Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
Parallel Translations
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Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
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Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
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(58-10) Before your pots can feel the thorns, He will sweep it away with a whirlwind, the raw and the burning alike.
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to Psalms 58:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 10:25 When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; but the righteous stand firm forever.
- Psalms 118:12 They surrounded me like bees. They are quenched like the burning thorns. In Yahweh’s name I cut them off.
- Ecclesiastes 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
- Isaiah 17:13 The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
- Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, Yahweh’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm: It will burst on the head of the wicked.
- Numbers 16:30 But if Yahweh makes a new thing, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up with all that belong to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall understand that these men have despised Yahweh.”
- Job 18:18 He will be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
- Job 20:5-29 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment? Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, yet he will perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more. His children will seek the favor of the poor. His hands will give back his wealth. His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in the dust. “Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth; yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him. He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly. He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him. He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter. He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down. He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten. For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up. “Because he knew no quietness within him, he will not save anything of that in which he delights. There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity will not endure. In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him. When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating. He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through. He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him. All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent. The heavens will reveal his iniquity. The earth will rise up against him. The increase of his house will depart. They will rush away in the day of his wrath. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”
- Job 27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place.
- Psalms 10:2 In arrogance, the wicked hunt down the weak. They are caught in the schemes that they devise.
- Psalms 10:5 His ways are prosperous at all times. He is arrogant, and your laws are far from his sight. As for all his adversaries, he sneers at them.
- Psalms 55:23 But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in you.
- Psalms 73:18-20 Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction. How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors. As a dream when one wakes up, so, Lord, when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.
- Proverbs 1:27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you.
- Proverbs 14:32 The wicked is brought down in his calamity, but in death, the righteous has a refuge.
- Isaiah 40:24 They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (17 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9. Before your pots can feel the fire of…
9. Before your pots can feel the fire of your thorns. Some obscurity attaches to this verse, arising partly from the perplexed construction, and partly from the words being susceptible of a double meaning. Thus the Hebrew word סירות, siroth, signifies either a pot or a thorn. If we adopt the first signification, we must read, before your pots feel the fire which has been kindled by thorns; if the second, before your thorns grow to a bush, that is, reach their full height and thickness. What, following the former sense, we have translated flesh yet raw, must be rendered, provided we adopt the other, tender, or not yet grown. But the scope of the Psalmist in the passage is sufficiently obvious. He refers to the swiftness of that judgment which God would execute upon his enemies, and prays that he would carry them away as by a whirlwind, either before they arrived at the full growth of their strength, like the thorn sprung to the vigorous plant, or before they came to maturity and readiness, like flesh which has been boiled in the pot. The latter meaning would seem to be the one of which the passage is most easily susceptible, that God, in the whirlwind of his anger, would carry away the wicked like flesh not yet boiled, which may be said scarcely to have felt the heat of the fire.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain As flesh is taken raw out of the pot…
As flesh is taken raw out of the pot before the water seethe: so he desireth God to destroy their enterprises before they bring them to pass.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 58:9 Before your pots can feel the thorns,…
Psa 58:9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.
Ver. 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns, &c.] Of this text we may say, as one doth of another, it had been easy had not commentators made it so knotty. I am for that of Drusius, Tractum a semicrudis carnibus olla extractis priusquam ignis calorem senserint, It is a comparison taken from raw flesh, taken out of the pot before it hath felt the full force of the fire (Proverb, clas. 2, l. 2. Pro 30:16).
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Both living, and in his wrath] i.e. When they are most vigorous and vivacious, to see to, his wrath shall sweep them away.
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 Feel the thorns, i.e. the heat of the fire…
Feel the thorns, i.e. the heat of the fire kindled by the thorns put under them for that purpose; before your pots can be thoroughly heated.
Take them away, to wit, mine enemies; whose sudden destruction he describes under this similitude.
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As with a whirlwind, i.e. violently and irresistibly.
