For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
Parallel translations
- WEB For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
- BSB For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.
- NKJV For while tangled like thorns, And while drunken like drunkards, They shall be devoured like stubble fully dried.
- NASB Like tangled thorns, And like those who are drunken with their drink, They are consumed Like stubble completely dried up.
- NLT His enemies, tangled like thornbushes and staggering like drunks, will be burned up like dry stubble in a field.
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
Nineveh's defenders, tangled like thorns and drunk, will be consumed like dry stubble. Their seeming strength is no protection against God's fire.
Overview
The imagery of thorns, drunkenness, and stubble pictures the Assyrians as helpless and easily destroyed despite their fierce reputation. Drunkenness suggests both literal revelry and spiritual stupor before the coming judgment. The certainty of their swift consumption reminds readers that human pride and pleasure offer no defense in the day of the Lord.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Mic 7:4The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.
- Mal 4:1For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
- Nah 3:11Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.
- 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.
- 2 Sam 23:6–7But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands:
- Jer 51:57And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
- Isa 9:18For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
- Ps 68:2As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
- Isa 27:4Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.
- Isa 10:17–19And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
- 1 Th 5:2–3For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
- Jer 51:39In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.
- 2 Sam 13:28Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; then kill him, fear not: have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.
- 1 Sam 25:36And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
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Christ at the center
The certain judgment on Nineveh and the comfort that 'the LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble' point to Christ, who is both the refuge of his people and the judge of their enemies.
How Nahum 1:10 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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