Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 58:9
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.
9. The general sense of the verse is clear, though the second line is extremely obscure and possibly corrupt. The first line certainly means, Before your pots can feel the thorns (possibly a proverbial expression), and the verb in the second line means, He shall sweep them (or, it) away with a whirlwind. It is another figure for the swift destruction of the wicked and their schemes, taken from the experience of travel in the desert. The travellers have lighted a fire of dry thorns or brambles under their cooking pots. It blazes up rapidly, but even so, before the pots are heated and the meat in them cooked, a sudden whirlwind sweeps away the fire and undoes their work. The fire represents the malicious will of the evildoers, the pots with the meat the plans which they are devising: but let them work never so rapidly, the whirlwind of divine judgement will annihilate their schemes.
The crux of the verse is in the words rendered in A.V. both living and in his wrath. They have been supposed to refer to the thorns, the green and the burning alike: or to the flesh in the pot, the raw flesh and the sodden alike: or to the flesh and the fire, the raw flesh and hot embers alike: but all these interpretations break down on the fact that chrn, though not a rare word, always means the burning wrath of God. It seems necessary either to omit the word k’m, ‘as,’ before chrn, or to read b’in, ‘in,’ instead of it ( for ). We may then render, Like raw flesh (= perhaps, while the flesh is yet raw), shall Wrath sweep them away with a whirlwind; or, shall He sweep them away with a whirlwind in wrath. The pronoun for them is in the singular, and may mean each one of the wicked, or perhaps rather it, the whole scheme. For a figure from cooking cp. Hos 7:4 ff.: for the thorn fires Isa 33:12; Ecc 7:6; and for the whirlwind of divine wrath see Psa 50:3, “it shall be very tempestuous round about him”; Job 27:21.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Before your pots can feel the thorns – The word thorns here – ‘atad – refers to what is called Christs thorn, the southern buckthorn. Gesenius. The fire made of such thorns when dry would be quick and rapid, and water would be soon heated by it. The idea is, that what is here referred to would occur quickly – sooner than the most rapid and intense fire could make an impression on a kettle and its contents. The destruction of the wicked would be, as it were, instantaneous. The following quotation from Prof. Hackitt (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 135) will explain this passage: A species of thorn, now very common near Jerusalem, bears the name of Spina Christi, or Christs thorn. The people of the country gather these bushes and plants, and use them as fuel. As it is now, so it was of old. As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool, Ecc 7:6 Before your pots can feel the thorns, namely, the fire of them, he shall sweep them away, Psa 58:9 The figure in this case is taken from travelers in the desert, or from shepherds tenting abroad, who build a fire in the open air, where it is exposed to the wind; a sudden gust arises and sweeps away the fuel almost before it has begun to burn. As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire Isa 33:12. The meaning is that the wicked are worthless – their destruction shall be sudden and complete.
He shall take them away – The word rendered shall take them away means properly to shiver, to shudder; and it is then applied to the commotion and raging of a tempest. They shal be taken away as in a storm that makes everything shiver or tremble; Job 27:21. It would be done suddenly and entirely. A sudden storm sent by God would beat upon them, and they would be swept away in an instant.
Both living and in his wrath – Margin, as living as wrath. This expression is exceedingly obscure. The Septuagint renders it, he shall devour them as it were living – as it were in wrath. The Latin Vulgate: He shall devour them as living, so in wrath. Prof. Alexander: Whether raw or done. He supposes that the idea is, that God would come upon them while forming their plans; and that the illustration is derived from the act of cooking, and that the meaning is, that God would come upon them whether those plans were matured or not – cooked or raw. This seems to me to be a very forced construction, and one which it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear. The word rendered living – chay – means properly alive, living; and then, lively, fresh, vigorous; and is applicable then to a plant that is living or green. It may be here applied to the thorns that had been gathered for the fire, still green or alive; and the idea here would be, that even while those thorns were alive and green – before they had been kindled by the fire (or while they were trying to kindle them), a sudden tempest would come and sweep them all away.
