In contrast to Yahweh’s power, Judah’s enemies are like dry grass in a fire. “Fire” is an important image for destruction in this verse and the next one.

You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble: The pronouns for you and your are plural in Hebrew, referring to Judah’s oppressors. The Hebrew verbs rendered conceive and bring forth normally refer to physical conception and birth, respectively. Here they are used in figures of speech describing the oppressors’ plans and actions as having little value. Their plans are like chaff and their actions are like stubble. For chaff and stubble, see the comments on 5.24, where they are rendered “dry grass” and “stubble.” These two nouns refer to what is left over after the harvest; only cattle can eat this part of the crop. Much of it is burned as useless, especially the stubble. Good News Translation provides a nonfigurative model for this line. Bible en français courant keeps the figurative language by saying “The plans you have conceived are nothing but hay, and when they are executed, it is only straw.”

Your breath is a fire that will consume you: The Old Testament sometimes says Yahweh’s breath is like a destructive fire (see 30.33). In this line, however, the breath belongs to the oppressors; their own breath will destroy them. Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh emend your breath to read “my breath/spirit,” referring to Yahweh’s breath. However, this change to the text is unnecessary. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends keeping Masoretic Text. Bible en français courant (1997) does this by rendering this line as “Like fire, your own breath will consume you” (similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). The Hebrew word for breath, which is sometimes rendered “spirit,” is used in a figurative way here. It stands for the actions of the oppressors in this context, so the whole line may be rendered “your actions are like a fire that will destroy you.”

For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• You conceive dry grass and give birth to stubble;
your own breath will destroy you like fire destroys [dry grass].

• What you plan is mere chaff [or, hay],
and what you produce is mere stubble [or, straw];
like fire, your own breath will consume you.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .