How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it!
Parallel translations
- WEB For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird:
- KJV Surely in vain the net is 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 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 beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’
- Prov 7:23until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare—not knowing it will cost him his life.
- Jer 8:7Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
- Isa 1:3The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.