I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass.
- KJV And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
- BSB I will break down your stubborn pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,
- NKJV I will break the pride of your power; I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
- NASB I will also break down your pride of power; and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze.
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 break Israel's proud strength and make the sky like iron and soil like brass. Pride and drought follow continued rebellion.
Overview
Breaking 'the pride of your power' targets the self-reliance that idolatry breeds. A sky like iron and ground like bronze vividly picture withheld rain and barren land—the reversal of the promised fruitfulness. The judgment exposes the emptiness of trusting in human strength rather than the God who gives the increase.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Deut 28:23Your sky that is over your head will be brass, and the earth that is under you will be iron.
- 1 Kgs 17:1Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
- Isa 25:11He will spread out his hands in the middle of it, like one who swims spreads out hands to swim, but his pride will be humbled together with the craft of his hands.
- Luke 4:25But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land.
- 1 Sam 4:11God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.
- Zeph 3:11In that day you will not be disappointed for all your doings, in which you have transgressed against me; for then I will take away out from among you your proudly exulting ones, and you will no more be haughty in my holy mountain.
- Jer 13:9“Yahweh says, ‘In this way I, will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.
- Dan 4:37Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.
- Jer 14:1–6This is Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.
- Ezek 30:6Yahweh says: They also who uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: they shall fall by the sword in it from the tower of Seveneh, says the Lord Yahweh.
- Isa 26:5For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust.
- Ezek 7:24Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.
- 1 Sam 4:3When the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has Yahweh defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us get the ark of Yahweh’s covenant out of Shiloh and bring it to us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies.”
- Isa 2:12For there will be a day of Yahweh of Armies for all that is proud and haughty, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low:
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:19 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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