• niṣkauravāṁ pṛthvīm — earth devoid of Kauravas
  An astonishing declaration. The same earth was 'made niṣ-kṣatriya' by Paraśurāma; Balarāma threatens the analogous feat against the Kauravas. He will hold back the threat, but the threat is real.
• halam — His plow
  Balarāma's signature weapon. Hala — the cowherd's tool, the farmer's instrument. The Lord's weapon is not the sword of conquest but the implement of cultivation. He breaks open the earth as a farmer breaks open a field.
• dahan iva jagat trayam — as if burning the three worlds
  The same simile used for Nṛsiṁha and for Śiva's tāṇḍava. Balarāma's mood now belongs to the destructive aspect of Bhagavān — and yet, as verse 47 will explain, it remains śikṣārtham — for instruction.

• What would change if I trusted that the Lord's wrath, like His mercy, is for purification?
• Where am I afraid of His firmness when I should welcome it?

The cowherd-Lord lifts His plough as another would lift a flame to the dry grass of the worlds — a single gesture, but the three worlds feel the heat. The plough has tilled Vraja's fields; it can also till Kuru capitals.