Nahum 1:2

God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2-8) God’s character a pledge that the oppressor of His servants shall be destroyed.

(2) God . . . furious.—Better, A jealous and vengeful God is Jehovah, an avenger is Jehovah, aye, wrathful. This verse lays the groundwork for the declaration of God’s sentence against the offending city. There are, of course, several passages in the Law which attribute the same character to Jehovah, e.g., Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:24. Nahum’s model, however, is a passage of opposite purport, the well-known proclamation of Jehovah’s attribute of mercy (Exodus 34:6-7). To that passage the present is a kind of counterpoise, Êl kannô v’nôkêm here being the pendant to Êl rachoom v’channoon there.

Benson Commentary

Nahum 1:2-3. God is jealous — For his own glory; and the Lord revengeth — Or rather, avengeth, namely, the cause, or ill treatment, of his people, as being the Supreme Governor, who, by office, is bound to deliver the oppressed, and punish the oppressor: he also vindicates his own insulted honour. And is furious — Or rather, is angry. In the Hebrew it is literally, And is the Lord of anger, or wrath; that is, can easily give effect to his anger, or execute what it prompts him to. It would be well if the epithet furious were for ever banished from the sacred writings; and, indeed, from all others, when speaking of God. He reserveth wrath for his enemies — There is nothing in the Hebrew to answer the word wrath; it is only, He reserveth for his enemies. Some supply the word punishment; He has punishment in store to execute upon his enemies, when he pleaseth. The Lord is slow to anger, and great [rather, although he be great] in power, and [or, but] will not at all acquit the wicked — The sense of the clause seems to be, that although God defers punishment, yet he has it in his power to inflict it at all times; and though it be long delayed, yet it will, in the end, overtake the wicked, unless the long-suffering of God lead them to repentance. The Lord hath his way — The method of his providence; in the whirlwind — Which often riseth suddenly, and beareth before it all things that stand in its way. Thus God’s judgments often come unexpectedly, and are irresistible, and most terribly destructive. And the clouds are the dust of his feet — He makes the clouds his chariot, and employs them to whatever purpose he pleases. This and the two following verses are a very noble and majestic description of the power of the Almighty.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-8 About a hundred years before, at Jonah's preaching, the Ninevites repented, and were spared, yet, soon after, they became worse than ever. Nineveh knows not that God who contends with her, but is told what a God he is. It is good for all to mix faith with what is here said concerning Him, which speaks great terror to the wicked, and comfort to believers. Let each take his portion from it: let sinners read it and tremble; and let saints read it and triumph. The anger of the Lord is contrasted with his goodness to his people. Perhaps they are obscure and little regarded in the world, but the Lord knows them. The Scripture character of Jehovah agrees not with the views of proud reasoners. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is slow to wrath and ready to forgive, but he will by no means acquit the wicked; and there is tribulation and anguish for every soul that doeth evil: but who duly regards the power of his wrath?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Then, Naham too recites that character of mercy recorded by Moses, "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power" Nahum 1:3. But anger, although slow, comes, he adds, not the less certainly on the guilty; "and will not at all clear the guilty" Nahum 1:3. The iniquity is full. As a whole, there is no more room for repentance. Nineveh had had its prophet, and had been spared, and had sunk back into its old sins. The office of Nahum is to pronounce its sentence. That sentence is fixed. "There is no healing of thy bruise" Nahum 3:19. Nothing is said of its ulterior conversion or restoration. On the contrary, Nahum says, "He will make the place thereof an utter desolation" Nahum 1:8.

The sins of Nineveh spoken of by Nahum are the same as those from which they had turned at the preaching of Jonah. In Jonah, it is, "the violence of their hands" Jonah 3:8. Nahum describes Nineveh as "a dwelling of lions, filled with prey and with ravin, the feeding-place of young lions, where the lion tore enough for his whelps" Nahum 2:11-12; "a city of bloods, full of lies and robbery, from which the prey departeth not" Nahum 3:1.

