Zephaniah 1:17

Bible in Basic English (1941)

And I will send trouble on men so that they will go about like the blind, because they have done evil against the Lord: and their blood will be drained out like dust, and their strength like waste.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַהֲצֵרֹ֣תִי לָאָדָ֗ם וְהָֽלְכוּ֙ כַּֽעִוְרִ֔ים כִּ֥י לַֽיהוָ֖ה חָטָ֑אוּ וְשֻׁפַּ֤ךְ דָּמָם֙ כֶּֽעָפָ֔ר וּלְחֻמָ֖ם כַּגְּלָלִֽים׃

Transliteration

wahăṣērōṯî lāʾāḏām wəhāləḵû kaʿiwrîm, kî la-YHWH ḥāṭāʾû; wəšuppaḵ dāmām keʿāp̄ār ûləḥumām kaggəlālîm.

Grammar Details

• *wahăṣērōṯî*: conjunction + hiphil perfect, 1st person singular - and I will bring distress
• *lāʾāḏām*: preposition + noun, masculine singular with definite article - to mankind
• *wəhāləḵû*: conjunction + qal perfect, 3rd person plural - and they will walk
• *kaʿiwrîm*: preposition + noun, masculine plural - like blind men
• *kî*: conjunction - because
• *la-YHWH*: preposition + divine name - against YHWH
• *ḥāṭāʾû*: qal perfect, 3rd person plural - they have sinned
• *wəšuppaḵ*: conjunction + pual perfect, 3rd person masculine singular - and will be poured out
• *dāmām*: noun, masculine singular with 3rd person masculine plural suffix - their blood
• *keʿāp̄ār*: preposition + noun, masculine singular - like dust
• *ûləḥumām*: conjunction + noun, masculine singular with 3rd person masculine plural suffix - and their flesh
• *kaggəlālîm*: preposition + noun, masculine plural with definite article - like dung

Word Meanings

• *wahăṣērōṯî*: and I will bring distress/cause distress/make narrow
• *kaʿiwrîm*: like blind men/as the blind
• *ḥāṭāʾû*: they have sinned/transgressed/offended
• *wəšuppaḵ*: and will be poured out/spilled
• *keʿāp̄ār*: like dust/dirt/powder
• *ûləḥumām*: and their flesh/internal organs/body
• *kaggəlālîm*: like dung/excrement/refuse

