Bible Strands
Nahum 1:10
For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Nahum pronounces judgment on the forces originating from Nineveh, immediately after affirming that every plot against the LORD will be terminated and affliction will not recur.
The words — סִירִים (si.Rim) translates to thorns, and סְבוּאִ֑ים (se.vu.'Im) translates to drunkards, both used literally to describe the entanglement and consumption of the enemy.
The thread — The thorn imagery runs in Micah 7:4, the dry stubble consumed by fire parallels Isaiah 5:24, and the loss of sobriety reappears in Nahum 3:11.
Why it lands — The text states that human schemes are inherently self-entangling and will be completely consumed, requiring the reader to abandon reliance on opposition to God.
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
For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
Cross-references
- Micah 7:4 The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time of their confusion.
- Isaiah 5:24 Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Nahum 3:11 You too will become drunk; you will go into hiding and seek refuge from the enemy.
- Malachi 4:1 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble; the day is coming when I will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of Hosts. “Not a root or branch will be left to them.”
- 2 Samuel 23:6 But the worthless are all like thorns raked aside, for they can never be gathered by hand.
- 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.
- Jeremiah 51:57 I will make her princes and wise men drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and not wake up,” declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.
- Psalms 68:2 As smoke is blown away, You will drive them out; as wax melts before the fire, the wicked will perish in the presence of God.
- 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 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.