There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils. Here is a further expansion of the idea expressed in the preceding verse. х `aashaan (H6227), poetically need for vapour, produced by the snorting of an enraged beast, and tropically for the divine wrath (cf. Isaiah 65:5); and so the Septuagint renders it as: anebee kapnos en tee orgee autou, a smoke ascended in his wrath.] And fire out of his mouth devoured. No object is mentioned as devoured by the fire; and the omission conveys more strongly the idea of fierce, raging all-consuming fire. [In the same manner Virgil ('AEneid,' 2:, line 758) speaks of ignis edax, and Homer ('Iliad,' b. 23:, line 182) of panta pur esthiei.]
Coals were kindled by it, х gechaaliym (H1513), burning coals (opposed to pechaam (H6352), a black coal, Proverbs 26:21)] - were inflamed from it, namely, His mouth, which is the proper antecedent. Hengstenberg, on Psalms 18:1-50, denies that the figure, 'a smoke going up out of his nostrils' has any reference to the snorting of a furious beast; and, considering that smoke is a natural sequence of fire, views the imagery as drawn exclusively from the representation of Sinai as being all on fire at the publication of the law (Exodus 19:18). His critical judgment is founded on a partial view of the case. The description in Exodus refers to what took place on earth; whereas this is a poetical picture of what occurred in heaven. Besides, his interpretation does certainly account for the fire and the smoke, but entirely excludes the figures of the nose and the mouth. Several of the expressions, however, used in this passage are clearly borrowed from Exodus 19:1-25.