It is not, indeed, an uncommon occurrence in the deserts of the East, that while, in their journeyings, travelers pause to cook their food, and have gathered the fuel – thorns, or whatever may be at hand – and have placed their pot over the fire, a sudden tempest comes from the desert, and sweeps everything away. Rosenmuller in loc. Such an occurrence may be referred to here. The word rendered wrath – charon – means properly burning; and then it is used to denote anything burning. It is applied to wrath or anger, because it seems to burn. Num 25:4; Num 32:14; 1Sa 28:18. Here, however, it may be taken literally as applicable to thorns when they begin to be kindled, though still green. They are seen first as gathered and placed under the pots; then they are seen as still green – not dried up by the kindling flame; then they are seen as on fire; and, in a moment – before the pots could be affected by them – all is swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The idea is that of the sudden and unexpected descent of God on the wicked, frustrating their schemes even when they seemed to be well formed, and to promise complete success. This does not mean, therefore, that God would cut off and punish the wicked while living, but it refers to the fact that their schemes would be suddenly defeated even while they supposed that all things were going on well; defeated before there was, in fact, any progress made toward the accomplishment, as the arrangements for the evening-meal would all be swept away before even the pot had begun to be warm.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns] Ye shall be destroyed with a sudden destruction. From the time that the fire of God’s wrath is kindled about you, it will be but as a moment before ye be entirely consumed by it: so very short will be the time, that it may be likened to the heat of the first blaze of dry thorns under a pot, that has not as yet been able to penetrate the metal, and warm what is contained in it.
A whirlwind] Or the suffocating simoon that destroys life in an instant, without previous warning: so, without pining sickness-while ye are living-lively and active, the whirlwind of God’s wrath shall sweep you away.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Feel the thorns, i.e. the heat of the fire kindled by the thorns put under them for that purpose; before your pots can be thoroughly heated.
Take them away, to wit, mine enemies; whose sudden destruction he describes under this similitude.
As with a whirlwind, i.e. violently and irresistibly.
Both living, and in his wrath, Heb. as living (i.e. alive, as he did Korah, Num 16, the particle as being here not a note of similitude, but of truth or asseveration as it is Joh 1:14, and oft elsewhere, as hath been noted) as in (which preposition is frequently understood)
wrath, i.e. as a man moved with great wrath destroys his enemy without mercy, and is ready to devour him alive, if it were possible; or, both that which is raw, (as the Hebrew word chai signifies, Lev 13:16; 1Sa 2:15, to wit, the raw flesh, which is supposed to be put into the pot that it may be boiled,) and the burning fire. There is indeed great variety of construction and interpretation of these Hebrew words, which is not strange, especially considering the conciseness of the Hebrew language, and that this is a proverbial speech; nor is it of any great importance, because it is not in any great point of faith, and because the sense of it is agreed, the only difference being about the manner and ground of the phrase. The learned reader may see more upon this place in my Latin Synopsis.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. he shall take them away as with awhirlwindliterally, “blow him (them) away.”
both living . . .wrathliterally, “as the living” or fresh as theheated or burningthat is, thornsall easily blown away, soeasily and quickly the wicked. The figure of the “snail”perhaps alludes to its loss of saliva when moving. Though obscure inits clauses, the general sense of the passage is clear.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Before your pots can feel the thorns,…. Which is soon done; for as dry thorns make a great blaze, so they give a quick heat; the pots soon feel them, or the water in them soon receives heat from them. From imprecations the psalmist proceeds to prophesy, and foretells the sudden destruction of wicked men, which would be before a pot could be heated with a blaze of thorns. The Targum is,
“before the wicked become tender, they harden as the thorn:”
that is, they never become tender, or have any tender consciences, but are hardened in sin from their infancy. Some render the words, “before your thorns grow up to a brier” or “bramble” i; little thorns become great ones, tender thorns hard ones, as Jarchi; that is, as he interprets it, before the children of the wicked are grown up, they are destroyed; those sons of Belial, who are like to thorns thrust away,
2Sa 23:6. Others, as Aben Ezra, “before they understand”; that is, wise and knowing men; “that your thorns are a bramble”; or from lesser ones are become greater; and so denotes, as before, the suddenness and quickness of their destruction, as follows:
he, that is, God,
shall take them away as with a whirlwind: not to himself, as Enoch; nor to heaven, whither Elijah went up by a whirlwind; but out of the land of the living, and as with a tempest, to hell, where snares, fire, and brimstone, are rained upon them; see Job 27:20;
both living, and in [his] wrath: when in health and full strength, and so go quick to hell; as Korah and his company alive into the earth; and all in wrath and sore displeasure: for the righteous are also taken away; but then it is from the evil to come, and to everlasting happiness; and through many tempestuous providences, which are in love, and for their good, do they enter the kingdom: and those that are alive at Christ’s coming will be caught up to meet him in the air; but the wicked are taken away as in a whirlwind, alive, and in wrath.
