Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.

Wesley's Notes

9:14 Head - High and low. Branch - The goodly branches of tall trees, the mighty and noble. Rush - The bulrush, the weakest and meanest persons. One day - All together, one as well as another.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. head and tail-proverbial for the highest and lowest (De 28:13, 44).

branch and rush-another image for the same thought (Isa 19:15). The branch is elevated on the top of the tree: the rush is coarse and low.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:8-21 Those are ripening apace for ruin, whose hearts are unhumbled under humbling providences. For that which God designs, in smiting us, is, to turn us to himself; and if this point be not gained by lesser judgments, greater may be expected. The leaders of the people misled them. We have reason to be afraid of those that speak well of us, when we do ill. Wickedness was universal, all were infected with it. They shall be in trouble, and see no way out; and when men's ways displease the Lord, he makes even their friends to be at war with them. God would take away those they thought to have help from. Their rulers were the head. Their false prophets were the tail and the rush, the most despicable. In these civil contests, men preyed on near relations who were as their own flesh. The people turn not to Him who smites them, therefore he continues to smite: for when God judges, he will overcome; and the proudest, stoutest sinner shall either bend or break.