Isaiah 10:17

"And the light of Israel becomes a fire, and His Holy One a flame; and it sets on fire and devours its thistles and thorns on one day." God is fire (Deu 9:3), and light (Jo1 1:5); and in His own self-life the former is resolved into the latter. Kâdōsh (holy) is here parallel to 'ōr (light); for the fact that God is holy, and the fact that He is pure light, are essentially one and the same thing, whether kâdash meant originally to be pure or to be separate. The nature of all creatures, and of the whole cosmos, is a mixture of light and darkness. The nature of God alone is absolute light. But light is love. In this holy light of love He has given Himself up to Israel, and taken Israel to Himself. But He has also within Him a basis of fire, which sin excites against itself, and which was about to burst forth as a flaming fire of wrath against Asshur, on account of its sins against Him and His people. Before this fire of wrath, this destructive might of His penal righteousness, the splendid forces of Asshur were nothing but a mass of thistles and a bed of thorns (written here in the reverse order peculiar to Isaiah, shâmı̄r vâshaith), equally inflammable, and equally deserving to be burned. To all appearance, it was a forest and a park, but is was irrecoverably lost.

The prophet, in this chapter, is dealing, I. With the proud oppressors of his people at home, that abused their power, to pervert justice, whom he would reckon with for their tyranny (Isa 10:1-4). II. With a threatening invader of his people from abroad, Sennacherib king of Assyria, concerning whom observe, 1. The commission given him to invade Judah (Isa 10:5, Isa 10:6). 2. His pride and insolence in the execution of that commission (Isa 10:7-11, Isa 10:13, Isa 10:14). 3. A rebuke given to his haughtiness, and a threatening of his fall and ruin, when he had served the purposes for which God raised him up (Isa 10:12, Isa 10:15-19). 4. A promise of grace to the people of God, to enable them to bear up under the affliction, and to get good by it (Isa 10:20-23). 5. Great encouragement given to them not to fear this threatening storm, but to hope that, though for the present all the country was put into a great consternation by it, yet it would end well, in the destruction of this formidable enemy (Isa 10:24-34). And this is intended to quiet the minds of good people in reference to all the threatening efforts of the wrath of the church's enemies. If God be for us, who can be against us? None to do us any harm.