Both living, and in his wrath, Heb. as living (i.e. alive, as he did Korah, Num 16, the particle as being here not a note of similitude, but of truth or asseveration as it is Joh 1:14, and oft elsewhere, as hath been noted) as in (which preposition is frequently understood)
wrath, i.e. as a man moved with great wrath destroys his enemy without mercy, and is ready to devour him alive, if it were possible; or, both that which is raw, (as the Hebrew word chai signifies, Lev 13:16; 1Sa 2:15, to wit, the raw flesh, which is supposed to be put into the pot that it may be boiled,) and the burning fire. There is indeed great variety of construction and interpretation of these Hebrew words, which is not strange, especially considering the conciseness of the Hebrew language, and that this is a proverbial speech; nor is it of any great importance, because it is not in any great point of faith, and because the sense of it is agreed, the only difference being about the manner and ground of the phrase. The learned reader may see more upon this place in my Latin Synopsis.
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 Before your pots can feel the thorns,.... Which is…
Before your pots can feel the thorns,.... Which is soon done; for as dry thorns make a great blaze, so they give a quick heat; the pots soon feel them, or the water in them soon receives heat from them. From imprecations the psalmist proceeds to prophesy, and foretells the sudden destruction of wicked men, which would be before a pot could be heated with a blaze of thorns. The Targum is,
"before the wicked become tender, they harden as the thorn:''
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that is, they never become tender, or have any tender consciences, but are hardened in sin from their infancy. Some render the words, "before your thorns grow up to a brier" or "bramble" (i); little thorns become great ones, tender thorns hard ones, as Jarchi; that is, as he interprets it, before the children of the wicked are grown up, they are destroyed; those sons of Belial, who are like to thorns thrust away, Sa2 23:6. Others, as Aben Ezra, "before they understand"; that is, wise and knowing men; "that your thorns are a bramble"; or from lesser ones are become greater; and so denotes, as before, the suddenness and quickness of their destruction, as follows:
he, that is, God,
shall take them away as with a whirlwind: not to himself, as Enoch; nor to heaven, whither Elijah went up by a whirlwind; but out of the land of the living, and as with a tempest, to hell, where snares, fire, and brimstone, are rained upon them; see Job 27:20;
both living, and in his wrath: when in health and full strength, and so go quick to hell; as Korah and his company alive into the earth; and all in wrath and sore displeasure: for the righteous are also taken away; but then it is from the evil to come, and to everlasting happiness; and through many tempestuous providences, which are in love, and for their good, do they enter the kingdom: and those that are alive at Christ's coming will be caught up to meet him in the air; but the wicked are taken away as in a whirlwind, alive, and in wrath.
(i) Tigurine version.
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 Before - Before your pots can be heated. Take…
Before - Before your pots can be heated. Take them - Violently and irresistibly. Living - Alive, as he did Korah.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns]…
Verse 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns] Ye shall be destroyed with a sudden destruction. From the time that the fire of God's wrath is kindled about you, it will be but as a moment before ye be entirely consumed by it: so very short will be the time, that it may be likened to the heat of the first blaze of dry thorns under a pot, that has not as yet been able to penetrate the metal, and warm what is contained in it.
