Isaiah 33:12
 Isaiah 33:12 
New International Version (©2011)
The peoples will be burned to ashes; like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze."

New Living Translation (©2007)
Your people will be burned up completely, like thornbushes cut down and tossed in a fire.

English Standard Version (©2001)
And the peoples will be as if burned to lime, like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"The peoples will be burned to lime, Like cut thorns which are burned in the fire.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
The peoples will be burned to ashes, like thorns cut down and burned in a fire.

International Standard Version (©2012)
And the peoples will be burned as if to ashes; like cut thorn bushes, they will be set ablaze.

NET Bible (©2006)
The nations will be burned to ashes; like thorn bushes that have been cut down, they will be set on fire.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
People will be cremated. They will be set on fire like dry thornbushes.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

American King James Version
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

American Standard Version
And the peoples shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And the people shall be as ashes after a fire, as a bundle of thorns they shall be burnt with fire.

Darby Bible Translation
And the peoples shall be as burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

English Revised Version
And the peoples shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.

Webster's Bible Translation
And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.

World English Bible
The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burned in the fire.

Young's Literal Translation
And peoples have been as burnings of lime, Thorns, as sweepings, with fire they burn.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

33:1-14 Here we have the proud and false destroyer justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence. The righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin. Those who by faith humbly wait for God, shall find him gracious to them; as the day, so let the strength be. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must every morning commit ourselves to him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of the day. When God arises, his enemies are scattered. True wisdom and knowledge lead to strength of salvation, which renders us stedfast in the ways of God; and true piety is the only treasure which can never be plundered or spent. The distress Jerusalem was brought into, is described. God's time to appear for his people, is, when all other helpers fail. Let all who hear what God has done, acknowledge that he can do every thing. Sinners in Zion will have much to answer for, above other sinners. And those that rebel against the commands of the word, cannot take its comforts in time of need. His wrath will burn those everlastingly who make themselves fuel for it. It is a fire that shall never be quenched, nor ever go out of itself; it is the wrath of an ever-living God preying on the conscience of a never-dying soul.


Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - The people; rather, the peoples, as in ver. 3; i.e. the nations composing the Assyrian army. As the burnings of lime; as thorns. Things that fire consumes utterly and quickly.


Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the people shall be as the burnings of lime,.... Like chalk stones that are burnt to make lime of; which may denote not only their hardness and impenitency, which brought upon them and issued in the wrath of God; but the miserable condition into which they are brought, and the torture they should be put to: perhaps this may refer to the casting of the beast and false prophet alive into the lake burning with fire and brimstone, Revelation 19:20,

as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire; "thorns" are a fit simile to express the unfruitfulness, uselessness, and harmfulness of wicked men, particularly the sons of Belial, the followers of antichrist; and these "cut up", and so not green and moist, but dry, and fit fuel for the fire, which burn the more easily and quickly, makes the metaphor more agreeable. The burning of Rome seems here to be pointed at, Revelation 17:16.


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. (Isa 9:19; Am 2:1). Perhaps alluding to their being about to be burnt on the funeral pyre (Isa 30:33).

thorns—the wicked (2Sa 23:6, 7).


Isaiah 33:12 Parallel Commentaries

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Isaiah 33:12 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible


The Lord is Exalted
11You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you. 12And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire. 13Hear, you that are far off, what I have done; and, you that are near, acknowledge my might. …

2 Samuel 23:6 But evil men are all to be cast aside like thorns, which are not gathered with the hand.
2 Samuel 23:7 Whoever touches thorns uses a tool of iron or the shaft of a spear; they are burned up where they lie."
Isaiah 10:17 The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers.
Isaiah 27:4 I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire.