Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 10:17

"And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day." — Isaiah 10:17 (ASV)

And the light of Israel shall be for a fire. —The Divine glory, which is as a consuming fire (Isaiah 27:4) to the enemies of Israel, is to Israel itself as the very light of life. The “briars and thorns” (we note the recurrence of the combination of Isaiah 9:18) are the host of the Assyrian army (Compare to 2 Samuel 23:6; Ezekiel 2:6), as “the glory of his forest” in the next verse are the captains and princes. The emphatic “in one day” points to some great catastrophe, such as that which afterwards destroyed the army of Sennacherib.