i Tigurine version.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
9. Before your pots can feel the fire of your thorns. Some obscurity attaches to this verse, arising partly from the perplexed construction, and partly from the words being susceptible of a double meaning. (357) Thus the Hebrew word סירות, siroth, signifies either a pot or a thorn. If we adopt the first signification, we must read, before your pots feel the fire which has been kindled by thorns; if the second, before your thorns grow to a bush, that is, reach their full height and thickness. What, following the former sense, we have translated flesh yet raw, must be rendered, provided we adopt the other, tender, or not yet grown. But the scope of the Psalmist in the passage is sufficiently obvious. He refers to the swiftness of that judgment which God would execute upon his enemies, and prays that he would carry them away as by a whirlwind, either before they arrived at the full growth of their strength, like the thorn sprung to the vigorous plant, or before they came to maturity and readiness, like flesh which has been boiled in the pot. The latter meaning would seem to be the one of which the passage is most easily susceptible, that God, in the whirlwind of his anger, would carry away the wicked like flesh not yet boiled, which may be said scarcely to have felt the heat of the fire.
(357) This verse has been deemed one of the most difficult passages in the Psalter, and has greatly perplexed commentators. Bishop Horsley reads —
“
Before your pots feel the bramble, In whirlwind and hurricane he shall sweep them away.”
He supposes that the language is proverbial, and that the Psalmist describes the sudden eruption of the divine wrath; sudden and violent as the ascension of the dry bramble underneath the housewife’s pot. Walford reads —
“
Before your cooking vessels feel the fuel; Both the green and the dry a whirlwind shall scatter.”
The passage is supposed by this author and others to contain an allusion to the manners of the Arabs, who, when they want to cook their food, collect bushes and brambles, both green and withered, with which they kindle a fire in the open air. But before their culinary vessels are sensibly afflicted with the heat, a whirlwind not unfrequently arises and scatters the fuel. And this strikingly expresses the sudden and premature destruction of the wicked. Fry gives a somewhat different explanation. He reads —
“
Sooner than your vessels can feel the blazing thorn, The hot blast shall consume them, as well the green as the dry.”
And he observes, that “ שער, or סער, no doubt expresses the action of the hot wind of the desert.” This wind is eminently destructive, and has not unfrequently been known to entomb and destroy whole caravans. Sidi Hamet, describing his journey across the great desert to Tombuctoo with a caravan consisting of above one thousand men and four thousand camels, relates that, “after travelling upwards of a month they were attacked by the Shume, the burning blast of the desert, carrying with it clouds of sand. They were obliged to lie for two days with their faces on the ground, only lifting them occasionally to shake off the sand and obtain breath. Three hundred never rose again, and two hundred camels also perished.” — ( Murray ’ s Discoveries in Africa, volume 1, pp. 515, 516.) Estius gives this sense: “Before your thorns shall arrive to their full growth into a bush, the rage of a tempest shall snatch them away, as it were, in the flower of their age and growing to maturity.” The words כמו-חי, kemo-chai, which Calvin renders flesh yet raw, are used in this sense in Lev 13:16, and 1Sa 11:15
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) Before.The figure in this difficult verse is generally intelligible, though the text as it stands resists all attempts to translate it. As in the preceding images, it must convey the idea of abortive effort and sudden ruin, and, as has generally been understood, some experience of eastern travel undoubtedly supplied the figure which accident or a copyists error has rendered so obscure. The Hebrew literally runs, Before (shall) understand your pots a bramble as (or so) living as (or so) heat sweeps them off. The ancient versions mostly render thorns instead of pots, and make the simile to lie in the destruction of the bush before growing to maturity. The English versions have undoubtedly caught the figure more correctly. But it is doubtful if the Hebrew word rendered feel could be used of inanimate objects, and even if a kettle might be said to feel the fire, we should hardly speak of its feeling the fuel. Some change in the text must be made. A very slight change in one letter gives excellent sense to the first clause. Before thorns (taking the word tad which in Jdg. 9:14-15 is translated bramble collectively) make your pots ready. But the second clause remains very difficult. Even if (with Grtz) we read charl (Job. 30:7; Pro. 24:31, nettles) for charn, and render thorny bush, the words as living still offer a puzzle. And even if with the Prayer Book we might render raw instead of living, yet burning heat could not stand for cooked meat. Apparently the poet intends to compare the sudden overthrow of the wicked before their arms could succeed, to the disappearance of the fuel before it had time to heat the cooking-pot; and it is quite possible that he compressed all this into a condensed expression, which we must expand: As, before the brambles make the pots ready, they are consumed, so He will whirl them (i.e., the wicked) away alive, as the fierce heat consumes the thorns. Hebrew poetry is always more satisfactory with metaphor than with simile, and here, as often, seems to falter between the two, and so becomes obscure.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. Thorns The atad, or southern buckthorn, (the Rhamnus paliurus of Linnaeus,) noted, like the retem or broom shrub of the desert for its crackling flame and hot fire, and much used as fuel. See Ecc 7:6. Called also “Christ’s thorn,” from a tradition that it was the same that furnished the mock crown for our Saviour. The figure of the text supposes a robber-feast over recent success, where all are abandoned to wild, delirious merriment, such as is narrated in 1Sa 30:16. In the preparations for the feast the catastrophe comes. The sense is given by Perowne: “As a sudden whirlwind in the desert sweeps away the thorns which have been gathered for cooking before the caldron has grown hot, so shall the wicked and all their incomplete designs be swept away by the wrath of God.” On the whirlwind of the desert, see note on Psa 83:13.
