When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place.
When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, Arabic, and Syriac refer "coming down" to the hail, not to the forest. But the Vulgate refers it to the forest. So Maurer. Literally, 'But it shall hail with coming down of the forest, and in lowness shall the city (Nineveh) be brought low - i:e., humbled.' The "hail" is Yahweh's wrathful visitation (Isaiah 30:30; Isaiah 28:2; Isaiah 28:17). The forest is the Assyrian host, dense as the trees of a forest (Isaiah 10:18-19; Isaiah 10:33-34; Zechariah 11:2). In the antitypical sense, "the forest" is the antichristian host; and "the city" is the God-opposed world-city. So the "hail" in the Egyptian plague (Exodus 9:23-26) smote all in the field, both man and beast, and brake every tree: "only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail." When the enemy shall be smitten with overwhelming troubles, the people of God shall dwell in quiet (Isaiah 32:18).