Referenced Verses

• Ps 83:10 : 10 Who came to destruction at En-dor; their bodies became dust and waste.
• Isa 24:5-6 : 5 The earth has been made unclean by those living in it; because the laws have not been kept by them, the orders have been changed, and the eternal agreement has been broken. 6 For this cause the earth is given up to the curse, and those in it are judged as sinners: for this cause those living on the earth are burned up, and the rest are small in number.
• Isa 29:10 : 10 For the Lord has sent on you a spirit of deep sleep; and by him your eyes, the prophets, are shut, and your heads, the seers, are covered.
• Isa 50:1 : 1 This is the word of the Lord: Where is the statement which I gave your mother when I put her away? or to which of my creditors have I given you for money? It was for your sins that you were given into the hands of others, and for your evil-doing was your mother put away.
• Isa 59:9-9 : 9 For this cause our right is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us: we are looking for light, but there is only the dark; for the shining of the sun, but our way is in the night. 10 We go on our way, like blind men feeling for the wall, even like those who have no eyes: we are running against things in daylight as if it was evening; our place is in the dark like dead men.
• Isa 59:12-15 : 12 For our evil doings are increased before you, and our sins give witness against us: for our evil doings are with us, and we have knowledge of our sins: 13 We have gone against the Lord, and been false to him, turning away from our God, our words have been uncontrolled, and in our hearts are thoughts of deceit. 14 And the right is turned back, and righteousness is far away: for good faith is not to be seen in the public places, and upright behaviour may not come into the town. 15 Yes, faith is gone; and he whose heart is turned from evil comes into the power of the cruel: and the Lord saw it, and he was angry that there was no one to take up their cause.
• Jer 2:17 : 17 Has not this come on you because you have given up the Lord your God, who was your guide by the way?
• Jer 2:19 : 19 The evil you yourselves have done will be your punishment, your errors will be your judge: be certain then, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing to give up the Lord your God, and no longer to be moved by fear of me, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.
• Jer 4:18 : 18 Your ways and your doings have made these things come on you; this is your sin; truly it is bitter, going deep into your heart.
• Jer 9:21-22 : 21 For death has come up into our windows, forcing its way into our great houses; cutting off the children in the streets and the young men in the wide places. 22 The bodies of men will be falling like waste on the open fields, and like grain dropped by the grain-cutter, and no one will take them up.
• Jer 10:18 : 18 For the Lord has said, I will send the people in flight like a stone from the land at this time, troubling them so that they will be conscious of it.
• Jer 15:3 : 3 And I will put over them four divisions, says the Lord: the sword causing death, dogs pulling the dead bodies about, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth to take their bodies for food and put an end to them.
• Jer 16:4-6 : 4 Death from evil diseases will overtake them; there will be no weeping for them and their bodies will not be put to rest; they will be like waste on the face of the earth: the sword and need of food will put an end to them; their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. 5 For this is what the Lord has said: Do not go into the house of sorrow, do not go to make weeping or songs of grief for them: for I have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, even mercy and pity. 6 Death will overtake great as well as small in the land: their bodies will not be put in a resting-place, and no one will be weeping for them or wounding themselves or cutting off their hair for them:
• Jer 18:21 : 21 For this cause, let their children be without food, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives be without children and become widows; let their men be overtaken by death, and their young men be put to the sword in the fight.
• Lam 1:8 : 8 Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.
• Lam 1:14 : 14 A watch is kept on my sins; they are joined together by his hand, they have come on to my neck; he has made my strength give way: the Lord has given me up into the hands of those against whom I have no power.
• Lam 1:18 : 18 The Lord is upright; for I have gone against his orders: give ear, now, all you peoples, and see my pain, my virgins and my young men have gone away as prisoners.
• Lam 2:21 : 21 The young men and the old are stretched on the earth in the streets; my virgins and my young men have been put to the sword: you have sent death on them in the day of your wrath, causing death without pity.
• Lam 4:13-15 : 13 It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her. 14 They are wandering like blind men in the streets, they are made unclean with blood, so that their robes may not be touched by men. 15 Away! unclean! they were crying out to them, Away! away! let there be no touching: when they went away in flight and wandering, men said among the nations, There is no further resting-place for them.
• Lam 5:16-17 : 16 The crown has been taken from our head: sorrow is ours, for we are sinners. 17 Because of this our hearts are feeble; for these things our eyes are dark;
• Ezek 22:25-31 : 25 Her rulers in her are like a loud-voiced lion violently taking his food; they have made a meal of souls; they have taken wealth and valued property; they have made great the number of widows in her. 26 Her priests have been acting violently against my law; they have made my holy things unclean: they have made no division between what is holy and what is common, and they have not made it clear that the unclean is different from the clean, and their eyes have been shut to my Sabbaths, and I am not honoured among them. 27 Her rulers in her are like wolves violently taking their food; putting men to death and causing the destruction of souls, so that they may get their profit. 28 And her prophets have been using whitewash, seeing foolish visions and making false use of secret arts, saying, This is what the Lord has said, when the Lord has said nothing. 29 The people of the land have been acting cruelly, taking men's goods by force; they have been hard on the poor and those in need, and have done wrong to the man from a strange land. 30 And I was looking for a man among them who would make up the wall and take his station in the broken place before me for the land, so that I might not send destruction on it: but there was no one. 31 And I let loose my passion on them, and have put an end to them in the fire of my wrath: I have made the punishment of their ways come on their heads, says the Lord.
• Dan 9:5-9 : 5 We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws: 6 We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you. 8 O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you. 9 With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him; 10 And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets. 11 And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him. 12 And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem. 13 As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom. 14 So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil. 16 O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us. 17 And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord. 18 O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies. 19 O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.
• Amos 4:10 : 10 I have sent disease among you, as it was in Egypt: I have put your young men to the sword, and have taken away your horses; I have made the evil smell from your tents come up to your noses: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.
• Mic 3:9-9 : 9 Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight. 10 They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing. 11 Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us. 12 For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.
• Mic 7:13 : 13 But the land will become a waste because of its people, as the fruit of their works.
• Matt 15:14 : 14 Let them be: they are blind guides. And if a blind man is guiding a blind man, the two will go falling into a hole together.
• John 9:40-41 : 40 These words came to the ears of the Pharisees who were with him and they said to him, Are we, then, blind? 41 Jesus said to them, If you were blind you would have no sin: but now that you say, We see; your sin is there still.
• Rom 11:7 : 7 What then? That which Israel was searching for he did not get, but those of the selection got it and the rest were made hard.
• Rom 11:25 : 25 For it is my desire, brothers, that this secret may be clear to you, so that you may not have pride in your knowledge, that Israel has been made hard in part, till all the Gentiles have come in;
• 2 Cor 4:4 : 4 Because the god of this world has made blind the minds of those who have not faith, so that the light of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not be shining on them.
• 2 Pet 1:9 : 9 For the man who has not these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having no memory of how he was made clean from his old sins.
• 1 John 2:11 : 11 But he who has hate for his brother is in the dark, walking in the dark with no knowledge of where he is going, unable to see because of the dark.
• Rev 3:17 : 17 For you say, I have wealth, and have got together goods and land, and have need of nothing; and you are not conscious of your sad and unhappy condition, that you are poor and blind and without clothing.
• Deut 28:28-29 : 28 He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear: 29 You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour.
• 2 Kgs 9:33-37 : 33 And he said, Take her and put her out of the window. So they sent her down with force, and her blood went in a shower on the wall and on the horses; and she was crushed under their feet. 34 And he came in, and took food and drink; then he said, Now see to this cursed woman, and put her body into the earth, for she is a king's daughter. 35 And they went out to put her body into the earth, but nothing of her was to be seen, only the bones of her head, and her feet, and parts of her hands. 36 So they came back and gave him word of it. And he said, This is what the Lord said by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the heritage of Jezreel the flesh of Jezebel will become food for dogs; 37 And the dead body of Jezebel will be like waste dropped on the face of the earth in the heritage of Jezreel; so that they will not be able to say, This is Jezebel.
• Ps 79:2-3 : 2 They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. 3 Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place.