Mazmur 147:15-18

147:15 He ¹  sends his command through the earth; ² 

swiftly his order reaches its destination. ³ 

147:16 He sends the snow that is white like wool;

he spreads the frost that is white like ashes. ⁴ 

147:17 He throws his hailstones ⁵  like crumbs.

Who can withstand the cold wind he sends? ⁶ 

147:18 He then orders it all to melt; ⁷ 

he breathes on it, ⁸  and the water flows.

Kejadian 19:24

19:24 Then the Lord rained down ⁹  sulfur and fire ¹⁰  on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was sent down from the sky by the Lord. ¹¹ 

Keluaran 9:23-25

9:23 When Moses extended ¹²  his staff toward the sky, the Lord ¹³  sent thunder ¹⁴  and hail, and fire fell to the earth; ¹⁵  so the Lord caused hail to rain down on the land of Egypt. 9:24 Hail fell ¹⁶  and fire mingled ¹⁷  with the hail; the hail was so severe ¹⁸  that there had not been any like it ¹⁹  in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. 9:25 The hail struck everything in the open fields, both ²⁰  people and animals, throughout all the land of Egypt. The hail struck everything that grows ²¹  in the field, and it broke all the trees of the field to pieces.

Imamat 10:2

10:2 So fire went out from the presence of the Lord ²²  and consumed them so that they died before the Lord.

Bilangan 16:35

16:35 Then a fire ²³  went out from the Lord and devoured the 250 men who offered incense.

Yosua 10:11

10:11 As they fled from Israel on the slope leading down from ²⁴  Beth Horon, the Lord threw down on them large hailstones from the sky, ²⁵  all the way to Azekah. They died – in fact, more died from the hailstones than the Israelites killed with the sword.

Ayub 37:2-6

37:2 Listen carefully ²⁶  to the thunder of his voice,

to the rumbling ²⁷  that proceeds from his mouth.

37:3 Under the whole heaven he lets it go,

even his lightning to the far corners ²⁸  of the earth.

37:4 After that a voice roars;

he thunders with an exalted voice,

and he does not hold back his lightning bolts ²⁹ 

when his voice is heard.

37:5 God thunders with his voice in marvelous ways; ³⁰ 

he does great things beyond our understanding. ³¹ 

37:6 For to the snow he says, ‘Fall ³²  to earth,’

and to the torrential rains, ³³  ‘Pour down.’ ³⁴ 

Ayub 38:22-37

38:22 Have you entered the storehouse ³⁵  of the snow,

or seen the armory ³⁶  of the hail,

38:23 which I reserve for the time of trouble,

for the day of war and battle? ³⁷ 

38:24 In what direction is lightning ³⁸  dispersed,

or the east winds scattered over the earth?

38:25 Who carves out a channel for the heavy rains,

and a path for the rumble of thunder,

38:26 to cause it to rain on an uninhabited land, ³⁹ 

a desert where there are no human beings, ⁴⁰ 

38:27 to satisfy a devastated and desolate land,

and to cause it to sprout with vegetation? ⁴¹ 

38:28 Does the rain have a father,

or who has fathered the drops of the dew?

38:29 From whose womb does the ice emerge,

and the frost from the sky, ⁴²  who gives birth to it,

38:30 when the waters become hard ⁴³  like stone,

when the surface of the deep is frozen solid?

38:31 Can you tie the bands ⁴⁴  of the Pleiades,

or release the cords of Orion?

38:32 Can you lead out

the constellations ⁴⁵  in their seasons,

or guide the Bear with its cubs? ⁴⁶ 

38:33 Do you know the laws of the heavens,

or can you set up their rule over the earth?

38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds

so that a flood of water covers you? ⁴⁷ 

38:35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?

Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?

38:36 Who has put wisdom in the heart, ⁴⁸ 

or has imparted understanding to the mind?

38:37 Who by wisdom can count the clouds,

and who can tip over ⁴⁹  the water jars of heaven,

Yesaya 66:16

66:16 For the Lord judges all humanity ⁵⁰ 

with fire and his sword;

the Lord will kill many. ⁵¹ 

Yoel 2:30

2:30 I will produce portents both in the sky ⁵²  and on the earth –

blood, fire, and columns of smoke.

Amos 7:4

7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ⁵³  the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. ⁵⁴  It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

Wahyu 16:8-9

16:8 Then ⁵⁵  the fourth angel ⁵⁶  poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was permitted to scorch people ⁵⁷  with fire. 16:9 Thus ⁵⁸  people ⁵⁹  were scorched by the terrible heat, ⁶⁰  yet ⁶¹  they blasphemed the name of God, who has ruling authority ⁶²  over these plagues, and they would not repent and give him glory.

Wahyu 16:21

16:21 And gigantic hailstones, weighing about a hundred pounds ⁶³  each, fell from heaven ⁶⁴  on people, ⁶⁵  but they ⁶⁶  blasphemed God because of the plague of hail, since it ⁶⁷  was so horrendous. ⁶⁸ 

[147:15]  ¹ tn Heb “the one who.”

