Jesaja 9:18

Schlachter Bibel

Durch den Zorn des Herrn ist das Land wie ausgebrannt und das Volk wie vom Feuer verzehrt; keiner schont des andern.

Parallel Translations

Lutherbible (1912)
Denn das gottlose Wesen ist angezündet wie Feuer und verzehrt Dornen und Hecken und brennt wie im dicken Wald und gibt hohen Rauch.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

wickedness: Isaiah 1:31, Isaiah 30:30, Isaiah 30:33, Isaiah 33:12, Isaiah 34:8-10, Isaiah 66:16, Isaiah 66:17, Numbers 11:1-3, Deuteronomy 32:22, Job 31:11, Job 31:12, Amos 7:4, Nahum 1:6, Nahum 1:10, Malachi 4:1, Matthew 13:49, Matthew 13:50, Matthew 25:41, Mark 9:43-50

it shall: Isaiah 10:16-18, Isaiah 27:4, Hebrews 6:8

shall kindle: Ezekiel 20:47, Ezekiel 20:48

mount: Isaiah 5:24, Psalms 37:20, Hosea 13:3, Joel 2:20, Revelation 14:11

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 16:21 - divided Psalms 29:9 - discovereth Psalms 68:2 - As smoke Isaiah 10:18 - consume Jeremiah 12:16 - my name Jeremiah 17:27 - then Ezekiel 2:6 - briers Ezekiel 19:14 - fire

Gill's Notes on the 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 2 Samuel 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 בוך, "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 אבק; 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 יתאבכו גאות עשן "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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Hosea 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 Isaiah 50:2; Isaiah 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 God’s vengeance. The wicked are often compared to thorns and briers - fit objects to be burned up; Isaiah 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 - יתאבכוּ yit'ab^ekû from אבך 'âbak - 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.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 9:18. For wickedness — Wickedness rageth like a fire, destroying and laying waste the nation: but it shall be its own destruction, by bringing down the fire of God's wrath, which shall burn up the briers and the thorns; that is, the wicked themselves. Briers and thorns are an image frequently applied in Scripture, when set on fire, to the rage of the wicked; violent, yet impotent, and of no long continuance. "They are extinct as the fire of thorns," Psalms 118:12. To the wicked themselves, as useless and unprofitable, proper objects of God's wrath, to be burned up, or driven away by the wind. "As thorns cut up they shall be consumed in the fire," Isaiah 33:12. Both these ideas seem to be joined in Psalms 58:9: -

"Before your pots shall feel the thorn,

As well the green as the dry, the tempest shall

bear them away."

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