Wickedness burneth, i.e. shall burn you, as it follows, shall devour. Your iniquity shall be your ruin, as God threatens, Ezekiel 18:30. The briers and thorns; either,
1. The wicked, who are oft compared to briers and thorns, as 2 Samuel 23:6 Isaiah 27:4; or rather,
2. The low and mean persons; for these are opposed to the thickets of the forest, in the next clause. In the thickets of the forest; in the wood, where the trees are tall, and stand thick, having their boughs entangled together, which makes them more ready both to catch and to spread the fire. Like the lifting up of smoke; sending up smoke like a vast furnace. Heb. with height or pride of smoke, i.e. with aspiring smoke, which in that case riseth high, and spreadeth far, and filleth all the neighbouring air.