Isaiah 9:18 BSB — MannaFest

Isaiah 9:18

For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets which roll upward in billows of smoke.

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

ASV

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.

KJV

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.

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Commentary

3 voices

Jerome

Commentary on Isaiah (420)

(Vers. 14 seqq.) And the Lord will scatter from Israel the head and the tail, the bend and the corrupt in one day. The venerable and honorable, he is the head; and the Prophet teaching falsehood, he is the tail. And there will be those who call this people blessed, deceiving, and those who are called blessed, being cast down. Therefore, the Lord will not rejoice over his young men, and will not have mercy on his orphans and widows, for every hypocrite is wicked, and every mouth has spoken foolishness.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)

Burneth - Shall burn you, as it follows, shall devour. Thorns - The low and mean persons; for these are opposed to the thickets of the forest, in the next clause. Forest - In the wood, where the trees are tall, and stand thick, having their bows entangled together, which makes them more ready both to catch and to spread the fire.

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible (1832)

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,” Psa 118:

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

"They (the thickets of the forest) shall lift themselves proudly aloft [the Hebrew is from a Syriac root, a cock, expressing stateliness of motion, from his strutting gait, HORSLEY], in (in passing into) volumes of ascending smoke" [MAURER].

Voices on this verse

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Original language & word study

13 tagged words

Original	Transliteration	Meaning	Word study
כִּֽי־	ki-	for	H3588 →
בָעֲרָ֤ה	va.'a.Rah	it has burned	H1197 →
כָאֵשׁ֙	kha.'Esh	like <the> fire	H784 →
רִשְׁעָ֔ה	rish.'Ah	wickedness	H7564 →
שָׁמִ֥יר	sha.Mir	thorn[s]	H8068 →
וָשַׁ֖יִת	va.Sha.yit	and bush[es]	H7898 →
תֹּאכֵ֑ל	to.Khel	it consumes	H398 →
וַתִּצַּת֙	va.ti.Tzat	and it has kindled	H3341 →
בְּסִֽבְכֵ֣י	be.siv.Khei	<in> [the] thickets of	H5442 →
הַיַּ֔עַר	hai.Ya.'ar	the forest	H3293 →
וַיִּֽתְאַבְּכ֖וּ	vai.yit.'a.be.Khu	and they have swirled	H55 →
גֵּא֥וּת	ge.'Ut	a rising up of	H1348 →
עָשָֽׁן׃	'a.Shan	smoke	H6227 →

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

The walk

The walk8

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
Malachi 4:1
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of…
leads to
- Isaiah 47:14
  Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside.
  Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
- Isaiah 5:24
  Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected…
  Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:8
  in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
- 2 Peter 3:7
  And by that same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
- Malachi 3:2
  But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap.
Through
Nahum 1:10
For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.
leads to
- Malachi 4:1
  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of…
  Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
- Micah 7:4
  The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time…
Through
Psalms 83:14
As fire consumes a forest, as a flame sets the mountains ablaze,
leads to
- Deuteronomy 32:22
  For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

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