I ground them as fine as dust in the wind. I swept them into the gutter like dirt.
Parallel translations
- WEB Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I cast them out as the mire of the streets.
- KJV Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
- BSB I ground them as dust in the face of the wind; I trampled them like mud in the streets.
- NKJV Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind; I cast them out like dirt in the streets.
- NASB Then I beat them fine like the dust before the wind; I emptied them out like the mud of the streets.
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
David grinds his enemies to dust and casts them out like street mud. The imagery conveys their utter and humiliating defeat.
Overview
Two pictures, wind-blown dust and trampled mire, depict how completely David's foes are subdued. This is the language of total conquest granted by God to his king. Such Old Testament judgment imagery ultimately points to the final overthrow of evil under the reign of Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Isa 10:6I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me will I give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
- Isa 41:15–16Behold, I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth. You will thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and will make the hills like chaff.
- 2 Kgs 13:7For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.
- Zech 10:5They shall be as mighty men, treading down muddy streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them; and the riders on horses will be confounded.
- Isa 25:10For in this mountain Yahweh’s hand will rest. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.
- Ps 50:22“Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver.
- Isa 41:2Who has raised up one from the east? Who called him to his foot in righteousness? He hands over nations to him, and makes him rule over kings. He gives them like the dust to his sword, like the driven stubble to his bow.
- Mal 4:3You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make,” says Yahweh of Armies.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 18:42 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.