Bible Strands
Isaiah 33:12
The peoples will be burned to ashes, like thorns cut down and set ablaze.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses the arrogant enemy nations and the people of Judah as He announces the imminent destruction of those who plot against Zion.
The words — The Hebrew עַמִּים ('amim) denotes "peoples," while קוֹצִים (qotsim) means "thornbushes," both depicted as being cut down and kindled by fire.
The thread — This motif of unrepentant groups burning like worthless brush appears in 2 Samuel 23:6, Isaiah 27:4, and Isaiah 9:18.
Why it lands — The text states that hostile nations will be reduced to ashes like cut thorns, demanding acknowledgment of divine power rather than human strategy.
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
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 23:6 But the worthless are all like thorns raked aside, for they can never be gathered by hand.
- Isaiah 27:4 I am not angry. If only thorns and briers confronted Me, I would march and trample them, I would burn them to the ground.
- Isaiah 9:18 For wickedness burns like a fire that consumes the thorns and briers and kindles the forest thickets, which roll upward in billows of smoke.
- Isaiah 10:17 And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.
- Isaiah 37:36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- Amos 2:1 This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Moab, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he burned to lime the bones of Edom’s king.