Jerome : (Verse 16 and following) Therefore, the Lord of hosts will send wasting sickness among his fat ones, and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire. And 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. The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. And the remaining trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down. Because you have done these things and have spoken what I have told you above, therefore the Lord will send His Angel, and in one night one hundred eighty-five thousand of your army will die, so that the most powerful ones, whom He calls fat, will be reduced to thinness and nothingness. And as the Hebrews relate, the bodies of the Assyrians, with their untouched clothing, will be consumed by hidden fire. Then the light of Israel and the holy one, that is, the angel, will be in fire and flame, and all the thorns and brambles of the Assyrians, that is, their wickedness, will be consumed, not over a long time, but in one day and moment. And just as the forest-covered mountain of Carmel, which is located in Galilee, quickly burns when fire is placed underneath it, so too will all the glory of the Assyrians be consumed, from humans to animals. Then the plundered army will flee, as the Prophet testifies in what follows, and from such an innumerable multitude that was compared to Carmel and the forest, it will come to such a small number that even a little child will be able to count and describe them. For the Hebrews report that only ten of his army remained; some of ours say that this king is a type of hostile strength. And just as in the book of Daniel (Chapter X) we read about the rulers of the Persian kingdom, and the kingdom of the Medes, and the kingdom of the Greeks, so there is also a ruler of the Assyrians, who is called the great prince because of the pride of his understanding, and on the day of judgment he will be delivered to the fires of Gehenna, which are prepared for the devil and his angels. And the light of Israel, which is the Lord himself, will set fire to the thorns and thistles of Assyria, and will reduce all its power and countless people to nothingness. Then, terrified by this, they will want to avoid the imminent punishment like a twisted and fleeing snake. However, those who can escape from his leap and confusion, and from the burning wood, are considered worthy to be numbered and described by the boy whose authority is on his shoulders. This itself can also be referred to the heretics: that after the Church's teaching has shone forth, and all their disciples have been exposed, then they come to such great solitude, that only a few remain who follow their error, from the jump and unfruitful trees and their countless multitude, which they deceived by heretical fraud. Because what we translate, the Lord will send thinness in her fatness, LXX translated, the Lord will send dishonor in your honor. And because we have said: and his saints in the flame, they have turned: and he will sanctify him in fire: by which some understand that punishments and torments are applied to sinners, in order to be purged by the divine fire. And what we have said: And the glory of his forest, and of his Carmel: they have interpreted: The mountains, and hills, and forests shall be extinguished, by which all the glory, pride, and multitude of the Assyrians shall be humbled and extinguished. — Commentary on Isaiah