But, amid this mass of evil, one thing was eminent, in direct antagonism to God. The character is very special. It is not simply of rebellion against God, or neglect of Him. It is a direct disputation of His Sovereignty. Twice the prophet repeats the characteristic expression, "What will ye devise against the Lord?" "devising evil against the Lord;" and adds, "counselor of evil" Nahum 1:11. This was exactly the character of Sennacherib, whose wars, like those of his forefathers, (as appears from the cuneiform inscriptions . There were religious wars, and Sennacherib blasphemously compared God to the local deities of the countries, which his forefathers or himself had destroyed Isaiah 36:18-20; Isaiah 37:10-13. Of this enemy Nahum speaks, as having "gone forth;" out of thee (Nineveh) hath gone forth Nahum 1:11 one, devising evil against the Lord, a counselor of Belial. This was past.

Their purpose was inchoate, yet incomplete. God challenges them, "What will ye devise so vehemently against the Lord?" Nahum 1:9. The destruction too is proximate. The prophet answers for God, "He Himself, by Himself is already making an utter end" Nahum 1:9. To Jerusalem he turns, "And now I will break his yoke from off thee, and will break his bonds asunder" Nahum 1:13. Twice the prophet mentions the device against God; each time he answers it by the prediction of the sudden utter destruction of the enemy, while in the most perfect security. "While they are intertwined as thorns, and swallowed up as their drink, they are devoured as stubble fully dry" Nahum 1:10; and, "If they are perfect" Nahum 1:12, unimpaired in their strength, "and thus many, even thus shall they be mown down." Their destruction was to be, their numbers, complete. With no previous loss, secure and at ease, a mighty host, in consequence of their prosperity, all were, at one blow, mown down; "and he (their king, who counseled against the Lord) shall pass away and perish."

"The abundance of the wool in the fleece is no hindrance to the shears," nor of the grass to the sythe, nor of the Assyrian host to the will of the Lord, After he, the chief, had thus passed away, Nahum foretells that remarkable death, in connection with the house of his gods; "Out of the house of thy gods I will cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave" Nahum 1:14. There is no natural construction of these words, except, "I will make it thy grave" . Judah too was, by the presence of the Assyrian, hindered from going up to worship at Jerusalem. The prophet bids to proclaim peace to Jerusalem; "keep thy feasts - for the wicked shall no more pass through thee." It was then by the presence of the wicked, that they were now hindered from keeping their feasts, which could be kept only at Jerusalem.

The prophecy of Nahum coincides then with that of Isaiah, when Hezekiah prayed against Sennacherib. In the history 2 Kings 19:4, 2 Kings 19:22-28, and in the prophecy of Isaiah, the reproach and blasphemy and rage against God are prominent, as an evil design against God is in Nahum. In Isaiah we have the messengers sent to blaspheme Isaiah 37:4, Isaiah 37:23-29; in Nahum, the promise, that "the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard." Isaiah prophesies the fruitlessness of his attempt against Jerusalem Isaiah 37:33-34; his disgraced return; his violent death in his own land Isaiah 37:7; Nahum prophesies the entire destruction of his army, his own passing away, his grave. Isaiah, in Jerusalem, foretells how the spontaneous fruits of the earth shall be restored to them 2 Kings 19:29; Isaiah 37:30, and so, that they shall have possession of the open corn-country; Nahum, living probably in the country, foretells the free access to Jerusalem, and bids them to (Nahum 1:15; Nahum 2:1 (Nahum 2:2 in Hebrew)) keep their feasts, and perform the vows, which, in their trouble, they had promised to God. He does not only foretell that they may, but he enjoins them to do it.

The words (Nahum 2:2 (verse 3 in Hebrew)), "the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vine branches," may relate to the first expedition of Sennacherib, when, Holy Scripture says, he "came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them," and Hezekiah gave him "thirty talents of gold and 300 talents of silver" 2 Kings 18:13-14; Isaiah 36:1. Sennacherib himself says , "Hezekiah, king of Judah, who had not submitted to my authority, forty-six of his principal cities, and fortresses and villages depending upon them of which I took no account, I captured, and carried away their spoil. And from these places I captured and carried off as spoil 200, 150 people," etc. This must relate to the first expedition, on account of the exact correspondence of the tribute in gold, with a variation in the number of the talents of silver, easily accounted for .

