Isaiah 5:24

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁸Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit and pull sin along with cart ropes, ¹⁹to those who say, "Let Him hurry and hasten His work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come so that we may know it!" ²⁰Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter. ²¹Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. ²²Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine, and champions in mixing beer, ²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of justice. ²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw and dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.²⁵Therefore the LORD's anger burns against His people; He has raised His hand against them and struck them; the mountains quaked, and their corpses lay like refuse in the streets. Yet through all this, His anger is not spent, and His hand is still upraised. ²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold-how speedily and swiftly they come! ²⁷None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

fire: Heb. tongue of fire

devoureth: Isaiah 47:14, Exodus 15:7, Joel 2:5, Nahum 1:10, Malachi 4:1, 1 Corinthians 3:12, 1 Corinthians 3:13

the flame: Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17

their root: Isaiah 9:14-17, Job 18:16, Hosea 9:16, Amos 2:9

cast away: 1 Samuel 15:23, 1 Samuel 15:26, 2 Kings 17:14, 2 Kings 17:15, Nehemiah 9:26, Psalms 50:17, Jeremiah 6:19, Jeremiah 8:9, Luke 7:30, John 12:48, Hebrews 10:28, Hebrews 10:29

despised: Isaiah 30:12, 2 Samuel 12:9, 2 Samuel 12:10, Luke 10:16, Acts 13:41, 1 Thessalonians 4:8

Reciprocal: Exodus 5:12 - stubble Numbers 17:5 - blossom Deuteronomy 28:24 - make the rain 2 Kings 19:22 - the Holy One 2 Chronicles 34:14 - the law Job 8:17 - roots Job 21:18 - as stubble Psalms 71:22 - O thou Isaiah 1:4 - the Holy Isaiah 9:18 - mount Isaiah 26:11 - fire Isaiah 33:11 - your Isaiah 33:14 - Who among us shall dwell with the Ezekiel 15:6 - General Amos 2:4 - because Obadiah 1:18 - for stubble

Cross-References

Genesis 5:5
So Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

Genesis 5:6
When Seth was 105 years old, he became the father of Enosh.

Genesis 5:22
And after he had become the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.

Genesis 37:30
returned to his brothers, and said, "The boy is gone! What am I going to do?"

Genesis 42:36
Their father Jacob said to them, "You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is happening against me!"

2 Kings 2:1
Shortly before the LORD took Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal,

Jeremiah 31:15
This is what the LORD says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing consolation, because they are no more."

Matthew 2:18
"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing consolation, because they are no more."

Luke 23:43
And Jesus said to him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble,.... Or "tongue of fire" h; meaning the flame, the same as in the next clause; because it is in the form of a tongue; see Acts 2:3:

and the flame consumeth the chaff; which is done easily, speedily, and entirely; the metaphors denote that their destruction would be easy, swift, sudden, irresistible, and irrecoverable. Reference may be had to the burning of Jerusalem, literally understood:

[so] their root shall be rottenness; and so utterly perish; meaning their fathers, as Aben Ezra and Abarbinel think; or their chief and principal men, before mentioned; or their riches and substance, and whatever they gloried of, or trusted in; see Matthew 3:10:

and their blossom shall go up as dust; before the wind; either their children, or whatever was excellent or valuable with them; so Jarchi interprets it of their grandeur, pomp, and glory; it seems to express an utter destruction of them, root and branch, as in Malachi 4:1:

because they have cast away the law of the Lord; or doctrine of the Lord; that is, the Gospel; which the Jews blasphemed, contradicted, and put away from them, and judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life: the preaching of a crucified Christ, and salvation by him, and justification by his righteousness, were a stumbling block to them: this is to be understood not of the law of works, but of the law or doctrine of faith:

and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel; meaning either the same as before; expressing their great contempt of the Gospel, and the reason why they rejected it, because they loathed, abhorred, and despised it: or else Christ, the essential Word of God; so the Targum,

"they rejected the Word, the Holy One of Israel;''

as the Messiah, and received him not; and this their rejection of him, and ill treatment of his Gospel and ministers, were the cause of the burning of Jerusalem, and of their utter ruin and destruction,

Matthew 22:4.

h לשון אש "lingua ignis", Vatablus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore as the fire ... - The remainder of this chapter is occupied with predicting “judgments,” or punishments, upon the people for their sins which had been specified. The Hebrew here is, ‘The tongue of fire.’ The figure is beautiful and obvious. It is derived from the pyramidal, or tongue-like appearance of “flame.” The concinnity of the metaphor in the Hebrew is kept up. The word “devoureth” is in the Hebrew “eateth:” ‘As the tongue of fire eats up,’ etc. The use of the word “tongue” to denote “flame” is common in the Scriptures; see the note at Acts 2:3.

And the flame consumeth the chaff - The word rendered “chaff here,” means rather “hay, or dried grass.” The word rendered ‘consumeth,’ denotes properly “to make to fall,” and refers to the appearance when a fire passes through a field of grain or grass, consuming the stalks near the ground, so that the upper portion “falls down,” or sinks gently into the flames.

So their root shall be as rottenness - Be rotten; or decayed - of course furnishing no moisture, or suitable juices for the support of the plant. The idea is, that all the sources of national prosperity among the Jews would be destroyed. The word “root” is often used to denote the source of “strength or prosperity;” Isaiah 14:30; Hosea 9:16; Job 18:16.

And their blossom - This word rather means germ, or tender branch. It also means the flower. The figure is kept up here. As the root would be destroyed, so would all that was supported by it, and all that was deemed beautiful, or ornamental.

As dust - The Hebrew denotes “fine dust,” such as is easily blown about. The root would be rotten; and the flower, lacking nourishment, would become dry, and turn to dust, and blow away. Their strength, and the sources of their prosperity would be destroyed; and all their splendor and beauty, all that was ornamental, and the source of national wealth, would be destroyed with it.

They have cast away - They have refused to “obey” it. This was the cause of all the calamities that would come upon them.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 5:24. The flame - "The tongue of fire"] "The flame, because it is in the shape of a tongue; and so it is called metaphorically." Sal. ben Melec. The metaphor is so exceedingly obvious, as well as beautiful, that one may wonder that it has not been more frequently used. Virgil very elegantly intimates, rather than expresses, the image; -

Ecce levis summo de vertice visus Iuli

Fundere lumen apex; tactuque innoxia molli

Lambere flamma comas, et circum tempora pasci.

AEn. ii. 682.

"Strange to relate! from young Iulus' head

A lambent flame arose, which gently spread

Around his brows, and on his temples fed."

And more boldly of AEtna darting out flames from its top: -

Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem,

Turbine fumantem piceo, et candente favilla:

Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit.

AEn. iii. 574.

"By turns a pitchy cloud she rolls on high,

By turns hot embers from her entrails fly,

And flakes of mountain flames, that lick the sky."

The disparted tongues, as it were of fire, Acts 2:3, which appeared at the descent of the Holy Spirit, on the apostles, give the same idea; that is, of flames shooting diversely into pyramidal forms, or points, like tongues. It may be farther observed that the prophet in this place has given the metaphor its full force, in applying it to the action of fire in eating up and devouring whatever comes in its way, like a ravenous animal whose tongue is principally employed in taking in his food or prey; which image Moses has strongly exhibited in an expressive comparison: "And Moab said to the elders of Midian, Now shall this collection of people lick up ali that are around about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field," Numbers 22:4. See also 1 Kings 18:38.

Their root shall be as rottenness — כמק cammak, like mak; whence probably our word muck, dung, was derived.