Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars.
Parallel translations
- KJV Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.
- BSB Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may consume your cedars!
- NKJV Open your doors, O Lebanon, That fire may devour your cedars.
- NASB Open your doors, Lebanon, So that a fire may feed on your cedars.
- NLT Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedar forests.
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 poetic call for Lebanon to open its doors so fire can devour its famed cedars—a picture of coming judgment on proud, lofty powers. It matters because no human grandeur can withstand God's judgment.
Overview
This shifts abruptly from restoration to a taunt-song of judgment, summoning Lebanon to let the fire consume its prized cedars. The mighty trees symbolize proud nations or leaders whose seeming strength will fall. Many interpreters connect this with the judgment that fell on the land and its leadership, ultimately around the destruction of Jerusalem, the very generation that rejected the Shepherd-Messiah (cf. Luke 19:41-44).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Jer 22:23Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
- Jer 22:6–7For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.
- Luke 21:23–24Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.
- Hab 2:8Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.
- Deut 32:22For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
- Zech 10:10I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and there won’t be room enough for them.
- Hab 2:17For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.
- Zech 14:1–2Behold, a day of Yahweh comes, when your plunder will be divided within you.
- Matt 24:1–2Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.
- Hag 1:8Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says Yahweh.
- Luke 19:41–44When he came near, he saw the city and wept over it,
- Ezek 31:3Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs.
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Christ at the center
The Branch who is both priest and king, the shepherd struck and the flock scattered, the king coming humble on a donkey, the one they pierced, the fountain opened for sin — Zechariah is dense with Christ.
How Zechariah 11:1 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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