Bible Strands
Habakkuk 3:12
You marched across the earth with fury; You threshed the nations in wrath.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The worship leader addresses God, framing a description of divine warfare between a cosmic theophany (v. 11) and a campaign to rescue His anointed people (v. 13).
The words — תִצְעַד (titz.'ad) literally means "you march," and תָדוּשׁ (ta.Dush) literally means "you trample down" or "thresh."
The thread — The threshing metaphor reappears in Jeremiah 51:33, where Babylon is compared to a threshing floor, and in Micah 4:12, where hostile nations are gathered like sheaves to be threshed.
Why it lands — The text states that God's furious advance destroys hostile nations before He acts to save His people. It requires the reader to accept that historical judgment and deliverance are determined by divine will alone.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 51:33 For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.”
- Micah 4:12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD or understand His plan, for He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
- Numbers 21:23 But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory. Instead, he gathered his whole army and went out to confront Israel in the wilderness. When he came to Jahaz, he fought against Israel.
- Joshua 6:1 Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
- Nehemiah 9:22 You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan.
- Psalms 44:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.
- Psalms 78:55 He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
- Isaiah 41:15 Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
- Amos 1:3 This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron.
- Acts 13:19 And having vanquished seven nations in Canaan, He gave their land to His people as an inheritance.