a pot · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
feel
יָבִ֣ינוּya.Vi.nu
H995
to separate mentally (or distinguish) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
thorns
אָטָ֑ד'a.Tad
H329
a thorn-tree (especially the buckthorn) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
whirlwind
יִשְׂעָרֶֽנּוּyis.'a.Re.nu
H8175
to storm · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
living
חַ֥יchai
H2416
alive · adjective, masculine singular absolute
wrath
חָ֝ר֗וֹןcha.Ron
H2740
a burning of anger · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 10:25 As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.
Psalms 118:12 They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.
Ecclesiastes 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
Isaiah 17:13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the c…
Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
Numbers 16:30 But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down qui…
Job 18:18 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
Job 20:5-29 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 58:6–end
In these verses we have,
I. David's prayers against his enemies, and all the enemies of God's church and people; for it is as such that he looks upon them, so that he was actuated by a public spirit in praying against them, and not by any private revenge. 1. He prays that they might be disabled to do any further mischief (Psa 58:6): Break their teeth, O God! Not so much that they might not feed themselves as that they might not be able to make prey of others, Psa 3:7. He does not say, "Break their necks" (no; let them live to repent, slay them not, lest my people forget), but, "Break their teeth, for they are lions, they are young lions, that live by rapine." 2. That they might be disappoint…
he shall take them away as with a whirlwind--literally, "blow him (them) away."
both living . . . wrath--literally, "as the living" or fresh as the heated or burning--that is, thorns--all easily blown away, so easily and quickly the wicked. The figure of the "snail" perhaps alludes to its loss of saliva when moving. Though obscure in its clauses, the general sense of the passage is clear.
John Gill on Psalms 58:9
Before your pots can feel the thorns,.... Which is soon done; for as dry thorns make a great blaze, so they give a quick heat; the pots soon feel them, or the water in them soon receives heat from them. From imprecations the psalmist proceeds to prophesy, and foretells the sudden destruction of wicked men, which would be before a pot could be heated with a blaze of thorns. The Targum is,
"before the wicked become tender, they harden as the thorn:''
that is, they never become tender, or have any tender consciences, but are hardened in sin from their infancy. Some render the words, "before your thorns grow up to a brier" or "bramble" (i); little thorns become great ones, tender thorns hard o…
"Before that the bramble brings forth your thorns: as though living, as though in anger, it shall drink them up" [Psalm 58:9]. What is the bramble? Of prickly plants it is a kind, upon which there are said to be certain of the closest thorns. At first it is a herb; and while it is a herb, soft and fair it is: but thereon there are nevertheless thorns to come forth. Now therefore sins are pleasant, and as it were they do not prick. A herb is the bramble; even now nevertheless there is a thorn. "Before that the bramble brings forth thorns:" is before that of miserable delights and pleasures the evident tortures come forth. Let them question themselves that love any object, and to it cannot attain; let them see if they are not racked with longing: and when they have attained to that which unlawfully they long for, let them mark if they are not racked with fear. Let them see therefore here their punishments; before that there comes that resurrection, when in flesh rising again they shall not be changed. "For all we shall rise again, but not all we shall be changed." [1 Corinthians 15:51] For they shall have the corruption of the flesh wherein to be pained, not that wherein to die: otherwise even those pains would be ended. Then the thorns of that bramble, that is, all pains and piercings of tortures shall be brought forth. Such thorns as they shall suffer that are to say, "These are they whom sometimes we had in derision:" [Wisdom 5:3] thorns of the piercing of repentance, but of one too late and without fruit like the barrenness of thorns. The repentance of this time is pain healing: repentance of that time is pain penal. Would you not suffer those thorns? Here be thou pierced with the thorns of repentance; in such sort that thou do that which has been spoken of, "Turned I have been in sorrow, when the thorn was piercing: my sin I have known, and mine iniquity I have not covered: I have said, I will declare against me my shortcoming to the Lord, and You have remitted the ungodliness of my heart." Now do so, now be pierced through, be there not in you done that which has been said of certain execrable men, "They have been cloven asunder, and have not been pierced through." Observe them that have been cloven asunder and have not been pierced through. You see men cloven asunder, and you see them not pierced through. Behold beside the Church they are, and it does…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Altaschith — Destroy not, the title of Ps. 57, 58, 59, and 75. It was probably the name of some song to the melody of which these psalms were to be chanted.
Atad — Buckthorn, a place where Joseph and his brethren, when on their way from Egypt to Hebron with the remains of their father Jacob, made for seven days a “great and very sore lamentation.” On this…
Bramble — (1.) Hebrew atad, Judg. 9:14; rendered “thorn,” Ps. 58:9. The LXX. and Vulgate render by rhamnus, a thorny shrub common in Palestine, resembling the hawthorn. (2.) Hebrew hoah, Isa. 34:13 (R.V.…
Fuel — Almost every kind of combustible matter was used for fuel, such as the withered stalks of herbs (Matt. 6:30), thorns (Ps. 58:9; Eccl. 7:6), animal excrements (Ezek. 4:12-15; 15:4, 6; 21:32). Wood or…
Thorn — (1.) Heb. hedek (Prov. 15:19), rendered “brier” in Micah 7:4. Some thorny plant, of the Solanum family, suitable for hedges. This is probably the so-called “apple of Sodom,” which grows very…
Thorn · .For fuel — .For fuel
Whirlwind · Illustrative of the: Sudden destruction of the wicked — Illustrative of the: Sudden destruction of the wicked
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Psalm 58:6-9
6. Break their teeth, O God! in their mouth: break the jaws of the lions. 7. Let them flow away like waters, let them depart: let them bend their bow, and let their arrows be as broken. [352] 8. Let him vanish like a snail, which melts away; like the untimely birth of a woman, which does not see the sun. 9. Before your pots [353] can feel the fire of the thorns, a whirlwind shall carry him away, like flesh yet raw.
6. Break their teeth, O God! in their mouth [354] From this part of the psalm he assumes the language of imprecation, and solicits the vengeance of God, whose peculiar prerogative it is to repel oppression and vindicate injured innocence. It is necessary, however, t…
The verb הרס is used much in the same way in Psa 58:7 as ἀράσσειν (e.g., Iliad, xiii. 577, ἀπὸ δὲ τρυφάλειαν ἄραξεν), which presents a similar onomatope. The form ימּאסוּ is, as in Job 7:5, = ימּסּוּ. The Jewish expositors, less appropriately, compare צנאכם, Num 32:24, and בּזאוּ = בּזזוּ, Isa 18:2, Isa 18:7; שׁאסיך, Chethb, Jer 30:16, and ראמה, Zac 14:10, more nearly resemble it. The treading (bending) of the bow is here, as in Psa 64:4, transferred to the arrows (= כּונן, Psa 11:2): he bends and shoots off his arrows, they shall be as though cut off in the front, i.e., as inoperative as if they had no heads or points (כּמו as in Isa 26:18). In Psa 58:9 follow two figures to which t…
God’s judgment will come suddenly. The certainty of vindication brings joy to the godly.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 58:9
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
Before your pots can feel the thorns. So sudden is the overthrow of the wicked, so great a failure is their life, that they never see joy. Their pot is put upon the hook to prepare a feast of joy, and the fuel is placed beneath, but before the thorns are lit, before any heat can be brought to bear upon the pot, yea, even as soon as the fuel has touched the cooking vessel, a storm comes and sweeps all away; the pot is overturned, the fuel is scattered far and wide. Perhaps the figure may suppose the thorns, which are the fuel, to be kindled, and then the flame is so rapid that be…
