For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird:
Parallel translations
- KJV Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
- BSB How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it!
- ESV For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird,
- NKJV Surely, in vain the net is spread In the sight of any bird;
- NASB Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net In the sight of any bird;
- NLT If a bird sees a trap being set, it knows to stay away.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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
A bird that sees the net will avoid it, yet sinners blindly rush into their own trap. It matters because sin blinds people to the ruin they are walking into.
Overview
The proverb observes that even a bird avoids an obvious snare, but the violent are too foolish to see the trap they set for themselves. Sin's deceptive power dulls perception of danger. The image prepares for the next verse: the wicked ambush their own lives.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Job 35:11who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’
- Prov 7:23Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.
- Jer 8:7Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law.
- Isa 1:3The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know, my people don’t consider.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 1:17 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.