Our God shall come
That is, Christ, who is truly and properly God, and who was promised and expected as a divine Person; and which was necessary on account of the work he came about; and believers claim an interest in him as their God; and he is their God, in whom they trust, and whom they worship: and this coming of his is to be understood, not of his coming in the flesh; for though that was promised, believed, and prayed for, as these words are by some rendered, "may our God come" F18; yet at his first coming he was silent, his voice was not heard in the streets, ( Matthew 12:19 ) ; nor did any fire or tempest attend that: nor is it to be interpreted of his second coming, or coming to judgment; for though that also is promised, believed, and prayed for; and when he will not be silent, but by his voice will raise the dead, summon all before him, and pronounce the sentence on all; and the world, and all that is therein, will be burnt with fire, and a horrible tempest rained upon the wicked; yet it is better to understand it of his coming to set up his kingdom in the world, and to punish his professing people for their disbelief and rejection of him; see ( Matthew 16:28 ) ( Hebrews 10:37 ) ;
and shall not keep silence;
contain himself, bear with the Jews any longer, but come forth in his wrath against them; see ( Psalms 50:21 Psalms 50:22 ) ; and it may also denote the great sound of the Gospel, and the very public ministration of it in the Gentile world, at or before this time, for the enlargement of Christ's kingdom in it;
a fire shall devour before him;
meaning either the fire of the divine word making its way among the Gentiles, consuming their idolatry, superstition or rather the fire of divine wrath coming upon the Jews to the uttermost and even it may be literally understood of the fire that consumed their city and temple, as was predicted, ( Zechariah 11:1 ) ( Matthew 22:7 ) ;
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him;
the time of Jerusalem's destruction being such a time of trouble as has not been since the world began, ( Matthew 24:21 ) .