In the first invasion Sennacherib relates that he besieged Jerusalem. : "Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to fence him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape." It is perhaps in reference to this, that, in the second invasion, God promises by Isaiah; "He shall not come into this city, and shall not shoot an arrow there; and shall not present shield before it, and shall not cast up bank against it" Isaiah 37:33. Still, in this second invasion also, Holy Scripture relates, that "the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army" Isaiah 36:2; 2 Kings 18:17. Perhaps it is in regard to this second expedition, that God says, "Though I have afflicted thee, I will affict thee no more" Nahum 1:12; i. e., this second invasion should not desolate her, like that first. Not that God absolutely would not again afflict her, but not now. The yoke of the Assyrian was then broken, until the fresh sins of Manasseh drew down their own punishment.

Nahum then was a prophet for Judah, or for that remnant of Israel, which, after the ten tribes were carried captive, became one with Judah, not in temporal sovereignty, but in the one worship of God. His mention of Basan, Carmel and Lebanon alone, as places lying under the rebuke of God, perhaps implies a special interest in Northern Palestine. Judah may have already become the name for the whole people of God who were left in their own land, since those of the ten tribes who remained had now no separate religious or political existence. The idol-center of their worship was gone into captivity.

The old tradition agrees with this as to the name of the birthplace of Nahum, "the Elkoshite." "Some think," says Jerome , "that Elcesaeus was the father of Nahum, and, according to the Hebrew tradition, was also a prophet; whereas Elcesi is even to this day a little village in Galilee, small indeed, and scarcely indicating by its ruins the traces of ancient buildings, yet known to the Jews, and pointed out to me too by my guide." The name is a genuine Hebrew name, the "El," with which it begins, being the name of God, which appears in the names of other towns also as El'ale, Eltolad, Elteke Eltolem. The author of the short-lived Gnostic heresy of the Elcesaites, called Elkesai, elkasai, elxai, elxaios, Elkasaios , probably had his name from that same village. Eusebius mentions Elkese, as the place "whence was Nahum the Elkesaean." Cyril of Alexandria says, that Elkese was a village somewhere in Judaea.

On the other hand "Alcush," a town in Mosul, is probably a name of Arabic origin, and is not connected with Nahum by any extant or known writer, earlier than Masius toward the end of the 16th century , and an Arabic scribe in 1713 . Neither of these mention the tomb. "The tomb," says Layard , "is a simple plaster box, covered with green cloth, and standing at the upper end of a large chamber. The house containing the tomb is a modern building. There are no inscriptions, nor fragments of any antiquity near the place." The place is now reverenced by the Jews, but in the 12th century Benjamin of Tudela supposed his tomb to be at Ain Japhata, South of Babylon. Were anything needed to invalidate statements more than 2000 years after the time of Nahum, it might suffice that the Jews, who are the authors of this story, maintain that not Jonah only but Obadiah and Jephthah the Gileadite are also buried at Mosul .

Nor were the ten tribes placed there, but "in the cities of the Medes" 2 Kings 17:6. The name Capernaum, "the village of Nahum," is probably an indication of his residence in Galilee. There is nothing in his language unique to the Northern tribes. One very poetic word Nahum 3:2; Judges 5:22, common to him with the song of Deborah, is not therefore a "provincialism," because it only happens to occur in the rich, varied, language of two prophets of North Palestine. Nor does the occurrence of a foreign title interfere with "purity of diction" . It rather belongs to the vividness of his description.

The conquest of No-Ammon or Thebes and the captivity of its inhabitants, of which Nahum speaks, must have been by Assyria itself. Certainly it was not from domestic disturbances ; for Nahum says, that the people were carried away captive Nahum 3:10. Nor was it from the Ethiopians ; for Nahum speaks of them, as her allies Nahum 3:9. Nor from the Carthaginians ; for the account of Ammianus , that "when first Carthage was beginning to expand itself far and wide, the Punic generals, by an unexpected inroad, subdued the hundred-gated Thebes," is merely a mistaken gloss on a statement of Diodorus, that "Hanno took Hekatompylos by siege;" a city, according to Diodorus himself , "in the desert of Libya." Nor was it from the Scythians ; for Herodotus, who alone speaks of their maraudings and who manifestly exaggerates them, expressly says, that Psammetichus induced the Scythians by presents not to enter Egypt ; and a wandering predatory horde does not besiege or take strongly-fortified towns.

