He pours contempt upon noblemen And makes them wander in a pathless wasteland.
Parallel translations
- WEB He pours contempt on princes, and causes them to wander in a trackless waste.
- KJV He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way.
- BSB He pours out contempt on the nobles and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
- NKJV He pours contempt on princes, And causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way;
- NLT the Lord pours contempt on their princes, causing them to wander in trackless wastelands.
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 pours contempt on princes and makes them wander lost in trackless wastes.
Overview
The LORD humbles the proud and powerful, stripping rulers of dignity and leaving them to wander aimlessly. No human authority stands secure against God's sovereign judgment. This abasement of the mighty echoes throughout Scripture and points to the day when every earthly power bows before the exalted Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 22
- Job 12:24He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.
- Job 12:21He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.
- Dan 4:33This was fulfilled the same hour on Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men, and ate grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.
- Isa 23:8–9Who has planned this against Tyre, the giver of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth?
- Dan 5:5–6In the same hour, the fingers of a man’s hand came out and wrote near the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace. The king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
- Judg 1:6–7But Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.
- Judg 4:21Then Jael Heber’s wife took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; so he fainted and died.
- 1 Sam 6:4Then they said, “What should the trespass offering be which we shall return to him?” They said, “Five golden tumors, and five golden mice, for the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.
- Rev 19:18that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, and small and great.”
- Exod 8:17They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were lice on man, and on animal; all the dust of the earth became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
- Exod 8:24Yahweh did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses: and in all the land of Egypt the land was corrupted by reason of the swarms of flies.
- Dan 5:18–30You, king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty:
- Ps 78:66He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.
- 1 Sam 5:9It was so, that after they had carried it there, Yahweh’s hand was against the city with a very great confusion; and he struck the men of the city, both small and great so that tumors broke out on them.
- Acts 12:23Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he didn’t give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.
- Ps 107:4They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.
- Exod 8:3and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into your house, and into your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the house of your servants, and on your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneading troughs:
- Josh 10:24–26When they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who went with him, “Come near. Put your feet on the necks of these kings.” They came near, and put their feet on their necks.
- Jer 13:15–18Hear, and give ear. Don’t be proud; for Yahweh has spoken.
- 1 Kgs 21:19You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “Have you killed and also taken possession?”’ You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs will lick your blood, even yours.”’”
- Deut 32:10He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
- 2 Kgs 9:35–37They went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 107:40 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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