WHIRLWINDS
Were very frequent in the deserts of Arabia, Job 37:9; Job 1:38 Nahum 1:3, and travelers in the East have encountered many. Most of them are not formidable, Isaiah 17:13; but one now and then occurs, sudden, swift, and awful in its devastating course; houses and trees are no obstruction in its way, and the traveler is buried alive under the pillar of sand it raises and bears along, like a water-spout at sea, Job 1:19 Isaiah 21:1. The sudden and resistless judgments of God are well compared to whirlwinds, Psalms 58:9 Proverbs 1:27 Isaiah 66:15. One of the Hebrew words thus translated sometimes denotes only a powerful and tempestuous gust of wind, Jeremiah 23:19; Jeremiah 1:30 Zechariah 9:14. See WINDS.