Living This is the usual signification of , ( hhah’y,) but as applied to meat, it may signify raw meat in opposition to that which is cooked, as in 1Sa 2:15, which develops the point of the metaphor, namely, that though the fire was built in a calm atmosphere, the whirlwind should be so sudden as to sweep away the meat while yet raw in the pot, together with the fire of thorns and the entire “cooking apparatus.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 58:9. Before your pots can feel the thorns Sooner than the bramble can heat your pots, let God’s wrath, like a stormy wind, sweep them away. See Bishop Hare and Green. The author of the Observations remarks, that among the Arabs, the fire of thorns, furze, and things of that kind, is commonly used for any thing which requires quick heating; and, as it is short-lived, so it is remarkably violent. See p. 141 and Ecc 7:6. According to Grotius, the Hebrew may be rendered, Before your pots can perceive or feel the thorns; (i.e. a fire made of thorns, which burns with great fury, and soon gives heat to any thing;) so likewise shall the anger of God snatch you away, as it were in a whirlwind. The intention of the Psalmist is, to express both the quick and terrible destruction of the wicked. They were to be taken away suddenly, or rapidly, before the pots could feel the soon-kindling and vehement fire of thorns. They were to be taken off by some terrible catastrophe, like the furious burning of thorns, to which the wrath of God is frequently compared. See Eze 2:6.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 58:9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.
Ver. 9. Before your pots can feel the thorns, &c. ] Of this text we may say, as one doth of another, it had been easy had not commentators made it so knotty. I am for that of Drusius, Tractum a semicrudis carnibus olla extractis priusquam ignis calorem senserint, It is a comparison taken from raw flesh, taken out of the pot before it hath felt the full force of the fire (Proverb, Col 2 , l. 2. Pro 30:16 ).
Both living, and in his wrath
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the thorns. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause), App-6, for the fire caused by them (Ecc 7:6).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
thorns: Psa 118:12, Ecc 7:6
as: Psa 10:2, Psa 10:5, Psa 55:23, Psa 73:18-20, Job 18:18, Job 20:5-29, Pro 1:27, Pro 10:25, Pro 14:32, Isa 17:13, Isa 40:24, Jer 23:19
both living: etc. Heb. as living as wrath, Num 16:30
Reciprocal: Jdg 16:9 – toucheth 1Ki 16:19 – in doing Job 24:19 – so doth Job 27:19 – he openeth Job 27:21 – a storm Psa 73:19 – How Psa 83:15 – General Isa 37:7 – I will Isa 57:13 – but the Jer 30:23 – the whirlwind Zec 7:14 – scattered
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 58:9. Before your pots can feel the thorns That is, the heat of a fire of thorns made under them, which they soon do, as it is a quick fire, and burns violently while it lasts; he shall take them away Namely, mine enemies; so speedily, with such a hasty and destructive flame; as with a whirlwind That is, violently and irresistibly; both living, and in his wrath Hebrew, , chemo chi, chemo charon, as living, as wrath, or, as it were alive, as it were with fury. The intention of the psalmist is to express both the quickness and terribleness of the destruction of the wicked. They were to be taken away suddenly, or rapidly, before the pots could feel the soon kindling and vehement fire of thorns. They were to be taken off by some terrible catastrophe, like the furious burning of thorns, to which the wrath of God is frequently compared.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
58:9 {g} Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.
(g) As flesh is taken raw out of the pot before the water boils: so he desires God to destroy their enterprises before they bring them to pass.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The psalmist believed their destruction would be swift. Thorns used for firewood burn very quickly. David compared the unjust rulers to thorns. Their fiery evil would not last long enough to effect any change on the pot above them, a figure for other people whom they might influence. Regardless of whether these wicked men were young (green) or old (dry), their influence would be minimal because God would judge them.