The light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day—God Himself becomes the instrument of Assyria's judgment, transforming from the implied agent of judgment through the empire into the active judger of the empire itself. The thorns and briers reference the wicked people of Israel/Judah, suggesting that God will cleanse His own land of corruption while simultaneously destroying the foreign power that served as instrument of that cleansing. This establishes the principle that God's judgment is precisely calibrated to serve multiple purposes simultaneously.

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