A whirlwind] Or the suffocating simoon that destroys life in an instant, without previous warning: so, without pining sickness-while ye are living-lively and active, the whirlwind of God's wrath shall sweep you away.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 58:9. Before your pots can feel the thorns…
Psa 58:9. Before your pots can feel the thorns — That is, the heat of a fire of thorns made under them, which they soon do, as it is a quick fire, and burns violently while it lasts; he shall take them away — Namely, mine enemies; so speedily, with such a hasty and destructive flame; as with a whirlwind — That is, violently and irresistibly; both living, and in his wrath — Hebrew, כמו חי כמו חרון, chemo chi, chemo charon, as living, as wrath, or, as it were alive, as it were with fury. “The intention of the psalmist is to express both the quickness and terribleness of the destruction of the wicked. They were to be taken away suddenly, or rapidly, before the pots could feel the soon kindling and vehement fire of thorns. They were to be taken off by some terrible catastrophe, like the furious burning of thorns, to which the wrath of God is frequently compared.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Before your pots can feel the thorns - The…
Before your pots can feel the thorns - The word “thorns” here - אטד 'âṭâd - refers to what is called “Christ’s thorn,” the southern buckthorn. “Gesenius.” The fire made of such thorns when dry would be quick and rapid, and water would be soon heated by it. The idea is, that what is here referred to would occur “quickly” - sooner than the most rapid and intense fire could make an impression on a kettle and its contents. The destruction of the wicked would be, as it were, instantaneous. The following quotation from Prof. Hackitt (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 135) will explain this passage: “A species of thorn, now very common near Jerusalem, bears the name of Spina Christi, or Christ’s thorn. The people of the country gather these bushes and plants, and use them as fuel. As it is now, so it was of old. ‘As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool,’ Ecc 7:6 ‘Before your pots can feel the thorns,’ namely, the fire of them, ‘he shall sweep them away,’ Psa 58:9 The figure in this case is taken from travelers in the desert, or from shepherds tenting abroad, who build a fire in the open air, where it is exposed to the wind; a sudden gust arises and sweeps away the fuel almost before it has begun to burn. ‘As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire’ Isa 33:12. The meaning is that the wicked are worthless - their destruction shall be sudden and complete.”
He shall take them away - The word rendered “shall take them away” means properly “to shiver, to shudder;” and it is then applied to the commotion and raging of a tempest. They shal be taken away as in a storm that makes everything shiver or tremble; Job 27:21. It would be done “suddenly” and “entirely.” A sudden storm sent by God would beat upon them, and they would be swept away in an instant.
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Both living and in his wrath - Margin, “as living as wrath.” This expression is exceedingly obscure. The Septuagint renders it, “he shall devour them as it were living - as it were in wrath.” The Latin Vulgate: “He shall devour them as living, so in wrath.” Prof. Alexander: “Whether raw or done.” He supposes that the idea is, that God would come upon them while forming their plans; and that the illustration is derived from the act of “cooking,” and that the meaning is, that God would come upon them whether those plans were matured or not - “cooked” or “raw.” This seems to me to be a very forced construction, and one which it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear. The word rendered “living” - חי chay - means properly “alive, living;” and then, “lively, fresh, vigorous;” and is applicable then to a plant that is living or green. It “may” be here applied to the “thorns” that had been gathered for the fire, still green or alive; and the idea “here” would be, that even while those thorns were alive and green - before they had been kindled by the fire (or while they were trying to kindle them), a sudden tempest would come and sweep them all away.
It is not, indeed, an uncommon occurrence in the deserts of the East, that while, in their journeyings, travelers pause to cook their food, and have gathered the fuel - thorns, or whatever may be at hand - and have placed their pot over the fire, a sudden tempest comes from the desert, and sweeps everything away. Rosenmuller in loc. Such an occurrence “may” be referred to here. The word rendered “wrath” - חרון chârôn - means properly “burning;” and then it is used to denote anything burning. It is applied to wrath or anger, because it seems to “burn.” Num 25:4; Num 32:14; 1Sa 28:18. Here, however, it “may” be taken literally as applicable to thorns when they begin to be kindled, though still green. They are seen first as gathered and placed under the pots; then they are seen as still green - not dried up by the kindling flame; then they are seen as on fire; and, in a moment - before the pots could be affected by them - all is swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The “idea” is that of the sudden and unexpected descent of God on the wicked, frustrating their schemes even when they seemed to be well formed, and to promise complete success. This does not mean, therefore, that God would cut off and punish the wicked while “living,” but it refers to the fact that their schemes would be suddenly defeated even while they supposed that all things were going on well; defeated before there was, in fact, any progress made toward the accomplishment, as the arrangements for the evening-meal would all be swept away before even the pot had begun to be warm.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain he shall take them away as with a whirlwind--literally,…
he shall take them away as with a whirlwind--literally, "blow him (them) away."
