Psalms 83:13

13 Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like chaff before the wind.

Psalms 83:13 in Other Translations

King James Version (KJV)
13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
English Standard Version (ESV)
13 O my God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind.
New Living Translation (NLT)
13 O my God, scatter them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind!
The Message Bible (MSG)
13 My God! I've had it with them! Blow them away! Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,
American Standard Version (ASV)
13 O my God, make them like the whirling dust; As stubble before the wind.
GOD'S WORD Translation (GW)
13 O my God, blow them away like tumbleweeds, like husks in the wind.
Holman Christian Standard Bible (CSB)
13 Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like straw before the wind.
New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
13 My God, make them like straw that the wind blows away. Make them like tumbleweed.

Psalms 83:13 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 83:13

O my God, make them like a wheel
Which, as the Targum adds, is rolled, and goes on, and rests not in a declivity; let them be as fickle and inconstant as a wheel; being in high, let them be in slippery places, and brought down to desolation in a moment; like a wheel set running down hill, so let them swiftly and suddenly come to ruin; or be in all kind of calamities, and continual troubles F11 as the wheel is always turning: some think there is an allusion to the wheel by which bread corn was bruised; see ( Isaiah 28:28 ) ( Proverbs 20:26 ) , but the word F12 signifies a rolling thing before the wind, as a wisp of straw or stubble, which is easily carried away with it: Jarchi interprets it of the tops or down of thistles, which fly off from them, and roll up, and are scattered by the wind; see ( Isaiah 17:13 ) , and which agrees with what follows:

as the stubble before the wind;
which cannot stand before it, but is driven about by it here and there; and so wicked men are, as chaff and stubble, driven away in their wickedness, with the stormy wind of divine wrath and vengeance, and chased out of the world, which is here imprecated.


FOOTNOTES:

F11 "Vide Suidam in voce" (trocou) .
F12 (lglgk) "rem in levem quae turbine circumagitur", some in Amama; "pappos", i.e. "lanuginem carduorum", so some in Grotius; "as a rolling thing", Ainsworth.

Psalms 83:13 In-Context

11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, “Let us take possession of the pasturelands of God.”
13 Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest or a flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm.

Cross References 1

  • 1. S Job 13:25; Psalms 35:5; Isaiah 17:13
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