There remain then only the Assyrians. Four successive Assyrian Monarchs Sargon, his son, grandson and great grandson, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Asshur-bani-pal, from 718 b.c. to about 657 b.c., conquered in Egypt . The hostility was first provoked by the encouragement given by Sabacho the Ethiopian (Sab'e in the cuneiform inscriptions, S b k, in Egyptian), the So of Holy Scripture , to Hoshea to rebel against Shalmaneser 2 Kings 17:4. Sargon, who, according to his own statement, was the king who actually took Samaria , led three expeditions of his own against Egypt. In the first, Sargon defeated the Egyptian king in the battle of Raphia ; in the second, in his seventh year, he boasts that Pharaoh became his tributary ; in a third, which is placed three years later, Ethiopia submitted to him .

continued...

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. jealous—In this there is sternness, yet tender affection. We are jealous only of those we love: a husband, of a wife; a king, of his subjects' loyalty. God is jealous of men because He loves them. God will not bear a rival in His claims on them. His burning jealousy for His own wounded honor and their love, as much as His justice, accounts for all His fearful judgments: the flood, the destruction of Jerusalem, that of Nineveh. His jealousy will not admit of His friends being oppressed, and their enemies flourishing (compare Ex 20:5; 1Co 16:22; 2Co 11:2). Burning zeal enters into the idea in "jealous" here (compare Nu 25:11, 13; 1Ki 19:10).

the Lord revengeth … Lord revengeth—The repetition of the incommunicable name Jehovah, and of His revenging, gives an awful solemnity to the introduction.

furious—literally, "a master of fury." So a master of the tongue, that is, "eloquent." "One who, if He pleases, can most readily give effect to His fury" [Grotius]. Nahum has in view the provocation to fury given to God by the Assyrians, after having carried away the ten tribes, now proceeding to invade Judea under Hezekiah.

reserveth wrath for his enemies—reserves it against His own appointed time (2Pe 2:9). After long waiting for their repentance in vain, at length punishing them. A wrong estimate of Jehovah is formed from His suspending punishment: it is not that He is insensible or dilatory, but He reserves wrath for His own fit time. In the case of the penitent, He does not reserve or retain His anger (Ps 103:9; Jer 3:5, 12; Mic 7:18).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

God; the mighty God, so the French version, and the Hebrew la implieth it.

Is jealous; his love is fervent for his people, his displeasure hot against his and their enemies, whose idolatries he will not long bear against himself, nor their cruelties and rage against his people; but, as jealous for his people’s good, and for his own glory, he will appear and act: so Isaiah 42:13 Ezekiel 39:25 Zechariah 1:14 8:2.

The Lord; Jehovah, the everlasting and unchangeable God, the same always towards his people. Revengeth; as supreme Governor, who by office is, and accounts himself, bound to right the oppressed, and to punish the oppressor; so vengeance is the Lord’s, and he will repay.

The Lord revengeth; it is repeated for confirming the truth, and to affect the wicked with terror, and to awaken them to a timely repentance; to affect God’s own people with joy and hope, that they may wait on him till they see the vengeance from God, mighty, judge, zealous, unchangeable, and eternal.

Is furious, Heb. is Lord or Master of fury; not like furious men, who cannot command or govern their anger, but grow suddenly furious, and as suddenly pour it forth, whether seasonably or unseasonably they regard not; but God, who here threatens enemies, and comforts his friends, is as much Lord of his anger, as he is Lord of power and wisdom to execute his displeasure in fittest time.

Will take vengeance; when it is most seasonable he should do it he most certainly will do it.

He reserveth wrath: this explains the former phrase,

Lord of fury; God restrains and keeps in his own anger, which grows greater by the sufferings of his people and sins of his enemies.

God; the mighty God, so the French version, and the Hebrew la implieth it.