[147:15]  ² tn Heb “the one who sends his word, the earth.” The Hebrew term אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) is an adverbial accusative; one must supply a preposition before it (such as “through” or “to”) in the English translation.

[147:15]  ³ tn Heb “swiftly his word runs.”

[147:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who gives snow like wool, frost like ashes he scatters.”

[147:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “his ice.”

[147:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “Before his cold, who can stand?”

[147:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “he sends his word and melts them.”

[147:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “he blows his breath.”

[19:24]  ⁹ tn The disjunctive clause signals the beginning of the next scene and highlights God’s action.

[19:24]  ¹⁰ tn Or “burning sulfur” (the traditional “fire and brimstone”).

[19:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from the Lord from the heavens.” The words “It was sent down” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[19:24]  sn The text explicitly states that the sulfur and fire that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah was sent down from the sky by the Lord. What exactly this was, and how it happened, can only be left to intelligent speculation, but see J. P. Harland, “The Destruction of the Cities of the Plain,” BA 6 (1943): 41-54.

[9:23]  ¹² tn The preterite with the vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next clause in view of the emphasis put on the subject, Yahweh, by the disjunctive word order of that clause.

[9:23]  ¹³ tn By starting the clause with the subject (an example of disjunctive word order) the text is certainly stressing that Yahweh alone did this.

[9:23]  ¹⁴ tn The expression נָתַן קֹלֹת (natan qolot) literally means “gave voices” (also “voice”). This is a poetic expression for sending the thunder. Ps 29:3 talks about the “voice of Yahweh” – the God of glory thunders!

[9:23]  ¹⁵ sn This clause has been variously interpreted. Lightning would ordinarily accompany thunder; in this case the mention of fire could indicate that the lightning was beyond normal and that it was striking in such a way as to start fires on the ground. It could also mean that fire went along the ground from the pounding hail.

[9:24]  ¹⁶ tn The verb is the common preterite וַיְהִי (vayÿhi), which is normally translated “and there was” if it is translated at all. The verb הָיָה (hayah), however, can mean “be, become, befall, fall, fall out, happen.” Here it could be simply translated “there was hail,” but the active “hail fell” fits the point of the sequence better.

[9:24]  ¹⁷ tn The form מִתְלַקַּחַת (mitlaqqakhat) is a Hitpael participle; the clause reads, “and fire taking hold of itself in the midst of the hail.” This probably refers to lightning flashing back and forth. See also Ezek 1:4. God created a great storm with flashing fire connected to it.

[9:24]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “very heavy” or “very severe.” The subject “the hail” is implied.

[9:24]  ¹⁹ tn A literal reading of the clause would be “which there was not like it in all the land of Egypt.” The relative pronoun must be joined to the resumptive pronoun: “which like it (like which) there had not been.”

[9:25]  ²⁰ tn The exact expression is “from man even to beast.” R. J. Williams lists this as an example of the inclusive use of the preposition מִן (min) to be rendered “both…and” (Hebrew Syntax, 57, §327).

[9:25]  ²¹ tn Heb “all the cultivated grain of.”

[10:2]  ²² tn See the note on 9:24a.

[16:35]  ²³ tn For a discussion of the fire of the Lord, see J. C. H. Laughlin, “The Strange Fire of Nadab and Abihu,” JBL 95 (1976): 559-65.

[10:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “on the descent of.”

[10:11]  ²⁵ tn Or “heaven” (also in v. 13). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[37:2]  ²⁶ tn The imperative is followed by the infinitive absolute from the same root to express the intensity of the verb.

[37:2]  ²⁷ tn The word is the usual word for “to meditate; to murmur; to groan”; here it refers to the low building of the thunder as it rumbles in the sky. The thunder is the voice of God (see Ps 29).

[37:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “wings,” and then figuratively for the extremities of garments, of land, etc.

[37:4]  ²⁹ tn The verb simply has the pronominal suffix, “them.” The idea must be that when God brings in all the thunderings he does not hold back his lightning bolts either.

[37:5]  ³⁰ tn The form is the Niphal participle, “wonders,” from the verb פָּלָא (pala’, “to be wonderful; to be extraordinary”). Some commentators suppress the repeated verb “thunders,” and supply other verbs like “shows” or “works,” enabling them to make “wonders” the object of the verb rather than leaving it in an adverbial role. But as H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 236) notes, no change is needed, for one is not surprised to find repetition in Elihu’s words.

[37:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “and we do not know.”

[37:6]  ³² tn The verb actually means “be” (found here in the Aramaic form). The verb “to be” can mean “to happen, to fall, to come about.”

[37:6]  ³³ tn Heb “and [to the] shower of rain and shower of rains, be strong.” Many think the repetition grew up by variant readings; several Hebrew mss delete the second pair, and so many editors do. But the repetition may have served to stress the idea that the rains were heavy.

