The Hebrew chori is an adjective describing burning intensity, fierce heat, or fierceness — particularly in the phrase chori af (burning of nose/anger). It is related to charar (to burn, to be scorched). The word can also refer to whiteness (the Horites, cave-dwellers) in proper name usage.
Chori af — the 'heat of anger' — is a bold anthropomorphism for divine wrath. Scripture does not flinch from describing God's righteous indignation in visceral terms. Numbers 25:4 records 'the fierce anger of the LORD' (chori aph YHWH) as the reason behind judgment on Israel's unfaithfulness. This language serves a pastoral function: God is not indifferent to evil. His wrath is the flip side of his love — the burning intensity that cannot tolerate that which destroys his beloved people. The solution to God's burning anger is not to minimize it but to recognize that it was fully satisfied at the cross (Romans 3:25 — hilasterion, propitiation).