Then they had swallowed us up quick - There was no other help, and ruin - utter ruin - would have soon come upon us. The word quick here means alive; and the idea is derived from persons swallowed up in an earthquake, or by the opening of the earth, as in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Numbers 16:32-33. Compare Psalms 106:17. The meaning here is, that they would have been destroyed as if they were swallowed up by the opening of the earth; that is, there would have been complete destruction.
When their wrath was kindled against us - Hebrew, In the kindling of their wrath against us. Wrath is often represented in the Scriptures as burning or heated - as that which consumes all before it.