Psalm 58:9
New International Version
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns— whether they be green or dry—the wicked will be swept away.

New Living Translation
God will sweep them away, both young and old, faster than a pot heats over burning thorns.

English Standard Version
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

Berean Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green or dry—He will sweep them away.

King James Bible
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

New King James Version
Before your pots can feel the burning thorns, He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, As in His living and burning wrath.

New American Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

NASB 1995
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

NASB 1977
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns, He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

Legacy Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the living and the burning alike.

Amplified Bible
Before your cooking pots can feel the fire of thorns [burning under them as fuel], He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning ones alike.

Christian Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns — whether green or burning — he will sweep them away.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns— whether green or burning— He will sweep them away.

American Standard Version
Before your pots can feel the thorns, He will take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

Contemporary English Version
Wipe them out quicker than a pot can be heated by setting thorns on fire.

English Revised Version
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Let [God] sweep them away faster than a cooking pot is heated by burning twigs.

Good News Translation
Before they know it, they are cut down like weeds; in his fierce anger God will blow them away while they are still living.

International Standard Version
Before your clay pots are placed on a fire of burning thorns— whether green or ablaze— wrath will sweep them away like a storm.

Majority Standard Bible
Before your pots can feel the burning thorns?whether green or dry?He will sweep them away.

NET Bible
Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, he will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat.

New Heart English Bible
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.

Webster's Bible Translation
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

World English Bible
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
Literal Translations
Literal Standard Version
Before your pots discern the bramble, "" As living, He whirls away in His burning anger.

Young's Literal Translation
Before your pots discern the bramble, As well the raw as the heated He whirleth away.

Smith's Literal Translation
Before your pots shall perceive the thorn, as living, as in wrath, he will sweep him away.
Catholic Translations
Douay-Rheims Bible
Before your thorns could know the brier; he swalloweth them up, as alive, in his wrath.

Catholic Public Domain Version
Before your thorns could know the brier, he consumes them alive, as if in rage.

New American Bible
Suddenly, like brambles or thistles, have the whirlwind snatch them away.

New Revised Standard Version
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
Translations from Aramaic
Lamsa Bible
Let their thorns be increased, and fear of wrath shake them violently.

Peshitta Holy Bible Translated
Let their thorns be brambles and let wrath trouble them.
OT Translations
JPS Tanakh 1917
Before your pots can feel the thorns, He will sweep it away with a whirlwind, the raw and the burning alike.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Before your thorns feel the white thorn, he shall swallow you up as living, as in his wrath.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
God Judges the Earth
8Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun. 9Before your pots can feel the burning thorns— whether green or dry— He will sweep them away. 10The righteous will rejoice when they see they are avenged; they will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.…

Cross References
Proverbs 10:25
When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever.

Job 27:21
The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.

Isaiah 17:13
The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.

Hosea 13:3
Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.

James 1:11
For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its flower falls and its beauty is lost. So too, the rich man will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

Matthew 7:27
The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”

Job 21:18
Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

Isaiah 40:24
No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.

Psalm 37:2
For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.

Psalm 73:19
How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors!

Nahum 1:10
For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.

Matthew 3:12
His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Luke 3:17
His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Isaiah 5:24
Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Malachi 4:1
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”


Treasury of Scripture

Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

thorns

Psalm 118:12
They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.

Ecclesiastes 7:6
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.

as

Psalm 10:15
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

Psalm 55:23
But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.

Psalm 73:18-20
Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction…

both living [heb.

Numbers 16:30
But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.

Jump to Previous
Ablaze Alike Bramble Burning Conscious Cut Discern Dry Feel Fire Green Growth Heat Heated Pots Raw Sooner Strong Sweep Swept Thorns Waste Whether Whirleth Whirlwind Wicked Wind Wrath
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Ablaze Alike Bramble Burning Conscious Cut Discern Dry Feel Fire Green Growth Heat Heated Pots Raw Sooner Strong Sweep Swept Thorns Waste Whether Whirleth Whirlwind Wicked Wind Wrath
Psalm 58
1. David reproves wicked judges
3. describes the nature of the wicked
6. devotes them to God's judgments
10. whereat the righteous shall rejoice














Before your pots can feel the burning thorns
This phrase uses vivid imagery to convey the swiftness of God's judgment. The "pots" symbolize the plans or schemes of the wicked, which are often likened to cooking vessels in ancient Near Eastern culture. The "burning thorns" refer to the quick and intense fire that thorns produce when used as fuel. In the Hebrew context, thorns were known for their rapid combustion, indicating that God's intervention will be sudden and decisive, thwarting the wicked before their plans come to fruition.

whether green or dry
This phrase emphasizes the inevitability and impartiality of divine judgment. "Green" and "dry" thorns represent different stages of readiness, suggesting that regardless of the state or preparedness of the wicked's plans, God's judgment will be executed. Historically, this reflects the understanding that God's justice is not delayed by human circumstances or conditions. It underscores the belief that God is sovereign and His timing is perfect, transcending human understanding.

He will sweep them away
The imagery of being "swept away" conveys total and complete removal. In the Hebrew tradition, this phrase evokes the idea of divine cleansing or purging, where God removes evil from His presence. It reflects the ultimate triumph of righteousness over wickedness, a recurring theme in the Psalms. This assurance of God's active role in maintaining justice serves as a source of comfort and hope for believers, affirming that evil will not prevail and that God's righteous order will be restored.

(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 ?tad which in Judges 9:14-15 is translated bramble collectively) make your pots ready. But the second clause remains very difficult. Even if (with Gratz) we read charol (Job 30:7; Proverbs 24:31, "nettles") for charon, 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.

Verse 9. - 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. 2 Samuel 23:6, 7).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Before
בְּטֶ֤רֶם (bə·ṭe·rem)
Preposition-b | Adverb
Strong's 2962: Non-occurrence, not yet, before

your pots
סִּֽירֹתֵיכֶ֣ם (sî·rō·ṯê·ḵem)
Noun - common plural construct | second person masculine plural
Strong's 5518: A pot, a thorn, a hook

can feel
יָבִ֣ינוּ (yā·ḇî·nū)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - third person masculine plural
Strong's 995: To separate mentally, understand

[the heat of] thorns—
אָטָ֑ד (’ā·ṭāḏ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 329: A bramble, buckthorn, also a city in Canaan

whether green
חַ֥י (ḥay)
Adjective - masculine singular
Strong's 2416: Alive, raw, fresh, strong, life

or
כְּמוֹ־ (kə·mōw-)
Preposition
Strong's 3644: Like, as, when

dry—
חָ֝ר֗וֹן (ḥā·rō·wn)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2740: A burning of anger

He will sweep them away.
יִשְׂעָרֶֽנּוּ׃ (yiś·‘ā·ren·nū)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Strong's 8175: To storm, to shiver, fear


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OT Poetry: Psalm 58:9 Before your pots can feel the heat (Psalm Ps Psa.)
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