Is jealous; his love is fervent for his people, his displeasure hot against his and their enemies, whose idolatries he will not long bear against himself, nor their cruelties and rage against his people; but, as jealous for his people’s good, and for his own glory, he will appear and act: so Isaiah 42:13 Ezekiel 39:25 Zechariah 1:14 8:2.

The Lord; Jehovah, the everlasting and unchangeable God, the same always towards his people. Revengeth; as supreme Governor, who by office is, and accounts himself, bound to right the oppressed, and to punish the oppressor; so vengeance is the Lord’s, and he will repay.

The Lord revengeth; it is repeated for confirming the truth, and to affect the wicked with terror, and to awaken them to a timely repentance; to affect God’s own people with joy and hope, that they may wait on him till they see the vengeance from God, mighty, judge, zealous, unchangeable, and eternal.

Is furious, Heb. is Lord or Master of fury; not like furious men, who cannot command or govern their anger, but grow suddenly furious, and as suddenly pour it forth, whether seasonably or unseasonably they regard not; but God, who here threatens enemies, and comforts his friends, is as much Lord of his anger, as he is Lord of power and wisdom to execute his displeasure in fittest time.

Will take vengeance; when it is most seasonable he should do it he most certainly will do it.

He reserveth wrath: this explains the former phrase,

Lord of fury; God restrains and keeps in his own anger, which grows greater by the sufferings of his people and sins of his enemies.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth,.... He is jealous of his own honour and glory, and for his own worship and ordinances; and will not give his glory to another, nor his praise to graven images; and therefore will punish all idolaters, and particularly the idolatrous Assyrians: he is jealous for his people, and cannot bear to see them injured; and will avenge the affronts that are offered, and the indignities done unto them:

the Lord revengeth, and is furious; or, is "master of wrath" (u); full of it, or has it at his command; can restrain it, and let it out as he pleases, which man cannot do; a furious and passionate man, who has no rule over his spirit. The Lord's revenging is repeated for the confirmation of it; yea, it is a third time observed, as follows; which some of the Jewish writers think has respect to the three times the king of Assyria carried the people of Israel captive, and for which the Lord would be revenged on him, and punish him:

the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries; on all his adversaries; particularly the Assyrians are here meant, who were both the enemies of him and of his people. The Targum explains it,

"that hate his people:''

vengeance belongs to the Lord, and he will repay it sooner or later; if not immediately, he will hereafter; for it follows:

and he reserveth wrath for his enemies: and them for that; if not in this world, yet in the world to come; he lays it up among his treasures, and brings it forth at his pleasure. The word "wrath" is not in the text; it is not said what he reserves for the enemies of himself and church; it is inconceivable and inexpressible.

(u) "dominus irae", Calvin, Vatablus, Grotius; "dominus excandescentiae", Piscator, Tarnovius; "dominus irae aestuantis, sive fervoris", Burkius.

Geneva Study Bible

God is {d} jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and {e} is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

(d) Meaning, of his glory.

(e) With his own he is but angry for a time, but his anger is never appeased toward the reprobate, even though he defers it for a time.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. God is jealous] The original order of words being retained:

A jealous God and vengeful is Jehovah,

Jehovah is vengeful and wrathful;

Jehovah is vengeful upon His adversaries,

And retaineth wrath against His enemies.

“Jealousy” is the reaction of injured self-consciousness, it is God’s resentful self-assertion when He Himself, or that which is His, as His people or land, is too nearly touched; Deuteronomy 4:23-24; Joshua 24:19; Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:14. Here His “jealousy” is awakened by the long-continued injuries inflicted on His people. The form of spelling the Heb. word “jealous” occurs again Joshua 24:19; the more usual form, Exodus 20:5. “Wrathful” is lit. the possessor, cherisher, of wrath; the phrase again, Proverbs 29:22, cf. Proverbs 22:24. On the “vengeance” of God, comp. Isaiah 63:4 “the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come”; Isaiah 34:8; Isaiah 61:2. After “retaineth” wrath is understood, Jeremiah 3:5; Psalm 103:9.

