As we begin we see the difference between the attitude of the righteous and the attitude of the wicked. "My soul yearns for You in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for You. When Your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. But when grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and do not regard the majesty of the Lord." (Isaiah 26:9-10)
Those who love the Lord think about Him during the day and during the night. Those who love the Lord learn from His works which they observe upon the earth. When He sends correction, they respond in the right way.
But the same is not true for those who have no regard for the Lord. When He sends correction, they become angry about it. They don't respond by acknowledging their sin, repenting of it, and turning to the Lord for salvation. They don't even respond to the Lord's mercy toward them, for Isaiah says that even when "grace is shown to the wicked" they do not "learn righteousness". They don't take either the goodness or the discipline to heart.
The Lord is merciful to all. He makes the free offer of salvation to all. Even to those who reject Him repeatedly their whole lives long, He is being merciful by allowing them to continue living in this world where they will continue to have opportunities to hear the gospel and to repent up until the day of their death. When the day of death comes, there is no remedy for the sins of the one who has rejected the Lord's mercy. They will stand before His judgment seat to be charged and sentenced without the Redeemer at their side to say, "I have paid for this one's transgressions. He accepted Me as Savior and I have borne his guilt. He is to be declared not guilty."
It is those who go into eternity still rejecting the Lord that Isaiah is speaking about in this last segment. "Lord, Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see Your zeal for Your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for Your enemies consume them." (Isaiah 26:11)
The prophet says something like, "Your hand is upraised to administer judgment, but the wicked refuse to acknowledge it. Judgment is at their very door but they do not take this to heart. When they see the glorious eternity You have prepared for those who love You, let them be ashamed of the way they scorned Your merciful goodness. Send them to the place of eternal separation from You---the place You prepared for Satan and for the angels who rebelled with him."
We don't know exactly what the place called "hell" will be like. The Jewish people did not have the same concept of hell as Christians do. They viewed it more as a place of separation from the righteous and separation from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord Jesus referred to it as a place of torment, which is where Christians get the concept of a place where there are flames, for Jesus referred to hell by the word "Gehenna", which was a reference to the Valley of Ben Hinnom.
The Valley of Ben Hinnom had a terrible history from way back when the tribes of Canaan occupied the land. It was a location where human sacrifices had been performed. Not only did the heathen tribes of Canaan engage in such abominable practices, but some of the kings and citizens among the Jewish people did the same when they fell into idolatry. By Jesus' day it was considered an unclean and unholy location, forever marred by the terrible things that had taken place there, and it is believed by many scholars to have been used as a dump site similar to the landfills of today. Various types of garbage was deposited there to be burned, along with the dead bodies of animals that perished of disease or that had been torn apart by wild animal attacks. This is why Jesus, when referring to hell as Gehenna, made the statement that it was a place where the fire was never quenched and the worms never died, because fires were always burning at this dump site and maggots were always crawling in the rotting corpses and rotting food.
If this sounds graphic and horrifying, I believe that's because the Lord Jesus intended it to sound graphic and horrifying. This does not necessarily mean that hell is literally a place of fire and maggots but it does mean that it is a place of unholiness and destruction. It is a place of hopelessness where nothing will ever change. Hell does not have to be a burning pit of fire in order for it to be a bad place to go. Being forever separated from the One who created us is hell enough. Spending eternity with all the wicked of all the ages is hell enough. Being forever apart from loved ones who had accepted the Lord is hell enough. We may not know much about the nature of hell but we know enough not to want to go there. The Lord Jesus preached about hell a great deal because He didn't want us to go there. He wanted us to instead accept what He was doing on our behalf so we could spend eternity in the blessed joy of His presence.
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