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.
Parallel translations
- WEB Through Yahweh of Armies’ wrath, the land is burned up; and the people are the fuel for the fire. No one spares his brother.
- BSB 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.
- NKJV Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts The land is burned up, And the people shall be as fuel for the fire; No man shall spare his brother.
- NASB By the wrath of the Lord of armies the land is burned, And the people are like fuel for the fire; No one spares his brother.
- NLT The land will be blackened by the fury of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The people will be fuel for the fire, and no one will spare even his own brother.
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
God's wrath scorches the land, and the people themselves become fuel, even turning against their own kin.
Overview
The fire of divine judgment burns up the land, and the people become the very fuel that feeds it. Social bonds collapse so that "no one spares his brother." The verse depicts how God's wrath against sin coincides with the breakdown of human relationships under that sin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Mic 7:2The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
- Mic 7:6For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
- Acts 2:20The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
- Isa 1:31And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
- Joel 2:2A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
- Isa 5:30And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
- Amos 5:18Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.
- Isa 13:9Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
- Isa 13:18Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.
- Isa 8:22And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
- Matt 27:45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.
- Ezek 9:5And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
- Jer 13:16Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
- Isa 24:6Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
- Isa 60:2For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
- Isa 13:13Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
- Isa 24:11–12There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone.
- 2 Pet 2:4For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
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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 9:19 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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