Isa 10:17 | KD | STEP | “And the light of Israel becomes a fire, and His Holy One a flame; and it sets on fire and devours its thistles and thorns on one day.” God is fire ( ), and light (1Jo 1:5); and in His own self-life the former is resolved into the latter. Kâdōsh (holy) is here parallel to 'ōr (light); for the fact that God is holy, and the fact that He is pure light, are essentially one and the same thing, whether kâdash meant originally to be pure or to be separate. The nature of all creatures, and of the whole cosmos , is a mixture of light and darkness. The nature of God alone is absolute light. But light is love. In this holy light of love He has given Himself up to Israel, and taken Israel to Himself. But He has also within Him a basis of fire, which sin excites against itself, and which was about to burst forth as a flaming fire of wrath against Asshur, on account of its sins against Him and His people. Before this fire of wrath, this destructive might of His penal righteousness, the splendid forces of Asshur were nothing but a mass of thistles and a bed of thorns (written here in the reverse order peculiar to Isaiah, shâmı̄r vâshaith ), equally inflammable, and equally deserving to be burned. To all appearance, it was a forest and a park, but is was irrecoverably lost.

‏ Isaiah 10:17

Isa 10:17 “And the light of Israel becomes a fire, and His Holy One a flame; and it sets on fire and devours its thistles and thorns on one day.” God is fire (Deu 9:3), and light (1Jo 1:5); and in His own self-life the former is resolved into the latter. Kâdōsh (holy) is here parallel to 'ōr (light); for the fact that God is holy, and the fact that He is pure light, are essentially one and the same thing, whether kâdash meant originally to be pure or to be separate. The nature of all creatures, and of the whole cosmos, is a mixture of light and darkness. The nature of God alone is absolute light. But light is love. In this holy light of love He has given Himself up to Israel, and taken Israel to Himself. But He has also within Him a basis of fire, which sin excites against itself, and which was about to burst forth as a flaming fire of wrath against Asshur, on account of its sins against Him and His people. Before this fire of wrath, this destructive might of His penal righteousness, the splendid forces of Asshur were nothing but a mass of thistles and a bed of thorns (written here in the reverse order peculiar to Isaiah, shâmı̄r vâshaith), equally inflammable, and equally deserving to be burned. To all appearance, it was a forest and a park, but is was irrecoverably lost.