both living . . . wrath--literally, "as the living" or fresh as the heated or burning--that is, thorns--all easily blown away, so easily and quickly the wicked. The figure of the "snail" perhaps alludes to its loss of saliva when moving. Though obscure in its clauses, the general sense of the passage is clear.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 9. Thorns—The atad, or southern buckthorn, (the Rhamnus paliurus…
9. Thorns—The atad, or southern buckthorn, (the Rhamnus paliurus of Linnaeus,) noted, like the retem or broom shrub of the desert for its crackling flame and hot fire, and much used as fuel. See Ecc_7:6. Called also “Christ’s thorn,” from a tradition that it was the same that furnished the mock crown for our Saviour. The figure of the text supposes a robber-feast over recent success, where all are abandoned to wild, delirious merriment, such as is narrated in 1Sa_30:16. In the preparations for the feast the catastrophe comes. The sense is given by Perowne: “As a sudden whirlwind in the desert sweeps away the thorns which have been gathered for cooking before the caldron has grown hot, so shall the wicked and all their incomplete designs be swept away by the wrath of God.” On the whirlwind of the desert, see note on Psa_83:13.
Living—This is the usual signification of חי, (hhah’y,) but as applied to meat, it may signify raw meat in opposition to that which is cooked, as in 1Sa_2:15, which develops the point of the metaphor, namely, that though the fire was built in a calm atmosphere, the whirlwind should be so sudden as to sweep away the meat while yet raw in the pot, together with the fire of thorns and the entire “cooking apparatus.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. The general sense of the verse is clear,…
9. The general sense of the verse is clear, though the second line is extremely obscure and possibly corrupt. The first line certainly means, Before your pots can feel the thorns (possibly a proverbial expression), and the verb in the second line means, He shall sweep them (or, it) away with a whirlwind. It is another figure for the swift destruction of the wicked and their schemes, taken from the experience of travel in the desert. The travellers have lighted a fire of dry thorns or brambles under their cooking pots. It blazes up rapidly, but even so, before the pots are heated and the meat in them cooked, a sudden whirlwind sweeps away the fire and undoes their work. The fire represents the malicious will of the evildoers, the pots with the meat the plans which they are devising: but let them work never so rapidly, the whirlwind of divine judgement will annihilate their schemes.
The crux of the verse is in the words rendered in A.V. both living and in his wrath. They have been supposed to refer to the thorns, the green and the burning alike: or to the flesh in the pot, the raw flesh and the sodden alike: or to the flesh and the fire, the raw flesh and hot embers alike: but all these interpretations break down on the fact that chârôn, though not a rare word, always means the burning wrath of God. It seems necessary either to omit the word k’mô, ‘as,’ before chârôn, or to read b’inô, ‘in,’ instead of it (במו for כמו). We may then render, Like raw flesh (= perhaps, while the flesh is yet raw), shall Wrath sweep them away with a whirlwind; or, shall He sweep them away with a whirlwind in wrath. The pronoun for them is in the singular, and may mean each one of the wicked, or perhaps rather it, the whole scheme. For a figure from cooking cp. Hos_7:4 ff.: for the thorn fires Isa_33:12; Ecc_7:6; and for the whirlwind of divine wrath see Psa_50:3, “it shall be very tempestuous round about him”; Job_27:21.
