Psalms 11:6

11:6 May the Lord rain down ¹  burning coals ²  and brimstone ³  on the wicked!

A whirlwind is what they deserve! ⁴ 

Psalms 50:3

50:3 Our God approaches and is not silent; ⁵ 

consuming fire goes ahead of him

and all around him a storm rages. ⁶ 

Psalms 58:9

58:9 Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ⁷ 

he ⁸  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ⁹ 

Job 9:17

9:17 he who ¹⁰  crushes ¹¹  me with a tempest,

and multiplies my wounds for no reason. ¹² 

Job 27:20-23

27:20 Terrors overwhelm him like a flood; ¹³ 

at night a whirlwind carries him off.

27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone;

it sweeps him out of his place.

27:22 It hurls itself against him without pity ¹⁴ 

as he flees headlong from its power.

27:23 It claps ¹⁵  its hands at him in derision

and hisses him away from his place. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 28:17

28:17 I will make justice the measuring line,

fairness the plumb line;

hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, ¹⁷ 

the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place.

Isaiah 30:30

30:30 The Lord will give a mighty shout ¹⁸ 

and intervene in power, ¹⁹ 

with furious anger and flaming, destructive fire, ²⁰ 

with a driving rainstorm and hailstones.

Ezekiel 13:11-14

13:11 Tell the ones who coat it with whitewash that it will fall. When there is a deluge of rain, hailstones ²¹  will fall and a violent wind will break out. ²²  13:12 When the wall has collapsed, people will ask you, “Where is the whitewash you coated it with?”

13:13 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: In my rage I will make a violent wind break out. In my anger there will be a deluge of rain and hailstones in destructive fury. 13:14 I will break down the wall you coated with whitewash and knock it to the ground so that its foundation is exposed. When it falls you will be destroyed beneath it, ²³  and you will know that I am the Lord.

Matthew 7:27

7:27 The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed; it was utterly destroyed!” ²⁴ 

Hebrews 12:18

12:18 For you have not come to something that can be touched, ²⁵  to a burning fire and darkness and gloom and a whirlwind

[11:6]  ¹ tn The verb form is a jussive, indicating that the statement is imprecatory (“May the Lord rain down”), not indicative (“The Lord rains down”; see also Job 20:23). The psalmist appeals to God to destroy the wicked, rather than simply stating his confidence that God will do so. In this way the psalmist seeks to activate divine judgment by appealing to God’s just character. For an example of the power of such a curse, see Judg 9:7-57.

[11:6]  ² tc The MT reads “traps, fire, and brimstone,” but the image of God raining traps, or snares, down from the sky is bizarre and does not fit the fire and storm imagery of this verse. The noun פַּחִים (pakhim, “traps, snares”) should be emended to פַּחֲמֵי (pakhamey, “coals of [fire]”). The rare noun פֶּחָם (pekham, “coal”) occurs in Prov 26:21 and Isa 44:12; 54:16.

[11:6]  ³ sn The image of God “raining down” brimstone on the objects of his judgment also appears in Gen 19:24 and Ezek 38:22.

[11:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “[may] a wind of rage [be] the portion of their cup.” The precise meaning of the rare noun זִלְעָפוֹת (zil’afot) is uncertain. It may mean “raging heat” (BDB 273 s.v. זַלְעָפָה) or simply “rage” (HALOT 272 s.v. זַלְעָפָה). If one understands the former sense, then one might translate “hot wind” (cf. NEB, NRSV). The present translation assumes the latter nuance, “a wind of rage” (the genitive is attributive) referring to a “whirlwind” symbolic of destructive judgment. In this mixed metaphor, judgment is also compared to an allotted portion of a beverage poured into one’s drinking cup (see Hab 2:15-16).

[50:3]  ⁵ tn According to GKC 322 §109.e, the jussive (note the negative particle אַל, ’al) is used rhetorically here “to express the conviction that something cannot or should not happen.”

[50:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “fire before him devours, and around him it is very stormy.”

[58:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “before your pots perceive thorns.”

[58:9]  ⁸ tn Apparently God (v. 6) is the subject of the verb here.

[58:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “like living, like burning anger he will sweep it away.” The meaning of the text is unclear. The translation assumes that within the cooking metaphor (see the previous line) חַי (khay, “living”) refers here to raw meat (as in 1 Sam 2:15, where it modifies בָּשָׂר, basar, “flesh”) and that חָרוּן (kharun; which always refers to God’s “burning anger” elsewhere) here refers to food that is cooked. The pronominal suffix on the verb “sweep away” apparently refers back to the “thorns” of the preceding line. The image depicts swift and sudden judgment. Before the fire has been adequately kindled and all the meat cooked, the winds of judgment will sweep away everything in their path.

[9:17]  ¹⁰ tn The relative pronoun indicates that this next section is modifying God, the Judge. Job does not believe that God would respond or listen to him, because this is the one who is crushing him.

[9:17]  ¹¹ tn The verb יְשׁוּפֵנִי (yÿshufeni) is the same verb that is used in Gen 3:15 for the wounding of the serpent. The Targum to Job, the LXX, and the Vulgate all translate it “to crush; to pound,” or “to bruise.” The difficulty for many exegetes is that this is to be done “with a tempest.” The Syriac and Targum Job see a different vocalization and read “with a hair.” The text as it stands is understandable and so no change is needed. The fact that the word “tempest” is written with a different sibilant in other places in Job is not greatly significant in this consideration.

[9:17]  ¹² tn חִנָּם (khinnam) is adverbial, meaning “gratuitously, without a cause, for no reason, undeservedly.” See its use in 2:4.

[27:20]  ¹³ tn Many commentators want a word parallel to “in the night.” And so we are offered בַּיּוֹם (bayyom, “in the day”) for כַמַּיִם (khammayim, “like waters”) as well as a number of others. But “waters” sometimes stand for major calamities, and so may be retained here. Besides, not all parallel structures are synonymous.

[27:22]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is once again functioning in an adverbial sense. The text has “it hurls itself against him and shows no mercy.”

[27:23]  ¹⁵ tn If the same subject is to be carried through here, it is the wind. That would make this a bold personification, perhaps suggesting the force of the wind. Others argue that it is unlikely that the wind claps its hands. They suggest taking the verb with an indefinite subject: “he claps” means “one claps. The idea is that of people rejoicing when the wicked are gone. But the parallelism is against this unless the second line is changed as well. R. Gordis (Job, 296) has “men will clap their hands…men will whistle upon him.”

[27:23]  ¹⁶ tn Or “hisses at him from its place” (ESV).

[28:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[the] refuge, [the] lie.” See v. 15.

[30:30]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord will cause the splendor of his voice to be heard.”

[30:30]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and reveal the lowering of his arm.”

[30:30]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and a flame of consuming fire.”

[13:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “and you, O hailstones.”

[13:11]  ²² sn A violent wind will break out. God’s judgments are frequently described in storm imagery (Pss 18:7-15; 77:17-18; 83:15; Isa 28:17; 30:30; Jer 23:19; 30:23).

[13:14]  ²³ tn Or “within it,” referring to the city of Jerusalem.

[7:27]  ²⁴ tn Grk “and great was its fall.”

[12:18]  ²⁵ tn This describes the nation of Israel approaching God on Mt. Sinai (Exod 19). There is a clear contrast with the reference to Mount Zion in v. 22, so this could be translated “a mountain that can be touched.” But the word “mountain” does not occur here and the more vague description seems to be deliberate.