441. Thorns for Fuel

From: Manners and Customs of the Bible By: James M. Freeman

• 1 min. read • grade level: 7

Psalm 58:9⁹Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath. (Psalm 58:9). Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind.

There is a great variety of thorny shrubs and plants abounding in Palestine. These the people gladly gather and use for fuel. They make a quick, hot fire, which kindles easily and soon expires. The idea conveyed in the text is that of swift destruction. The wicked are to be destroyed quicker than the heat from a fire of thorns could reach the cooking vessels.

A similar figure is used in the prophecy of Isaiah: “And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire” (Isa. 33:12¹²And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire. (Isaiah 33:12)). It has been supposed from this text that thorns may have been used in lime-kilns.

Allusion to the use of thorns for fuel is also made in 2 Samuel 23:6-7⁶But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: ⁷But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place. (2 Samuel 23:6‑7); Psalm 118:12¹²They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. (Psalm 118:12); Eccl 7:6; Isaiah 9.18; 10:17; Nahum 1:10¹⁰For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. (Nahum 1:10).

See note on 1 Kings 17:10¹⁰So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. (1 Kings 17:10) (#304) and also on Matthew 6:30³⁰Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 6:30) (#646).

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