After it a voice roareth - After the lightning; that is, the flash is seen before the thunder is heard. This is apparent to all, the interval between the lightning and the hearing of the thunder depending on the distance. Lucretius, who has referred to the same fact, compares this with what occurs when a woodman is seen at a distance to wield an axe. The glance of the axe is seen long before the sound of the blow is heard:
Sed tonitrum fit uti post antibus accipiamus,
Fulgere quam cernunt ocuil, quia semper ad aures
Tardius adveniunt, quam visum, guam moveant res.
Nunc etiam licet id cognoscere, caedere si quem
Ancipiti videas ferro procul arboris actum.
Ante fit, ut cernas ictum, quam plaga per aures
Det sonitum: Sic fulgorem quoque cernimus ante.
Lib. vi.
He thundereth with the voice of his excellency - That is, with a voice of majesty and grandeur.
And he will not stay them - That is, he will not hold back the rain, hail, and other things which accompany the storm, when he begins to thunder. “Rosenmuller.” Or, according to others, he will not hold back and restrain the lightnings when the thunder commences. But the connection seems rather to demand that we should understand it of the usual accompaniments of a storm - the wind, hail, rain, etc. Herder renders it, “We cannot explore his thunderings.” Prof. Lee, “And none can trace them, though their voice be heard.” According to him, the meaning is, that “great and terrific as this exhibition of God’s power is, still the progress of these, his ministers, cannot be followed by the mortal eye.” But the usual interpretation given to the Hebrew word is that of “holding back,” or “retarding,” and this idea accords well with the connection.