The darkness in this verse replays the poetic strain evoked at the end of the previous chapter, and at the beginning of this one. Darkness is coming, it the wrath of the Lord will bring it. The image of the fire is then reiterated from the previous verse. Where before the land was the focus, here it is the people themselves. The people become the fuel of the fire. Once again, while this would certainly have been an effect of the burnings associated with war, it is more likely that this image has the dual purpose of being both proximate, and a reference to the long distant future. In the proximate sense, the burning is destructive In the eschatological sense, it is a cleansing and a preparation for the coming Messiah at the end of time.