Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
Parallel translations
- WEB You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you.
- BSB You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you.
- NKJV You shall conceive chaff, You shall bring forth stubble; Your breath, as fire, shall devour you.
- NASB “You have conceived chaff, you will give birth to stubble; My breath will consume you like a fire.
- NLT You Assyrians produce nothing but dry grass and stubble. Your own breath will turn to fire and consume you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The proud enemy's schemes are worthless, and his own hostility will become the fire that destroys him.
Overview
Addressing Assyria, God says its plans amount to nothing but chaff and stubble, and its violent breath will consume itself. The image warns that those who set themselves against God ultimately bring about their own ruin. It echoes the biblical principle that the wicked are caught in their own devices and that God's judgment is just.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Ps 7:14Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
- Isa 59:4None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
- Jas 1:15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
- Acts 5:4Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
- Isa 10:7–14Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.
- Isa 17:13The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
- Ps 83:5–18For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
- Job 15:35They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.
- Isa 8:9–10Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.
- Isa 29:5–8Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.
- Isa 26:18We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
- Isa 31:8–9Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited.
- Isa 5:24Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Ps 2:1Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
- Isa 37:23–29Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
- Isa 30:30–33And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.
- Isa 1:31And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
- Nah 1:5–10The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 33:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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