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A fire not blown shall consume him - As Zophar is here showing that the wicked cannot escape from the Divine judgments; so he points out the different instruments which God employs for their destruction. The wrath of God - any secret or supernatural curse. The iron weapon - the spear or such like. The bow, and its swift-flying arrow.
Darkness - deep horror and perplexity. A fire not blown - a supernatural fire; lightning: such as fell on Korah, and his company, to whose destruction there is probably here an allusion: hence the words, It shall go ill with him who is left in his tabernacle. "And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. Get ye up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Depart from the tents of these wicked men. There came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense;" Numbers 16:20, etc.
All darkness shall be hid in his secret places - The word “darkness” here, as is common, means evidently calamity. The phrase “is hid,” means is treasured up for him. The phrase “in his secret places,” may mean “for his treasures,” or instead of the great treasures which he had laid up for himself. The Apostle Paul has a similar expression, in which, perhaps, he makes an allusion to this place. Romans 2:5, “but, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath.” Treasures formerly were laid up in secret places, or places of darkness, that were regarded as inaccessible; see the notes at Isaiah 45:3.
A fire not blown - A fire unkindled. Probably the meaning is, a fire that man has not kindled, or that is of heavenly origin. The language is such as would convey the idea of being consumed by lightning, and probably Zophar intended to refer to such calamities as had come upon the family of Job, Job 1:16. There is much “tact” in this speech of Zophar, and in the discourses of his friends on this point. They never, I believe, refer expressly to the calamities that had come upon Job and his family. They never in so many words say, that those calamities were proof of the wrath of heaven. But they go on to mention a great many similar “cases” in the abstract; to prove that the wicked would be destroyed in that manner; that when such calamities came upon people, it was proof that they were wicked, and they leave Job himself to make the application. The allusion, as in this case, was too broad to be misunderstood, and Job was not slow in regarding it as intended for himself. Prof Lee (“in loc.”) supposes that there may be an allusion here to the “fire that shall not be quenched,” or to the future punishment of the wicked. But this seems to me to be foreign to the design of the argument, and not to be suggested or demanded by the use of the word. The argument is not conducted on the supposition that people will be punished in the future world. That would at once have given a new phase to the whole controversy, and would have settled it at once. The question was about the dealings of God “in this life,” and whether men are punished according to their deeds here. Had there been a knowledge of the future world of rewards and punishments, the whole difficulty would have vanished at once, and the controversy would have been ended.
It shall go ill with him in his tabernacle - Hebrew שׂריד ירע yâra‛ śârı̂yd - “It shall be ill with whatever survives or remains in his tent.” That is, all that remains in his dwelling shall be destroyed. Prof Lee renders it, “In his tent shall his survivor be broken” - supposing that the word ירע yâra‛ is from רעע râ‛a‛ - “to break.” But it is more probably from רוּע rûa‛ - “to be evil; to suffer evil; to come off ill:” and the sense is, that evil, or calamity, would come upon all that should remain in his dwelling.