It shall devour the briers and thorns... — The words are obviously figurative for men who were base and vile, as in 2 Samuel 23:6; but the figure may have been suggested by Isaiah 7:23-24. The outward desolation, with its rank growth of underwood, was to the prophet’s eye a type of the moral condition of his people. And for such a people sin becomes the punishment of sin, and burns like a fire in a forest thicket, leaving the land clear for fresh culture and a better growth. (Comp. Isaiah 33:11-12; James 3:5; Hebrews 6:8.)
Related Commentaries of Isaiah 9:18
Isaiah 9:18
18 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.