(14, 15) These verses are rightly taken together. The figure occurs in Isaiah 10:17-18 (comp. Zechariah 12:6), but there as a metaphor; here as a simile. "Before the rains came the whole mountain side was in a blaze. Thorns and briars grow so luxuriantly here that they must be burned off always before the plough can operate. The peasants watch for a high wind, and then the fire catches easily, and spreads with great rapidity" (Thomson, Land and Book, p. 341). The mountains are pre-eminently the pastures. (Comp. Psalm 50:10; Psalm 147:8.)

Verse 14. - As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire. Cause them, i.e., to consume away and perish, as a burning forest, or as blazing brushwood on a mountainside.

83:9-18 All who oppose the kingdom of Christ may here read their doom. God is the same still that ever he was; the same to his people, and the same against his and their enemies. God would make their enemies like a wheel; unsettled in all their counsels and resolves. Not only let them be driven away as stubble, but burnt as stubble. And this will be the end of wicked men. Let them be made to fear thy name, and perhaps that will bring them to seek thy name. We should desire no confusion to our enemies and persecutors but what may forward their conversion. The stormy tempest of Divine vengeance will overtake them, unless they repent and seek the pardoning mercy of their offended Lord. God's triumphs over his enemies, clearly prove that he is, according to his name JEHOVAH, an almighty Being, who has all power and perfection in himself. May we fear his wrath, and yield ourselves to be his willing servants. And let us seek deliverance by the destruction of our fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.As the fire burneth the wood,.... Or "forest" (m); which is sometimes done purposely, and sometimes through carelessness, as Virgil (n) observes; and which is done very easily and swiftly, when fire is set to it; even all the trees of it, great and small, to which an army is sometimes compared, Isaiah 10:18, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; either the mountains themselves, as Etna, Vesuvius, and others; or rather the grass and trees that grow upon them, smitten by lightning from heaven, which may be meant by the flame: in like manner it is wished that the fire and flame of divine wrath would consume the confederate enemies of Israel, above mentioned; as wicked men are but as trees of the forest, and the grass of the mountains, or as thorns and briers, to the wrath of God, which is poured out as fire, and is signified by everlasting burnings.

(m) "sylvam", Montanus, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c. (n) Georgic. l. 2. v. 310.