And the Lord GOD of hosts [is] he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt.
Ver. 5. And the Lord God of hosts is he, &c] Here the prophet proveth what he had said in the foregoing verses, by an argument drawn from the wonderful power of God, which profane persons are apt to question, that they may harden their hearts against his fear. Consider, saith he, first, that he is the Lord God of hosts, and (as the Rabbis well observe) he hath the upper and lower troops ready pressed, as his horse and foot, to march against his enemies. Next, that he toucheth the land, as it were, with his little finger, and it shall melt, like the fat of lambs before the fire; it shall crumble to crattle, moulder away, and be moved, because he is wroth, Psalms 18:7 : and shall men be unmoved? shall they be more insensible than the senseless earth? The people of Antioch, though many of them gave their hands for Chrysostom's banishment, yet, terrified by an earthquake (which wrought in them a heartquake, as it had done in the jailer, Act 16:25-30), they immediately sent for him again. But, thirdly, the tremendous power of God appears in this, that
The land shall rise up wholly like a flood; and it shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt] God can float it and flood it at his pleasure, see Amos 8:8. Water is naturally above the earth as the garment above the body, saith David; and would (but for the power and providence of God) prove as the shirt made for the murdering of Agamemnon, where the head had no issue out. Let God be seen herein, and men's hearts possessed with his holy fear; who can so easily pull up the sluices, let in the sea upon them, and bury them all in one universal grave of waters. "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?" Jeremiah 5:22. This Aristotle admires, and David celebrates in his physics (as one calleth that 104th Psalm), Psalms 104:6; Psalms 104:9, and all men should improve, to frighten their consciences from provoking to anger so great a God.