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Your breath "And my spirit" - "For רוחכם ruchechem, your spirit, read כמו רוחי ruchi kemo . "Secker. Which reading is confirmed by the Chaldee, where מימרי meymri, "my word, "answers to רוחי ruchi, "my spirit."

Ye shall conceive chaff - An address of God to the Assyrians. The figure is one that denotes that their counsels would be in vain. Chaff and stubble are used in the Scriptures, in contrast with grain, to denote anything which is not solid, nutritious, or substantial; then anything which is frivolous, useless, vain. A similar image occurs in Isaiah 26:18 (see the note on that place; compare Isaiah 59:4).

Your breath as fire shall devour you - The word ‹breath‘ here (רוח rûach spirit) is evidently used in the sense of the Θυμός thumos and denotes anger, as in Isaiah 30:28. It refers to the haughty and arrogant spirit of Sennacherib; the enraged and excited mind intent on victory and plunder. The sense is, that his mind, so intent on conquest - so proud, excited, and angry, would be the means of his own destruction. Lowth proposes to read ‹my spirit,‘ but for this change there is no authority from manuscripts (see the notes at Isaiah 1:31).

Here we have the proud and false destroyer justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence. The righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin. Those who by faith humbly wait for God, shall find him gracious to them; as the day, so let the strength be. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must every morning commit ourselves to him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of the day. When God arises, his enemies are scattered. True wisdom and knowledge lead to strength of salvation, which renders us stedfast in the ways of God; and true piety is the only treasure which can never be plundered or spent. The distress Jerusalem was brought into, is described. God's time to appear for his people, is, when all other helpers fail. Let all who hear what God has done, acknowledge that he can do every thing. Sinners in Zion will have much to answer for, above other sinners. And those that rebel against the commands of the word, cannot take its comforts in time of need. His wrath will burn those everlastingly who make themselves fuel for it. It is a fire that shall never be quenched, nor ever go out of itself; it is the wrath of an ever-living God preying on the conscience of a never-dying soul.