Isaiah 33:10-12

Now will I rise, saith the Lord— We are taught in this period, that when the calamity of the people, as well as the insolence of their enemies, should be full, God would interpose, and severely punish the oppressors; for that this was the true and proper time wherein he had determined to exalt his glory before the eyes of the nations. When this time should come, he would no longer delay, or endure the pride and arrogance of his enemies; on the contrary, all their counsels should vanish into smoke, and they themselves should shortly be consumed by the divine judgment. The last clause in the 11th verse may be rendered, Your breath shall be the fire that shall consume you: the meaning of it is, that the arrogance, pride, rage, and blasphemies which they vented against God, should be their destruction. The people shall be as the burnings of lime, Isaiah 33:12 means, that they should be reduced to nothing, or burned by the wrath of God, like stone burned in a lime-kiln. The metaphor is expressive of that severe indignation of God which should utterly destroy them, as the fire of a burning furnace reduces a stone, and entirely changes its form.