, and impurity, they shall perish in this very fire let loose among them by the wrath of God, and permitted to rage uncontrolled, like fire among briers and thorns, Isa 9:19. The latter state of the Israelitish government abundantly proves the exactness of this prophets prediction, 2Ki 15:10; 2Ki 15:30; 2Ki 17:1; 2Ki 17:18-24.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9:18 For wickedness {p} burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up [like] the rising of smoke.
(b) Wickedness as a bellows kindles the fire of God’s wrath which consumes all his obstinate enemies.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The selfishness of everyone 9:18-21
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Wickedness is not a little misguided playfulness but rebellion against God’s order for life. [Note: Oswalt, p. 257.] It proceeds from a little fire to a raging inferno because, like fire, wickedness has an insatiable appetite.