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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Before.—The figure in this difficult verse is generally…
(9) Before.—The figure in this difficult verse is generally intelligible, though the text as it stands resists all attempts to translate it. As in the preceding images, it must convey the idea of abortive effort and sudden ruin, and, as has generally been understood, some experience of eastern travel undoubtedly supplied the figure which accident or a copyist’s error has rendered so obscure. The Hebrew literally runs, Before (shall) understand your pots a bramble as (or so) living as (or so) heat sweeps them off. The ancient versions mostly render thorns instead of pots, and make the simile to lie in the destruction of the bush before growing to maturity. The English versions have undoubtedly caught the figure more correctly. But it is doubtful if the Hebrew word rendered feel could be used of inanimate objects, and even if a kettle might be said to feel the fire, we should hardly speak of its feeling the fuel. Some change in the text must be made. A very slight change in one letter gives excellent sense to the first clause. Before thorns (taking the word âtad which in Jdg_9:14-15 is translated bramble collectively) make your pots ready. But the second clause remains very difficult. Even if (with Grätz) we read charôl (Job_30:7; Pro_24:31, “nettles”) for charôn, and render thorny bush, the words as living still offer a puzzle. And even if with the Prayer Book we might render raw instead of living, yet burning heat could not stand for cooked meat. Apparently the poet intends to compare the sudden overthrow of the wicked before their arms could succeed, to the disappearance of the fuel before it had time to heat the cooking-pot; and it is quite possible that he compressed all this into a condensed expression, which we must expand: “As, before the brambles make the pots ready, they are consumed, so He will whirl them (i.e., the wicked) away alive, as the fierce heat consumes the thorns.” Hebrew poetry is always more satisfactory with metaphor than with simile, and here, as often, seems to falter between the two, and so becomes obscure.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall…
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. This "difficult and obscure verse" has been variously explained. Professor Cheyne translates, "Before your pots can feel the thorns, and while your flesh (i.e. the flesh in the pots, on which you are about to feast) is still raw, the hot wrath of Jehovah shall sweep it away." The Revised Version gives the following: "Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them i.e. the thorns away with a whirlwind, the green thorns and the burning alike." Dr. Kay, "Before your caldrons have felt the thorn fire, even as raw flesh, even so, shall hot fury sweep him away." The general meaning seems to be that before the wicked judges can enjoy the fruits of their wickedness, the fierce wrath of God will come upon them like a tempest, and sweep both them and the produce of their villainy away. (comp. 2Sa_23:6, 2Sa_23:7)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns.…
Ver. 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns. So sudden is the overthrow of the wicked, so great a failure is their life, that they never see joy. Their pot is put upon the hook to prepare a feast of joy, and the fuel is placed beneath, but before the thorns are lit, before any heat can be brought to bear upon the pot, yea, even as soon as the fuel has touched the cooking vessel, a storm comes and sweeps all away; the pot is overturned, the fuel is scattered far and wide. Perhaps the figure may suppose the thorns, which are the fuel, to be kindled, and then the flame is so rapid that before any heat can be produced the fire is out, the meat remains raw, the man is disappointed, his work is altogether a failure.
He shall take them away as with a whirlwind. Cook, fire, pot, meat and all, disappear at once, whirled away to destruction.
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Both living, and in his wrath. In the very midst of the man's life, and in the fury of his rage against the righteous, the persecutor is overwhelmed with a tornado, his designs are baffled, his contrivances defeated, and himself destroyed. The passage is difficult, but this is probably its meaning, and a very terrible one it is. The malicious wretch puts on his great seething pot, he gathers his fuel, he means to play the cannibal with the godly; but he reckons without his host, or rather without the Lord of hosts, and the unexpected tempest removes all trace of him, and his fire, and his feast, and that in a moment.
Ver. 9. (first clause). Before your cooking vessels, etc. It would puzzle Oedipus himself to make any tolerable sense of the English translation of this verse. It refers to the usage of travellers in the East, who when journeying through the deserts, make a hasty blaze with the thorns which they collect, some green and full of sap, others dry and withered, for the purpose of dressing their food; in which circumstances, violent storms of wind not infrequently arise, which sweep away their fuel and entire apparatus, before the vessels which they use become warm by the heat. An expressive and graphical image of the overwhelming ruin of wicked men. William Walford, 1837.
Ver. 9. Before your pots feel the bramble. By this proverbial expression the psalmist describes the sudden eruption of the divine wrath; sudden and violent as the ascension of the dry bramble underneath the housewife's pot. The brightness of the flame which this material furnishes, the height to which it mounts in an instant, the fury with which it seems to rage on all sides of the vessel, give force, and even sublimity to the image, though taken from one of the commonest occurrences of the lower life--a cottager's wife boiling her pot! The sense, then, will be: "Before your pots feel the bramble, he shall sweep them away in whirlwind and hurricane." Samuel Horsley, 1733-1806.
