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. For wickedness burneth as the fire - maketh consumption, not only spreading rapidly, but also consuming like fire. sin is its own punishment.
It shall devour the briers and thorns - emblem of the wicked: especially those of low rank (Isaiah 27:4; 2 Samuel 23:6).
And shall kindle in the thickets of the forest - from the humble shrubbery the flame spreads to the vast forest; it reaches the high, as well as the low.
They shall mount up (like) the lifting up of smoke. There is no Hebrew for "like:" translate, therefore, 'they (the thickets of the forest) shall lift themselves proudly aloft [the Hebrew, 'aabak, is from a Syriac root, a cock, expressing stateliness of motion, from his strutting gait, Horsley] in (in passing into) volumes of ascending smoke.' There is strong irony in representing those who once lifted themselves up in pride and wickedness being now, in just retribution, made to lift themselves up as volumes of ascending smoke while they are being consumed.