But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, And it will devour its palaces, With shouting in the day of battle, With a tempest in the day of the whirlwind;
I will kindle a fire in the wall - It may be that the prophet means to speak of some conflagration from within, in that he says not, as elsewhere, “I will send afire upon,” but, “I will kindle a fire in” Amos 1:4, Amos 1:7, Amos 1:10, Amos 1:12; Amos 2:2, Amos 2:5. But “the shouting” is the battle-cry (Job 39:25; Jeremiah 20:16; Zephaniah 1:16, etc.) of the victorious enemy, the cheer of exultation, anticipating its capture. That onslaught was to be resistless, sweeping, like a whirlwind, all before it. The fortress and walls of Rabbah were to yield before the onset of the enemy, as the tents of their caravans were whirled flat on the ground before the eddying of the whirlwinds from the desert, burying all beneath them.