Ver. 9. In all the book of God I do not remember any sentence so variously and differently translated as this verse... This variety of translations ariseth chiefly from the original Hebrew word twrym siroth, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies, first, pots or cauldrons, wherein flesh is sod, as Ex 16:3 38:3 Eze 11:11. Secondly, thorns, and pricks of thorns and briers, as Isa 34:13 Ho 2:8. Thirdly, because the pricks of the great bramble are very sharp and hooked, this word is used to signify fishhooks. Am 4:2. In all our English Bibles of the old, new, and Geneva translation, and some Latin Bibles, this word is taken to signify pots or cauldrons; but the Septuagint, Hierome, vulgar Latin, Austine, Pagnine, Tremellius, and all others that I have seen, take this word in the second sense, for the sharp pricks of thorns and brambles. Here, certainly, this word signifies the sharp pricks of the great dog bramble, which here in the Hebrew text is dj atad, and is used (Jud 9:14-15) in Jotham's parable to signify the bramble, which being made king of the trees, kindled a fire, which devoured the cedars of Lebanon. Now this bramble in the body, and every branch of it, is beset with sharp hooked pricks, some of which are green and have life and moisture in them, and though they be sharp, yet they are not so stiff and strong as to make any deep wound in a man's flesh. Others are greater, more hooked, and hardened by drying and parching with the vehement heat of the sun; and they strike to the quick, and hold fast, or tear where they catch hold of man's skin or flesh. The first are here called dja, living or green; the other are called, nwrx, dried, or parched and hardened; and the prophetical psalmist affirms that "God who judgeth in the earth, will take away and destroy as with a tempestuous whirlwind, every one of them, as well the green as the dry, "as Tremellius out of the original doth most truly translate the word... The whole text runs thus: "Before they feel your thorns or pricks, O ye bramble, he will take away every one as with a whirlwind, as well the green as the dry." Before they, that is, the righteous whom ye hate and persecute; do feel. that is, have a full sense and understanding of your thorns or pricks, that is, of the sharpness, fury, and mischief which is in the heart and hand of all and every one among you; for every one in your band and congregation is a grievous thorn and sharp prick of the cursed bramble, sharply set and bent to do mischief in malice and fury to the people and church of God. "He that is God who judgeth in the earth" (as it is expressed in the eleventh verse, in the last words) "will take away as with a whirlwind" (that is, scatter and destroy tempestuously), "every one, as well the living and green as the dry and hardened." That is, of every sort banded together, as well the green headed and young persecutors, sharp set, but not so strong to hurt, as the old and dry who are hardened in malice by long custom, and in power and policy are strong to do mischief. George Walker, in a Fast Sermon before the House of Commons, 1644.
None.
Psalms 58:10*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Before your pots can feel the thorn's burning heat…
Before your pots can feel the thorn's burning heat ... the green thorns and the burning thorns alike
The wicked are spoken of as if they were thornbush branches, and God's swift punishment of them is spoken of as if he were to quickly blow them away or sweep them away. AT: "God will destroy wicked people faster than a whirlwind can blow away thornbush branches that have been put under a cooking pot and lit with fire" (See: Metaphor)
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your
David is speaking to God's people, so this is plural. (See: Forms of You)
the thorn's burning heat ... the green thorns and the burning thorns
"the heat from the burning thorn branches ... the green thorn branches and the burning thorn branches"
The righteous will rejoice when he sees
The phrase "the righteous" refers to righteous people in general. AT: "Righteous people will rejoice when they see" (See: Generic Noun Phrases)
he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked
Getting one's feet wet by walking on blood is spoken of as washing the feet in blood. AT: "the righteous will make their feet wet in the blood of the wicked" or "the righteous will march on the blood of the wicked" (See: Metaphor)
he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked
This exaggeration expresses that a great number of wicked people will die. AT: "so many wicked people will die that when the righteous march on their blood, it will seem as if they could wash their feet in it" (See: Metaphor and Hyperbole and Generalization)
translationWords
righteous
joy
avenge
blood
evil
amen
reward
judge
earth
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 58:9-10 God’s judgment will come suddenly. The certainty of…
58:9-10 God’s judgment will come suddenly. The certainty of vindication brings joy to the godly.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.