Proverbs 1:27

Pro 1:27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

Ver. 27. When your fear cometh as desolation.] Scilicet, Of war, which lays heaps upon heaps, and leaves not a stone upon a stone. {Mat 24:2}

As a whirlwind.] Suddenly and irresistibly, and with a terrible noise and loud crash.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, your destruction, which thing you feared.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

fear--the object of it.

desolation--literally, "a tumultuous noise," denoting their utter confusion.

destruction--or calamity (Pro 1:26) compared to a whirlwind, as to fatal rapidity.

distress-- (Psa 4:1; Psa 44:11).

anguish--a state of inextricable oppression, the deepest despair.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 27. Your destruction cometh as a whirlwind] כסופה kesuphah, as the all-prostrating blast. Sense and sound are here well expressed. Suphah here is the gust of wind.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. desolation] So R.V. marg. Comp. Zep_1:15, where both in A.V. and R.V. this and a cognate Heb. word are rendered “wasteness and desolation.” The parallel, however, is better preserved if, with R.V. text we render storm, as in Eze_38:9, A.V. and R.V. LXX. has θόρυβος; Vulg. repentina calamitas.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When your fear cometh as desolation,.... When such will be the calamity that will occasion this fear, that it shall be like some desolating judgment, as famine, sword, and pestilence, which lays all waste: and such was the destruction of the Jews by the Romans; it not only laid Jerusalem and the temple waste, but the whole country of Judea. These are the "desolations" said to be "determined", or "the consummation and that determined", which should be "poured upon the desolate", Dan 9:26;

and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; suddenly and unthought of, fierce, and boisterous, throwing down and carrying all before it: so the said destruction did; it threw down the walls and houses of the city of Jerusalem, and the temple, and its fine buildings, so that not one stone was left upon another not thrown down, Mat 24:2;

when distress and anguish cometh upon you; as they did at that time with a witness, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans: what with the sword of the enemy without, and the famine within; together with the vast number of cutthroats and seditious persons among themselves; it was such a time of distress and tribulation as never was from the beginning of the world, nor ever will be, Mat 24:22. Josephus's history of those times is a proper comment on these words.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Desolation - Better, tempest. The rapid gathering of the clouds, the rushing of the mighty winds, are the fittest types of the suddenness with which in the end the judgment of God shall fall on those who look not for it. Compare Mat 24:29 etc.; Luk 17:24.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

As desolation; as some desolating sword or judgment, which quickly overruns a whole country.

As a whirlwind; which instantly spreadeth itself from place to place with great and irresistible violence, and doing much mischief.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. When… fear cometh — Wisdom dwells upon this for the sake of impression, adding terrible qualifications.

Desolation — Or, a desolating tempest.

A whirlwind — A tornado, which rapidly whirls along with irresistible violence, spreading destruction in its path. Compare Job_1:16; Job_1:19; Zep_1:15. Tornadoes were very frequent in the East during the winter and cold seasons. They often proved fatal to travellers and others exposed to their fury. Morier, describing the whirlwinds of Persia, says they swept along in a manner truly terrific. They carried away in their vortex, sand, branches of trees, and the stubble of the fields, and usually appeared to make a communication between the earth and the clouds. Our own country occasionally furnishes examples of terrific tornadoes.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When your fear cometh as desolation. The imagery in this verse is borrowed from nature from the tempest and whirlwind, which, in their impetuous fury, involve all in irretrievable ruin. The two leading ideas here in the writer"s mind are calamity and fear. These their fear, that which causes their fear; and their destruction, i.e. calamity both representing Wisdom"s, and so God"s, judgment, will come on sinners as a wasting tempest and sweeping hurricane. The terror and devastation caused by these latter as they pass over the face of nature are employed to depict the alarm and ruin of sinners. Desolation; hwav (shaavah) is a wasting, crashing tempest, (cf. Pro_3:25 Zep_1:15) derived from hav (shaah). "to make a crash," as of a house falling. The Vulgate reads, repentura calamitas; the LXX, afnw yorubov ; both bringing out the idea of suddenness, and the latter that of the uproar of the tempest. The Khetib, or traditional text of the manuscripts (hwavk), is equivalent to the Keri, or emended reading (hawOvk), and both appear to have the same root meaning. Destruction (dyae, eyd); the same as "calamity" in the preceding verse. Whirlwind; hpWs (suphah), from the root pWs (suph), "to snatch, or carry away," means a whirlwind carrying everything before it the katagiv of the LXX, or hurricane, as in Arist., "Mund.," 4, 16. Distress and anguish (hqWxw hrx, tsarah v"tzukah). A corresponding alliteration occurs in Isa_30:6 and Zep_1:15. The root signification of the former is that of compression, reproduced in the LXX yliqiv , and the Vulgate tribulatio; that of the latter is narrowness. LXX, poliorkia , "a beleaguering;" VUlgate, angustga. The LXX adds, at the close of this verse, h otan erchtai umin oleyrov as explanatory.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

when your fear comes like a storm Like a cloud that comes up suddenly.

like a whirlwind Tourbillon in Old French, in German wirbelwind (Cf. Rashi, Jer. 4:13, Ps. 83:16).

comes Heb. יאתה, it comes.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.