Bible Strands
Psalms 58:9
Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green or dry—He will sweep them away.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses corrupt judges and rulers, declaring that God will destroy them before their own cooking pots become hot.
The words — The Hebrew word טֶרֶם (terem) translates to “before,” while סִירֹתֵיכֶם (siroteikhem) means “your pots” and אָטָד (’atad) denotes a “thorn bush,” together describing a vessel being heated over thorn wood.
The thread — Burning thorns appear in Psalms 118:12 as a simile for enemies being extinguished, and in Ecclesiastes 7:6 where crackling thorns under a pot represent the hollow nature of a fool’s laughter.
Why it lands — The text states that divine judgment will overtake the wicked before they finish their violent preparations, requiring readers to accept God’s timing rather than relying on human justice.
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
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 10:25 When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever.
- Psalms 118:12 They swarmed around me like bees, but they were extinguished like burning thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
- Ecclesiastes 7:6 For like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.
- 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.
- Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, the storm of the LORD has gone out with fury, a whirlwind swirling down upon the heads of the wicked.
- Numbers 16:30 But if the LORD brings about something unprecedented, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.”
- Job 18:18 He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.
- Job 20:5 the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?
- Job 27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.
- Psalms 10:2 In pride the wicked pursue the needy; let them be caught in the schemes they devise.