Verse 18
18-21. Third strophe.
burneth—maketh consumption, not only spreading rapidly, but also consuming like fire: sin is its own punishment.
briers . . . thorns—emblem of the wicked; especially those of low rank (Isaiah 27:4; 2 Samuel 23:6).
forest—from the humble shrubbery the flame spreads to the vast forest; it reaches the high, as well as the low.
mount up like . . . smoke—rather. "They (the thickets of the forest) shall lift themselves proudly aloft [the Hebrew is from a Syriac root, a cock, expressing stateliness of motion, from his strutting gait, HORSLEY], in (in passing into) volumes of ascending smoke" [MAURER].
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