John Gill Bible Commentary

He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death,.... The weapons of his indignation, Isa 13:5; which, will issue both in the first and second death, corporeal and eternal; the instruments of the former are diseases of various kinds, and judgments, as famine, pestilence, &c. and of the latter not only the law is an instrument of it, that being the letter which kills, and is the ministration of condemnation and death, but even the Gospel itself to wicked men is the savour of death unto death; and devils will be the executioners of it; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors: the word for persecutors signifies "hot" or "burning" (h), and designs such persons who burn in malice and wrath, In rage and fury, against the saints, and hotly pursue after them, as Laban did after Jacob, Gen 31:36; for these more especially God has determined in his eternal purposes and decrees, and for these he has provided in his quiver, arrows of wrath and vengeance, fiery ones; and against these will he bring them forth, direct them, and shoot them at them, Psa 64:7. Some (i) understand all this not of God, but of the wicked man, and read "if he turn not", but, on the contrary, instead of that, "will whet his sword, bend his bow", &c. against the righteous; yet he shall be disappointed, he shall not accomplish his designs, as appears by the following verses; these phrases are used of wicked men, Psa 11:2, but the former sense seems best. (h) "ardentibus", V. L. "in ardentes", Montanus; "hot persecutors", Ainsworth. (i) So Brentius & Glassius in Gejerus.