whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
Parallel Translations
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whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
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Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
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Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind;
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Isaiah 5:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 45:5 Your arrows are sharp. The nations fall under you, with arrows in the heart of the king’s enemies.
- Ezekiel 21:9-11 “Son of man, prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says: “A sword! A sword! It is sharpened, and also polished. It is sharpened that it may make a slaughter. It is polished that it may be as lightning. Should we then make mirth? The rod of my son condemns every tree. It is given to be polished, that it may be handled. The sword is sharpened. Yes, it is polished to give it into the hand of the killer.” ’
- Nahum 2:3-4 The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished. The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the wide ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.
- Judges 5:22 Then the horse hoofs stamped because of the prancing, the prancing of their strong ones.
- Psalms 7:12-13 If a man doesn’t repent, he will sharpen his sword; he has bent and strung his bow. He has also prepared for himself the instruments of death. He makes ready his flaming arrows.
- Psalms 120:4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.
- Isaiah 21:1 The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
- Jeremiah 5:16 Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men.
- Jeremiah 47:3 At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don’t look back to their children for feebleness of hands;
- Micah 4:13 Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; and you will beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to Yahweh, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.
- Nahum 3:2 The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (10 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 5:28 Whose arrows [are] sharp, and all their…
Isa 5:28 Whose arrows [are] sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
Ver. 28. Whose arrows are sharp.] Or, Sharpened, sc., to wound the deeper.
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Their horses’ hoofs.] Judea was a stony country; but hard to hard will not easily break.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent;…
Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; who are every way furnished and ready for my work, waiting only for my command.
Their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, because they shall not be broken or battered by the length or stoutness and ruggedness of the way.
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Their wheels like a whirlwind; partly for the swiftness of their march, and partly for the force and violence of their chariots in battle.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent,....…
Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent,.... Ready to shoot their arrows upon any occasion; and which being sharp, penetrated deep, and were deadly. This includes all kind of warlike instruments, with which they should come furnished, and ready prepared to do execution:
their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint; by those who rode upon them; who knowing how strong and firm they were, and that they were not worn out, nor hurt by the length of the way they came, would not spare to make haste upon them:
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and their wheels like a whirlwind; that is, the wheels of their chariots, they used in battle, as Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret it; and so the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it: this metaphor denotes both the swiftness with which they should come, and the noise and rattling they should make, and the power and force in bearing down all before them. The Targum is,
"and his wheels swift as a tempest.''
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Bent - Who are every way furnished and ready…
Bent - Who are every way furnished and ready for my work, waiting only for my command. Flint - Because they shall not be broken or battered by the length or stonyness and ruggedness of the way. Whirlwind - For the swiftness of their march, and for the force and violence of their chariots in battle.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. Their horses' hoofs shall be counted like…
Verse 28. Their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint - "The hoofs of their horses shall be counted as adamant"] The shoeing of horses with iron plates nailed to the hoof is quite a modern practice, and was unknown to the ancients, as appears from the silence of the Greek and Roman writers, especially those that treat of horse medicine, who could not have passed over a matter so obvious and of such importance that now the whole science takes its name from it, being called by us farriery. The horseshoes of leather and iron which are mentioned; the silver and gold shoes with which Nero and Poppaea shod their mules, used occasionally to preserve the hoofs of delicate cattle, or for vanity, were of a very different kind; they enclosed the whole hoof as in a case, or as a shoe does a man's foot, and were bound or tied on. For this reason the strength, firmness and solidity of a horse's hoof was of much greater importance with them than with us, and was esteemed one of the first praises of a fine horse. Xenophon says that a good horse's hoof is hard, hollow, and sounds upon the ground like a cymbal. Hence the χαλκοποδες ιπποι, of Homer, and Virgil's solido graviter sonat ungula cornu. And Xenophon gives directions for hardening the horses' hoofs by making the pavement on which he stands in the stable with roundheaded stones. For want of this artificial defence to the foot which our horses have, Amos, Am 6:12, speaks of it as a thing as much impracticable to make horses run upon a hard rock as to plough up the same rock with oxen: -
"Shall horses run upon a rock?
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Shall one plough it up with oxen?"
These circumstances must be taken into consideration in order to give us a full notion of the propriety and force of the image by which the prophet sets forth the strength and excellence of the Babylonish cavalry, which made a great part of the strength of the Assyrian army. Xenop. Cyrop. lib. ii.
Like a whirlwind] כסופה cassuphah, like the stormy blast. Here sense and sound are well connected.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Whose arrows are sharp - Bows and arrows were…
Whose arrows are sharp - Bows and arrows were the common instruments of fighting at a distance. Arrows were, of course, made sharp, and usually pointed with iron, for the purpose of penetrating the shields or coats of mail which were used to guard against them.
And all their bows bent - All ready for battle.
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Their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint - It is supposed that the ancients did not usually shoe their horses. Hence, a hard, solid hoof would add greatly to the value of a horse. The prophet here means, that their horses would be prepared for any fatigue, or any expedition; see a full description of horses and chariots in Bochart’s “Hieroz.” P. i. lib. ii. ch. viii. ix.
And their wheels like a whirlwind - That is, the wheels of their chariots shall be swift as the wind, and they shall raise a cloud of dust like a whirlwind. This comparison was very common, as it is now; see “Bochart.” See, also, a magnificent description of a war-horse in Job 39:19-25.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Hoofs. They were hardened, but not shod. (Xenophon) (Amos…
Hoofs. They were hardened, but not shod. (Xenophon) (Amos vi. 13.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain bent--ready for battle.
bent--ready for battle.
hoofs . . . flint--The ancients did not shoe their horses: hence the value of hard hoofs for long marches.
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wheels--of their chariots. The Assyrian army abounded in cavalry and chariots (Isa 22:6-7; Isa 36:8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. bows bent] which was done only for immediate…
28. bows bent] which was done only for immediate action. his horses’ hoofs … flint] Therefore he will not shrink from riding them on the rocky soil of Palestine, which was extremely unfavourable to the use of horses (Amo_6:12). Similar allusions are frequent in ancient literature (κρατερώνυχες ἵπποι) the shoeing of horses being unknown in antiquity. The bows and arrows, cavalry and chariots, are all characteristic of the Assyrians.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent.…
Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. The special weapon of the Assyrian soldiers is the bow. From the king in his chariot to the light-armed recruit just pressed into the service, all fight mainly with this weapon, more particularly in the earlier times (see "Ancient Monarchies," vol. 1. pp. 414, 423, 424-437, etc.). Swords and spears are also known, but comparatively little used. Their horses" hoofs... like flint. Hard, strong, and solid, as was most necessary when shoeing was unknown. Their wheels like a whirlwind. Sennacherib (Isa_37:24) is represented as boasting of the "multitude of his chariots;" and both the sculptures and the inscriptions of Assyria show that the chariot throe was numerous, and was regarded as more important than any other. The king always went to battle in a chariot. For the comparison of the rush of chariot-wheels to a whirlwind. (see below, Isa_66:15; and comp. Jer_4:13)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.