Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 18:12

"At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, Hailstones and coals of fire." — Psalms 18:12 (ASV)

At the brightness. This is obscure. Literally, From the brightness before him his clouds passed through (Hebrew, avar; Septuagint, διῆλθον; Vulgate, transierunt) hail and fiery coals. In Samuel it is, From the brightness before him flamed fiery coals, which is the description we should expect, and, doubtless, gives the sense we are to attach to our text. Through the dark curtain of clouds the lightnings dart like emanations from the Divine brightness which they hide.

The difficulty arises from the position of avaiv, “his clouds,” which looks like a subject rather than an object to avrû. It has been conjectured, from comparison with Samuel, that the word has been inserted through error, from its likeness to the verb. If retained, it must be rendered as object: “Out of the brightness of his presence there passed through his clouds hail and fiery coals.” And some obscurity of language is pardonable in a description of phenomena so overpowering and bewildering as “a tempest dropping fire.” A modern poet touches this feeling:

“Then fire was sky, and sky fire,
And both one brief ecstasy,
Then ashes.”—R. Browning, Easter Day.

In the Authorized Version, the thought is of a sudden clearing of the heavens, which is not true to nature, and the clause hailstones and coals of fire comes in as an exclamation, as in the next verse. But there it is probably an erroneous repetition, being wanting in Samuel and in the Septuagint version of the psalm. Notice how the feeling of the terrible fury of the storm is heightened by the mention of “hail,” so rare in Palestine.