Rain snares. — Or nooses. (Comp. 1 Corinthians 7:35.) This is certainly an extraordinary figure, and various emendations have been suggested. Ewald’s “coals of fire” (pecham for pachîm) is the best (comp. Psalms 18:13, where the Hebrew word, however, is gechalîm, “live, or red coals”; while pecham is used in Proverbs 26:21 as fuel for fire, in contrast with live coals: but in Isaiah 44:12; Isaiah 54:16 it is itself plainly burning coal.) He arranges the clauses thus: “Causeth to rain upon wicked men coals of fire with brimstone; a glowing blast is the portion of their cup.”
“Put we our quarrel to the will of Heaven,
Who, when he sees the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.”
— SHAKESPEARE: Rich. II., i. 2.
Horrible tempest. — Literally, wind of heats; “Vulg., spiritus procellarum; Targum, storm and whirlwind; as in Latin, aestus combines the ideas of heat and violent motion; so the Hebrew word here. Probably, therefore, we must think of a hot, poisonous wind — the simoom.
Or may we see one more reminiscence of the fate of Sodom and Gomorrha stamped indelibly on the Hebrew mind?