And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard,.... Or, "the glory of his voice" ; his majestic voice, the voice of his word, as the Targum, giving orders for the destruction of the Assyrian army; this was heard by the angel who obeyed it: and such a voice will be heard, ordering the destruction of antichrist, and the antichristian powers, in the pouring out of the vials by the angels, fitly signified by the following emblems; see Re 16:1.
This voice is commonly interpreted of thunder, which is the voice of the Lord, and a very majestic one, Ps 29:3 and the destruction of the Assyrian army might be by thunder and lightning, and hailstones, and attended with such a tempest as here described, though not mentioned in the history:and shall show the lighting down of his arm; or the strength of the arm of his power, as the Targum; his mighty arm, and the descent of it; meaning what should descend from heaven at the time of this tempest, as thunderbolts, balls of fire, hailstones, &c.
; and by all which may be meant the heavy judgments of God, which fell upon his enemies, and were intolerable unto them: the metaphor is taken from the motion of a man in smiting another, who lifts up his hand, when it falls with the greater might, and rests upon him:with the indignation of [his] anger; as when a man strikes in great wrath and fury: the heaping up of words here, and as follows, shows the vehemence and excess of anger:and [with] the flame of a devouring fire; or, "of a fire devouring"; the Assyrian army; which, the Jews say, burnt their souls, destroyed their lives, but not their bodies.
The Targum is,"with the flame of fire, which consumes the graven images.''The destruction of mystical Babylon will be by fire, Re 18:8:[with] scattering, and tempest, and hailstones; with lightning, which rends things in pieces, and scatters them here and there, and with a violent storm of rain and hail; see Re 16:18.
wlwq dwh "gloriam vocis suae", V. L.