While The Righteous Will Flourish God Will Finally Judge The Unrighteous (Isaiah 66:14-16).
‘And you will see and your heart will rejoice,
And your bones will flourish like the tender grass,
And the hand of Yahweh will be known towards his servants,
And he will have indignation against his enemies.
For behold Yahweh will come with fire,
And his chariots will be like the whirlwind,
To render his anger with fury,
And his rebuke with flames of fire.
For by fire will Yahweh plead,
And by his sword, with all flesh,
And the slain of Yahweh will be many.'
A similar judgment to that on Edom (Isaiah 63:1-6) is now threatened against all Yahweh's enemies. His own people who look to the new Jerusalem will see all that is happening, and their hearts will rejoice, and they will flourish like grass that is springing up. And as His servants they will experience Yahweh's hand, His personal action on their behalf. They will be part of His Jerusalem. But His enemies will experience His wrath. ‘Heart' and ‘bones' here represent the whole man.
For He will come with fire, the fire of His holiness and uniqueness, and with a force of chariots coming in like a whirlwind (compare Isaiah 5:28), expressing his powerful action, in order to reveal His wrath and His fury with flames of fire. He will judge all flesh by fire and sword (compare Genesis 3:24 where these kept men from the tree of life). And His slain will be many. But note also that it is man slaying man. God's judgment paradoxically is carried out by the very men on whom His judgment is coming. This description includes the final judgment, but may also include judgments through the ages which are foretastes of it. Yahweh's hand will continually deliver His servants and He Himself will slay the unrighteous.
The picture of a final period of fire (Ezekiel 38:19; Joel 2:3; Joel 2:30; Micah 1:4; Nahum 1:6; Malachi 3:2), whirlwind (Proverbs 1:27; Hosea 8:7; Nahum 1:3) and warfare is a popular one with the prophets in one way or another (Isaiah 29:6). and it signals the end of time. It sums up what unredeemed man is, and what his end is. He brings it on himself. And in the end the earth is to be destroyed by fire which will include the destruction of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7).