Bible Strands
Psalms 35:5
May they be like chaff in the wind, as the angel of the LORD drives them away.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David voices a plea against his pursuers, following a request for their disgrace and preceding a petition for their path to become dark and slick. The moment captures a climactic request for divine reversal in a conflict.
The words — כֹּ֥ץ (kōṣ, chaff) and דּוֹחֶֽה (dōḥeh, driving/pushing) anchor the verse’s imagery. The text states that enemies will become weightless chaff scattered by wind, moved by the angel of Yahweh.
The thread — The chaff motif for sudden defeat recurs in Job 21:18 and Isaiah 29:5. The angel of the LORD’s active movement is recorded in Exodus 14:19, which describes the angel and pillar of cloud shifting positions rather than scattering foes.
Why it lands — The verse presents the text’s claim that human hostility is reduced to nothing by divine action. It requires the reader to acknowledge that removal of threats depends on God’s agent, not on 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
Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them.
Cross-references
- Job 21:18 Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
- Isaiah 29:5 But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,
- Exodus 14:19 And the angel of God, who had gone before the camp of Israel, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from before them and stood behind them,
- Psalms 1:4 Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
- Isaiah 17:13 The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.
- 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!
- Hosea 13:3 Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.
- Acts 12:23 Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
- Hebrews 11:28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch Israel’s own firstborn.
- Psalms 83:13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.