Deuteronomy 32:22 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 22. For a fire is kindled in mine anger— For a fire will break forth through my nostrils. Schult. 56. 59. It might be rendered Certainly a fire, &c. These strong and figurative expressions announce the dreadful calamities which Providence would inflict upon the land of Judea, and seem to import the total consumption of it. See Ezekiel 30:8. Amos 2:5. What we render, shall burn unto the lowest hell (i.e. to the lowest parts of the earth, as the word hell signifies, Numbers 30:16; Numbers 30:16.) Houbigant renders more properly, shall burn to the lowest foundations. Shall consume the earth, in the next clause, should be rendered, shall consume the land; shall make it utterly desolate. Isaiah 1:7. And set on fire the foundations of the mountains, signifies, literally, shall subvert their strongest fortresses; which was eminently fulfilled in the last destruction of Jerusalem: for Titus himself, as Josephus tells us, observing the vast height of the walls, the bigness of every stone, and the exact order wherein they were laid and compacted, cried out, "God was with us in this war: it was He who drove the Jews from these munitions: for what could the hands of men or machines avail against such towers!" Which brings to mind what is related by Ammianus Marcellinas, that when the emperor Julian ordered the temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt, terrible globes of fire burst out near the foundations, which overturned all, burnt the workmen, and made the place so inaccessible that they desisted from the attempt. But we cannot wish our readers greater improvement or satisfaction than they will find in reading Bishop Warburton's incomparable book on this subject, entitled Julian.