Verse 16
SECOND MESSENGER.
16. Fire of God Or lightning, as in 1 Kings 18:38. Thus Euripides:
Alas! alas! may the fire of heaven
Strike through my head. Medea, 144.
According to Delitzsch, a rain of fire like that of Sodom. Umbreit and Ewald suppose it to have been the simoom the fiery, sulphurous wind of Arabia, called by the Arab and the Turk “the wind of poison.” Its approach is heralded by an unusual redness of the sky, which, while the wind lasts, seems to be all on fire. The blast of air, heated to quite two hundred degrees, frequently becomes a tornado, whirling along vast mounds of sand, which sometimes overwhelm armies, as in the case of Cambyses and his 50,000 men. But as this visitation “fell ( נפלה ) from heaven,” it seems more natural to interpret it of lightning. It is significant that the second stroke came from heaven, as if to impress Job with the conviction that God, as well as man, was against him.
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