Psalms 11:6

Horsley reads, “glowing embers.” Lowth renders the word “live coals,” and observes, that פתים, pachim, means globes of fire, or simply the lightning. “This,” says he, “is certainly more agreeable to the context than snares. The root is puach, which, though it sometimes means to ensnare, yet more frequently means to breathe forth, or emit, fire, for instance. Ezekiel 21:31, ‘In the fire of my wrath I will blow upon thee.’ The Ammonites are spoken of as thrown into the furnace of the divine wrath: compare Ezekiel 22:21, where almost the same words occur, except that the corresponding (and in this case synonymous) verb apach is made use of, whence mapnach, a bellows, Jeremiah 6:29. In the same sense the verb puach is introduced, Proverbs 29:8, ‘Scorners will inflame a city.’ From this explication of the root puach, the word pach, a coal blown up, is rightly derived.” — Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, volume. 1, pp. 194, 195. Lowth also states, that the Orientals sometimes call the lightning snares or chains, probably from the continual coruscations of the lightning in its passage through the air, which seem to be connected with each other like a chain. Hengstenberg, however, opposes this exposition, and adopts and defends that which Calvin has given. “פחים,” says he, “must here, according to most expositors, be taken as a figurative designation of lightning, which is alleged to be called also by the Arabians, in prose and poetry, by the name of chains. But it is a sufficient objection to this meaning, that פח does not signify cord, in general, but specially, gin, snare, trap.” In proof of this, he quotes Psalm 9:15; Job 18:9; 22:10; Isaiah 24:17, 18; Proverbs 22:5. “The expression, that he will rain,” says he, “can present no proper difficulty, as it simply points to the fullness of God’s retributive judgments, noticed already by Luther, when he says, that by it the prophet indicates the great variety and multitude of the evils threatened.”

“Ainsi que des chevaux desbridez.” — Fr.

Dr Adam Clarke renders the words רוה זלעפות, ruach zilaphoth, “the spirit of terrors,” and states, that “this may refer to the horribly suffocat ing Arabian wind called Sinurn.” Bishop Lowth translates the words, “a burning storm,” upon which Michaelis observes, “This is an admirable image, and is taken from the school of nature. The wind zilgaphoth, which blows from the east, is very pestilential, and, therefore, almost proverbial among the Orientals Many wonderful stories are related of its effects by the Arabians, and their poets feign that the wicked, in their place of eternal torment, are to breathe this pestiferous wind as their vital air.” — Lowth’s Sacred Poetry, vol. 1, p. 193. Hengstenberg translates the words wrath-wind, and explains them as simply meaning the divine anger which breaks forth as a tempest; and observes, that the vehemence of the anger is denoted by the plural number. In opposition to the rendering burning wind, and to the opinion that there is an allusion to the Arabian Samurn, he states, “The root, זעפ has, in Hebrew, the signification of being angry, no other; and that of being hot, is not once to be found in the dialects.”

The portion of their cup. By this expression he testifies that the judgments of God will certainly take effect, although ungodly men may delude themselves by deceitful flattery. This metaphor is frequently to be met with in the Scriptures. As the carnal mind believes nothing with greater difficulty than that the calamities and miseries which seem to be fortuitous, happen according to a just distribution from God, he represents himself under the character of a householder, who distributes to each member his portion or allowance. David, therefore, here intimates that there is certainly a reward laid up for the ungodly; that it will be in vain for them to resist, when the Lord shall reach to them the cup of his wrath to drink; and that the cup prepared for them is not such as they may sip drop by drop, but a cup, the whole of which they will be compelled to drink, as the prophet threatens,

(Ezekiel 23:34) “Thou shalt drink it off even to the dregs.”