Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.
And, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire - namely, with Israel judicially (Job 9:3; Isaiah 66:16, "By fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh;" Ezekiel 38:22). Pusey explains the phrase, 'God called His people to maintain their cause with Him by fire.' Others explain it, He ordered to come at His call the infliction of punishment, by fire on Israel - i:e., drought (cf. Amos 4:6-11, "I caused it to rain upon one city and ... not ... upon another city ... I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning"). (Maurer.) Compare, for this use of "called," Psalms 105:16, "He called for a famine upon the land." Rather, war (Numbers 21:28) - namely, Tiglath-pileser (Grotius).
And it devoured the great deep - i:e., a great part of Israel, whom he carried away. Waters are the symbol for many people (Revelation 17:15).
And did eat up a part - namely, all the land (cf. Amos 4:7) of Israel east of Jordan (1 Chronicles 5:26; Isaiah 9:1, "At the first He lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations"). Translate, as the Hebrew х 'et (H853) hacheeleq (H2506)], 'did eat up the portion,' namely, that appointed by God to destruction. This was a worse judgment than the previous one: the locusts eat up the grass; the fire not only affects the surface of the ground, but burns up the very roots, and reaches even to the deep.