15:1-8 Jerusalem like an unfruitful vine. - If a vine be fruitful, it is valuable. But if not fruitful, it is worthless and useless, it is cast into the fire. Thus man is capable of yielding a precious fruit, in living to God; this is the sole end of his existence; and if he fails in this, he is of no use but to be destroyed. What blindness then attaches to those who live in the total neglect of God and of true religion! This similitude is applied to Jerusalem. Let us beware of an unfruitful profession. Let us come to Christ, and seek to abide in him, and to have his words abide in us.And I will set my face against them,.... In wrath to destroy them; see Ezekiel 14:8; and

they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them: from one calamity to another; those that escaped the famine and pestilence in the city fell by the sword; and those that escaped famine, sword, and pestilence, were carried into captivity, and there passed from one hardship and affliction to another. The Targum is,

"I will execute my vengeance on them, because of the words of the law, which were given out of the midst of fire; they have transgressed, and people who are strong as fire shall consume them.''

Some, as Abendana observes, interpret the fire, out of which they went, of Sennacherib, out of whose hand the Lord delivered them; and the fire which devoured them, of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and it may be rendered, "they have gone out" (e), &c.

and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them; he is known by his judgments to be the Lord God omnipotent, holy, just, and true.

(e) "exiverunt", Cocceius, Starckius.