2–6. An introduction on the attributes of Jehovah, God of Israel

The introduction, Nahum 1:2-6, leads up to Jehovah’s interposition against Nineveh: (1) Nahum 1:2-3 a His moral attributes; (2) Nahum 1:3 b – Nahum 1:6 the activity of these attributes when He reveals Himself in the Theophany of the tempest.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 2-6. - § 2. The prophet describes the inflexible justice of God, and illustrates his irresistible power by the control which he exercises over the material world. Verse 2. - God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; better, Jehovah is a jealous and avenging God, as Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:24; Joshua 24:19. The threefold repetition of the name of Jehovah and the attribute "avenging" gives a wonderful force to this sublime description of the Divine character. God is here called jealous (ζηλωτὴς, Septuagint) anthropopothically, as ready to defend his honour against all who oppose him, as One who loves his people and punishes their oppressors. Is furious; literally, master of fury, as Genesis 37:19, "master of dreams." The Lord is full of wrath (comp. Proverbs 10:12:24; 29:22). The word used implies a permanent feeling, Hire the Greek μῆνις. He reserveth wrath. The Hebrew is simply "watching," "observing" for punishment. Septuagint, ἐξαίρων αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτοῦ, "himself cutting off his enemies;" Vulgate, irascens ipse inimicis ejus. God withholds his hand for a time, but does not forget. All this description of God's attributes is intended to show that the destruction of Assyria is his doing, and that its accomplishment is certain. Nahum 1:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The description of the divine justice, and its judicial manifestation on the earth, with which Nahum introduces his prophecy concerning Nineveh, has this double object: first of all, to indicate the connection between the destruction of the capital of the Assyrian empire, which is about to be predicted, and the divine purpose of salvation; and secondly, to cut off at the very outset all doubt as to the realization of this judgment. Nahum 1:2. "A God jealous and taking vengeance is Jehovah; an avenger is Jehovah, and Lord of wrathful fury; an avenger is Jehovah to His adversaries, and He is One keeping wrath to His enemies. Nahum 1:3. Jehovah is long-suffering and of great strength, and He does not acquit of guilt. Jehovah, His way is in the storm and in the tempest, and clouds are the dust of His feet." The prophecy commences with the words with which God expresses the energetic character of His holiness in the decalogue (Exodus 20:5, cf. Exodus 34:14; Deuteronomy 4:24; Deuteronomy 5:9; and Joshua 24:19), where we find the form קנּוא for קנּא. Jehovah is a jealous God, who turns the burning zeal of His wrath against them that hate Him (Deuteronomy 6:15). His side of the energy of the divine zeal predominates here, as the following predicate, the three-times repeated נקם, clearly shows. The strengthening of the idea of nōqēm involved in the repetition of it three times (cf. Jeremiah 7:4; Jeremiah 22:29), is increased still further by the apposition ba'al chēmâh, possessor of the wrathful heat, equivalent to the wrathful God (cf. Proverbs 29:22; Proverbs 22:24). The vengeance applies to His adversaries, towards whom He bears ill-will. Nâtar, when predicated of God, as in Leviticus 19:18 and Psalm 103:9, signifies to keep or bear wrath. God does not indeed punish immediately; He is long-suffering (ארך אפּים, Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18, etc.). His long-suffering is not weak indulgence, however, but an emanation from His love and mercy; for He is gedōl-kōăch, great in strength (Numbers 14:17), and does not leave unpunished (נקּה וגו after Exodus 34:7 and Numbers 14:18; see at Exodus 20:7). His great might to punish sinners, He has preserved from of old; His way is in the storm and tempest. With these words Nahum passes over to a description of the manifestations of divine wrath upon sinners in great national judgments which shake the world (שׂערה as in Job 9:17 equals סערה, which is connected with סוּפה in Isaiah 29:6 and Psalm 83:16). These and similar descriptions are founded upon the revelations of God, when bringing Israel out of Egypt, and at the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, when the Lord came down upon the mountain in clouds, fire, and vapour of smoke (Exodus 19:16-18). Clouds are the dust of His feet. The Lord comes down from heaven in the clouds. As man goes upon the dust, so Jehovah goes upon the clouds.