Job 4:9

9. The blast of God The breath of God.

The breath of his nostrils An expression used figuratively for wrath. “In the Mediterranean languages,” says Furst, “anger is conceived of as a snorting, glowing, or smoking of the nose.” Thus אַף ( aph) is used both for the nostril and wrath. The lively faith of the sons of the East saw in their fiery winds, destroying life and devastating wide-spread fields of vegetation, the breath or blast of God. Thevenot, an eastern traveller, thus speaks of the effects of the Simoon: “This year, 1665, in the month of July, there died in Bassora, of that wind called Samiel, four thousand people in three weeks’ time.” Part 2. p. 57. The air we must breathe becomes a medium of divine chastisement. The word epidemic επι and δημος ( upon the people) takes up and transmits the sentiment of Eliphaz. The great pestilences come down upon the nations; the very winds become the dark wings upon which the dispensations of God are spread abroad over the world. The faith of the Hebrews called such visitations the visitation of God. The poisoned blast was no unloosed courser; no plaything of chance. It was the breath of God. With the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. Isaiah 11:4. “As the previous verse describes retribution as a natural necessity founded in the order of the world, so does this verse trace back this same order of the world to the divine causality.” Schlottmann.