And the Light of Israel will become a fire and Israel’s Holy One a flame, And it will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day.
Parallel translations
- WEB The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.
- KJV And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
- BSB And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
- NKJV So the Light of Israel will be for a fire, And his Holy One for a flame; It will burn and devour His thorns and his briers in one day.
- NLT The Lord, the Light of Israel, will be a fire; the Holy One will be a flame. He will devour the thorns and briers with fire, burning up the enemy in a single night.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Holy One of Israel himself becomes a fire that consumes Assyria in a single day. God's holiness is both Israel's light and the enemy's destruction.
Overview
The 'Light of Israel' and 'his Holy One' burns up Assyria's 'thorns and briers' — imagery for the wicked enemy host — swiftly and completely. The same God who is light and life to his people is a consuming fire to the proud and unrepentant (cf. Heb. 12:29). His holiness saves and judges according to one's relationship to him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 30
- Isa 27:4Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.
- Isa 37:23Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
- Rev 22:5There will be no night, and they need no lamp light; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.
- Nah 1:10For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
- Num 16:35Fire came out from Yahweh, and devoured the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.
- Jer 4:4Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- Jer 7:20Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Behold, my anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on man, and on animal, and on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.”
- Num 11:1–3The people were complaining in the ears of Yahweh. When Yahweh heard it, his anger burned; and Yahweh’s fire burned among them, and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.
- Ps 18:8Smoke went out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it.
- Matt 3:12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
- Isa 60:19The sun will be no more your light by day; nor will the brightness of the moon give light to you, but Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
- Isa 9:18For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
- Ps 21:9You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger. Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath. The fire shall devour them.
- Ps 97:3A fire goes before him, and burns up his adversaries on every side.
- Ps 83:14–15As the fire that burns the forest, as the flame that sets the mountains on fire,
- Isa 66:15–16For, behold, Yahweh will come with fire, and his chariots will be like the whirlwind; to render his anger with fierceness, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
- Isa 30:27–28Behold, Yahweh’s name comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire.
- Isa 31:9His rock will pass away by reason of terror, and his princes will be afraid of the banner,” says Yahweh, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
- Isa 37:36Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
- Ps 50:3Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him.
- Ps 84:11For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
- Isa 66:24“They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
- Isa 33:14The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?
- Nah 1:5–6The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.
- 2 Th 1:7–9and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,
- Mal 4:1–3“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
- Ps 27:1By David. Yahweh is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Yahweh is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
- Isa 64:1–2Oh that you would tear the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence.
- Heb 12:29for our God is a consuming fire.
- Rev 21:23The city has no need for the sun, neither of the moon, to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 10:17 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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