So the LORD will cut off Israel’s head and tail, both palm branch and reed in a single day.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day.
- KJV Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
- NKJV Therefore the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel, Palm branch and bulrush in one day.
- NASB So the Lord cuts off head and tail from Israel, Both palm branch and bulrush in a single day.
- NLT Therefore, in a single day the Lord will destroy both the head and the tail, the noble palm branch and the lowly reed.
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
God will cut off both leaders and followers from Israel swiftly and completely.
Overview
"Head and tail, palm branch and reed" picture the whole society, high and low, falling under judgment in a single day. No class escapes the consequences of national sin. The next verse explains the imagery, identifying the corrupt leaders and lying prophets.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 25
- Rev 18:8Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and grief and famine—and she will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”
- Isa 19:15There is nothing Egypt can do—head or tail, palm or reed.
- Amos 5:2–3“Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.”
- Hos 4:5You will stumble by day, and the prophet will stumble with you by night; so I will destroy your mother—
- Hos 5:12–14So I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like decay to the house of Judah.
- Amos 7:17Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on pagan soil. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”
- Hos 9:11–17Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.
- Isa 30:13this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly—in an instant!
- Amos 9:1–9I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.
- Amos 7:8–9“Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD. “A plumb line,” I replied. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:
- 2 Kgs 17:6–20In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
- Amos 3:12This is what the LORD says: “As the shepherd snatches from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so the Israelites dwelling in Samaria will be rescued having just the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch.
- Mic 1:6–8Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.
- Rev 18:10In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”
- Hos 1:9And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.
- Amos 6:11For the LORD gives a command: “The great house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.”
- Hos 1:6Gomer again conceived and gave birth to a daughter, and the LORD said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I should ever forgive them.
- Hos 13:3Therefore 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.
- Rev 18:17For in a single hour such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!” Every shipmaster, passenger, and sailor, and all who make their living from the sea, will stand at a distance
- Isa 3:2–3the mighty man and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the soothsayer and the elder,
- Hos 1:4Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Name him Jezreel, for soon I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
- Hos 10:15Thus it will be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day dawns, the king of Israel will be utterly cut off.
- Amos 2:14–16Escape will fail the swift, the strong will not prevail by his strength, and the mighty will not save his life.
- Hos 8:8Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.
- Isa 10:17And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
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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 9:14 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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