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Isaiah 9:19

in Isaiah 9

By the wrath of the LORD of Hosts the land is scorched, and the people are fuel for the fire. No man even spares his brother.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

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.

KJV

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.

This verse in Isaiah 9

Commentary

10 notes on this verse

A commentator

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on Isaiah · Written before 1274.

By the wrath of the Lord, which is like fire: his indignation is poured out like fire (Nah 1:6); and the people shall be as fuel for the fire, below: walk in the light of your fire (Isa 50:11); no man shall spare his brother: …

This site's exposition

For wickedness burns like a fire

on Isaiah 9:18-19

Sin is pictured as a self-spreading blaze, for "wickedness burns like a fire" through thorns, briers and forest thickets. The land is scorched and the people become "fuel for the fire" they kindled, until no man spares even his brother. The same fire runs on into verse 20.

This site's exposition

the people are fuel for the fire

The Hebrew verb behind scorched occurs only here, and Barnes, following Gesenius, weighed several meanings. Gill read the land as darkened, black with the smoke of the fire in the forest thickets of verse 18. No man spares his brother, and verse 21 names the brothers.

The record, by era

The Church Fathers1 voice

A commentator

Jerome

Commentary on Isaiah · Written before 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 Puritans and the Awakening3 voices

Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened,.... Brought into great distress and affliction; sore judgments and calamities being upon it; for not darkness in a natural, but in a figurative sense, is intended, see Isa 8:22 the allusion is to the ascending of the smoke before mentioned, through fire being kindled in the thickets of the forest, which filled the air with darkness; as smoke arising in great quantity does.

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

): The people shall be as the fuel of the fire. God's wrath fastens upon none but those that make themselves fuel for it, and then they mount up as the smoke of sacrifices, being made victims to divine justice.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

Three things are here promised, and they all point ultimately at the grace of the gospel, which the saints then were to comfort themselves with the hopes of in every cloudy and dark day, as we now are to comfort ourselves in time of trouble with the hopes of Christ's second coming, though that be now, as his first coming then was, a thing at a great distance.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

Through the wrath - By the anger, or indignation. This spreading desolation is the proof of his anger. Is the land darkened - The word used here - עתם ‛âtham - occurs nowhere else. According to Gesenius, it is the same as תמם tâmam to be or make complete; and hence means, “in this place, to be consumed, or laid waste.” Kimchi and Aben Ezra render it, ‘The land is darkened.’ Septuagint, Συγκέκαυται Sungkekautai.
2 more voices on this verse

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

A commentator

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].

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

darkened--namely, with smoke (Isa 9:18). The Septuagint and Chaldee render it, "is burnt up," so MAURER, from an Arabic root meaning "suffocating heat." no man . . . spare . . . brother--intestine discord snapping asunder the dearest ties of nature.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

The words behind it

14 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • בְּעֶבְרַ֛תby [the] wrath of

    beevratH5678 →34 times

  • יְהוָ֥הYahweh

    yahwehH3068 →6520 times

  • צְבָא֖וֹתof hosts

    tzevaotH6635 →485 times

  • נֶעְתַּ֣םit has been scorched

    ne'tamH6272 →

  • אָ֑רֶץ[the] land

    ʾaretzH776 →2504 times

  • וַיְהִ֤יand it was

    vayhiH1961 →3559 times

  • הָעָם֙the people

    haamH5971 →1873 times

  • כְּמַאֲכֹ֣לֶתlike fuel of

    kemaakholetH3980 →

  • אֵ֔שׁa fire

    ʾeshH784 →378 times

  • אִ֥ישׁeach

    ʾishH376 →1663 times

  • אֶל־<to>

    ʾel-H413 →5510 times

  • אָחִ֖יוbrother his

    ʾachivH251 →630 times

  • לֹ֥אnot

    lo'H3808 →5168 times

  • יַחְמֹֽלוּ׃they spared

    yachmoluH2550 →

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    2 Peter 2:4

    For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

    it leads to

    • Jude 1:6

      And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day.

    • Matthew 25:41

      Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

    • Romans 8:32

      He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?

    • Revelation 20:1–3

      Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain.

    • Revelation 12:7–9

      Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

  • Through

    Micah 7:6

    For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

    it leads to

    • Matthew 10:35–36

      For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

    • Luke 12:53

      They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

    • Matthew 10:21

      Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death.

Where this verse is studied

About Isaiah

The Prophet Isaiah, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
The Prophet Isaiah, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.