27 ook, God's on his way, and from a long way off! Smoking with anger, immense as he comes into view, Words steaming from his mouth, searing, indicting words! 28 A torrent of words, a flash flood of words sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words. He'll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction, herd them into a dead end. 29 But you will sing, sing through an all-night holy feast! Your hearts will burst with song, make music like the sound of flutes on parade, En route to the mountain of God, on the way to the Rock of Israel. 30 God will sound out in grandiose thunder, display his hammering arm, Furiously angry, showering sparks - cloudburst, storm, hail! 31 Oh yes, at God's thunder Assyria will cower under the clubbing. 32 Every blow God lands on them with his club is in time to the music of drums and pipes, God in all-out, two-fisted battle, fighting against them. 33 Topheth's fierce fires are well prepared, ready for the Assyrian king. The Topheth furnace is deep and wide, well stoked with hot-burning wood. God's breath, like a river of burning pitch, starts the fire.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 30:27-33
Commentary on Isaiah 30:27-33
(Read Isaiah 30:27-33)
God curbs and restrains from doing mischief. With a word he guides his people into the right way, but with a bridle he turns his enemies upon their own ruin. Here, in threatening the ruin of Sennacherib's army, the prophet points at the final and everlasting destruction of all impenitent sinners. Tophet was a valley near Jerusalem, where fires were continually burning to destroy things that were hurtful and offensive, and there the idolatrous Jews caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch. This denotes the certainty of the destruction, as an awful emblem of the place of torment in the other world. No oppressor shall escape the Divine wrath. Let sinners then flee to Christ, seeking to be reconciled to Him, that they may be safe and happy, when destruction from the Almighty shall sweep away all the workers of iniquity.