So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
- KJV Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.
- BSB So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.
- NKJV Therefore their days He consumed in futility, And their years in fear.
- NASB So He brought their days to an end in futility, And their years to an end in sudden terror.
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
So God let their days end in futility and their years in terror. Unbelief led to a wasted, fearful existence.
Overview
Because of ongoing rebellion, God 'consumed their days in vanity,' so the wilderness generation perished without entering rest. Their lives ended in emptiness and dread, a consequence of refusing to trust Him. It is a vivid warning that life apart from faith in God's promises proves ultimately fruitless.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Num 14:35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation, who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”
- Num 14:29Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me,
- Num 26:64–65But among these there was not a man of them who were counted by Moses and Aaron the priest, who counted the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Eccl 12:13–14This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
- Deut 2:14–16The days in which we came from Kadesh Barnea, until we had come over the brook Zered, were thirty-eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the middle of the camp, as Yahweh swore to them.
- Eccl 12:8“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All is vanity!”
- Job 14:1“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Eccl 1:13–14I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.
- Job 5:6–7For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;
- Ps 90:7–9For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
- Gen 3:16–19To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
- Eccl 1:2“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
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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 78:33 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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