Fire
Fire, in the spiritual sense, can mean either love or hatred depending on the context, just as natural fire can be either comforting in keeping you warm, or scary in burning down your house. Our language reflects this, too -- we use concepts like a smoldering hatred or a burning love. So fire signifies a love, either a good love of the neighbor and to the Lord, or, in a bad sense, selfish love of oneself that, if unchecked by conscience, leads to hatred of anyone that opposes it.
Joel 2:1-3
1
Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is close at hand:
2
A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
3
A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them.