[37:6]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Be strong.”

[38:22]  ³⁵ sn Snow and ice are thought of as being in store, brought out by God for specific purposes, such as times of battle (see Josh 10:11; Exod 9:2ff.; Isa 28:17; Isa 30:30; and Ps 18:12 [13]).

[38:22]  ³⁶ tn The same Hebrew term (אוֹצָר, ’otsar), has been translated “storehouse” in the first line and “armory” in the second. This has been done for stylistic variation, but also because “hail,” as one of God’s “weapons” (cf. the following verse) suggests military imagery; in this context the word refers to God’s “ammunition dump” where he stockpiles hail.

[38:23]  ³⁷ sn The terms translated war and battle are different Hebrew words, but both may be translated “war” or “battle” depending on the context.

[38:24]  ³⁸ tn Because the parallel with “light” and “east wind” is not tight, Hoffmann proposed ‘ed instead, “mist.” This has been adopted by many. G. R. Driver suggests “parching heat” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 91-92).

[38:26]  ³⁹ tn Heb “on a land, no man.”

[38:26]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “a desert, no man in it.”

[38:27]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “to cause to sprout a source of vegetation.” The word מֹצָא (motsa’) is rendered “mine” in Job 28:1. The suggestion with the least changes is Wright’s: צָמֵא (tsame’, “thirsty”). But others choose מִצִּיָּה (mitsiyyah, “from the steppe”).

[38:29]  ⁴² tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[38:30]  ⁴³ tn Several suggest that the verb is not from חָבָא (khava’, “to hide”) but from a homonym, “to congeal.” This may be too difficult to support, however.

[38:31]  ⁴⁴ tn This word is found here and in 1 Sam 15:32. Dhorme suggests, with others, that there has been a metathesis (a reversal of consonants), and it is the same word found in Job 31:36 (“bind”). G. R. Driver takes it as “cluster” without changing the text (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 7 [1956] :3).

[38:32]  ⁴⁵ tn The word מַזָּרוֹת (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kgs 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for “crown,” and so “corona.”

[38:32]  ⁴⁶ sn See Job 9:9.

[38:34]  ⁴⁷ tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.

[38:36]  ⁴⁸ tn This verse is difficult because of the two words, טֻחוֹת (tukhot, rendered here “heart”) and שֶׂכְוִי (sekhvi, here “mind”). They have been translated a number of ways: “meteor” and “celestial appearance”; the stars “Procyon” and “Sirius”; “inward part” and “mind”; even as birds, “ibis” and “cock.” One expects them to have something to do with nature – clouds and the like. The RSV accordingly took them to mean “meteor” (from a verb “to wander”) and “a celestial appearance.” But these meanings are not well-attested.

[38:37]  ⁴⁹ tn The word actually means “to cause to lie down.”

[66:16]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “upon all men”; TEV “all the people of the world.”

[66:16]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “many are the slain of the Lord.”

[2:30]  ⁵² tn Or “in the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[7:4]  ⁵³ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[7:4]  ⁵⁴ tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).

[16:8]  ⁵⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[16:8]  ⁵⁶ tn Grk “the fourth”; the referent (the fourth angel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:8]  ⁵⁷ tn Grk “men,” but this is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") and refers to both men and women.

[16:9]  ⁵⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “thus” to indicate the implied result of the bowl poured on the sun.

[16:9]  ⁵⁹ tn Grk “men,” but this is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") and refers to both men and women.

[16:9]  ⁶⁰ tn On this phrase BDAG 536 s.v. καῦμα states, “burning, heat Rv 7:16…καυματίζεσθαι κ. μέγα be burned with a scorching heat 16:9.”

[16:9]  ⁶¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “yet” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[16:9]  ⁶² tn For the translation “ruling authority” for ἐξουσία (exousia) see L&N 37.35.

[16:21]  ⁶³ tn Here BDAG 988 s.v. ταλαντιαῖος states, “weighing a talent…χάλαζα μεγάλη ὡς ταλαντιαία a severe hailstorm with hailstones weighing a talent (the talent=125 librae, or Roman pounds of c. 343 gr. or 12 ounces each) (weighing about a hundred pounds NRSV) Rv 16:21.” This means each hailstone would weigh just under 100 pounds or 40 kilograms.

[16:21]  ⁶⁴ tn Or “the sky.” Due to the apocalyptic nature of this book, it is probably best to leave the translation as “from heaven,” since God is ultimately the source of the judgment.

[16:21]  ⁶⁵ tn Grk “on men,” but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a generic sense to refer to people in general (the hailstones did not single out adult males, but would have also fallen on women and children).

[16:21]  ⁶⁶ tn Grk “the men”; for stylistic reasons the pronoun “they” is used here.

[16:21]  ⁶⁷ tn Grk “the plague of it.”

[16:21]  ⁶⁸ tn Grk “since the plague of it was exceedingly great.”