Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

Before your thorns could know the brier; he swalloweth them up, as alive, in his wrath.

Before your pots feel the thorns, green or burning, they shall be whirled away.

Before your pots discern the bramble, As well the raw as the heated He whirleth away.

Before they are conscious of it, let them be cut down like thorns; let a strong wind take them away like waste growth.

Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away; Like the untimely births of a woman, that have not seen the sun.

Before your pots can feel the fire of your thorns. Some obscurity attaches to this verse, arising partly from the perplexed construction, and partly from the words being susceptible of a double meaning. [1] Thus the Hebrew word syrvt, siroth, signifies either a pot or a thorn. If we adopt the first signification, we must read, before your pots feel the fire which has been kindled by thorns; if the second, before your thorns grow to a bush, that is, reach their full height and thickness. What, following the former sense, we have translated flesh yet raw, must be rendered, provided we adopt the other, tender, or not yet grown. But the scope of the Psalmist in the passage is sufficiently obvious. He refers to the swiftness of that judgment which God would execute upon his enemies, and prays that he would carry them away as by a whirlwind, either before they arrived at the full growth of their strength, like the thorn sprung to the vigorous plant, or before they came to maturity and readiness, like flesh which has been boiled in the pot. The latter meaning would seem to be the one of which the passage is most easily susceptible, that God, in the whirlwind of his anger, would carry away the wicked like flesh not yet boiled, which may be said scarcely to have felt the heat of the fire.

Footnotes

1 - This verse has been deemed one of the most difficult passages in the Psalter, and has greatly perplexed commentators. Bishop Horsley reads -- "Before your pots feel the bramble, In whirlwind and hurricane he shall sweep them away." He supposes that the language is proverbial, and that the Psalmist describes the sudden eruption of the divine wrath; sudden and violent as the ascension of the dry bramble underneath the housewife's pot. Walford reads -- "Before your cooking vessels feel the fuel; Both the green and the dry a whirlwind shall scatter." The passage is supposed by this author and others to contain an allusion to the manners of the Arabs, who, when they want to cook their food, collect bushes and brambles, both green and withered, with which they kindle a fire in the open air. But before their culinary vessels are sensibly afflicted with the heat, a whirlwind not unfrequently arises and scatters the fuel. And this strikingly expresses the sudden and premature destruction of the wicked. Fry gives a somewhat different explanation. He reads -- "Sooner than your vessels can feel the blazing thorn, The hot blast shall consume them, as well the green as the dry." And he observes, that "sr, or sr, no doubt expresses the action of the hot wind of the desert." This wind is eminently destructive, and has not unfrequently been known to entomb and destroy whole caravans. Sidi Hamet, describing his journey across the great desert to Tombuctoo with a caravan consisting of above one thousand men and four thousand camels, relates that, "after travelling upwards of a month they were attacked by the Shume, the burning blast of the desert, carrying with it clouds of sand. They were obliged to lie for two days with their faces on the ground, only lifting them occasionally to shake off the sand and obtain breath. Three hundred never rose again, and two hundred camels also perished." -- (Murray's Discoveries in Africa, volume 1, pp. 515, 516.) Estius gives this sense: "Before your thorns shall arrive to their full growth into a bush, the rage of a tempest shall snatch them away, as it were, in the flower of their age and growing to maturity." The words kmv-chy, kemo-chai, which Calvin renders flesh yet raw, are used in this sense in Leviticus 13:16, and 1 Samuel 11:15

Before your pots can feel the thorns - The word "thorns" here - אטד 'âṭâd - refers to what is called "Christ's thorn," the southern buckthorn. "Gesenius." The fire made of such thorns when dry would be quick and rapid, and water would be soon heated by it. The idea is, that what is here referred to would occur "quickly" - sooner than the most rapid and intense fire could make an impression on a kettle and its contents. The destruction of the wicked would be, as it were, instantaneous. The following quotation from Prof. Hackitt (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 135) will explain this passage: "A species of thorn, now very common near Jerusalem, bears the name of Spina Christi, or Christ's thorn. The people of the country gather these bushes and plants, and use them as fuel. As it is now, so it was of old. 'As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool,' Ecclesiastes 7:6 'Before your pots can feel the thorns,' namely, the fire of them, 'he shall sweep them away,' Psalm 58:9 The figure in this case is taken from travelers in the desert, or from shepherds tenting abroad, who build a fire in the open air, where it is exposed to the wind; a sudden gust arises and sweeps away the fuel almost before it has begun to burn. 'As thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire' Isaiah 33:12. The meaning is that the wicked are worthless - their destruction shall be sudden and complete."
He shall take them away - The word rendered "shall take them away" means properly "to shiver, to shudder;" and it is then applied to the commotion and raging of a tempest. They shal be taken away as in a storm that makes everything shiver or tremble; Job 27:21. It would be done "suddenly" and "entirely." A sudden storm sent by God would beat upon them, and they would be swept away in an instant.
Both living and in his wrath - Margin, "as living as wrath." This expression is exceedingly obscure. The Septuagint renders it, "he shall devour them as it were living - as it were in wrath." The Latin Vulgate: "He shall devour them as living, so in wrath." Prof. Alexander: "Whether raw or done." He supposes that the idea is, that God would come upon them while forming their plans; and that the illustration is derived from the act of "cooking," and that the meaning is, that God would come upon them whether those plans were matured or not - "cooked" or "raw." This seems to me to be a very forced construction, and one which it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear. The word rendered "living" - חי chay - means properly "alive, living;" and then, "lively, fresh, vigorous;" and is applicable then to a plant that is living or green. It "may" be here applied to the "thorns" that had been gathered for the fire, still green or alive; and the idea "here" would be, that even while those thorns were alive and green - before they had been kindled by the fire (or while they were trying to kindle them), a sudden tempest would come and sweep them all away.
It is not, indeed, an uncommon occurrence in the deserts of the East, that while, in their journeyings, travelers pause to cook their food, and have gathered the fuel - thorns, or whatever may be at hand - and have placed their pot over the fire, a sudden tempest comes from the desert, and sweeps everything away. Rosenmuller in loc. Such an occurrence "may" be referred to here. The word rendered "wrath" - חרון chârôn - means properly "burning;" and then it is used to denote anything burning. It is applied to wrath or anger, because it seems to "burn." Numbers 25:4; Numbers 32:14; 1-Samuel 28:18. Here, however, it "may" be taken literally as applicable to thorns when they begin to be kindled, though still green. They are seen first as gathered and placed under the pots; then they are seen as still green - not dried up by the kindling flame; then they are seen as on fire; and, in a moment - before the pots could be affected by them - all is swept away by a sudden gust of wind. The "idea" is that of the sudden and unexpected descent of God on the wicked, frustrating their schemes even when they seemed to be well formed, and to promise complete success. This does not mean, therefore, that God would cut off and punish the wicked while "living," but it refers to the fact that their schemes would be suddenly defeated even while they supposed that all things were going on well; defeated before there was, in fact, any progress made toward the accomplishment, as the arrangements for the evening-meal would all be swept away before even the pot had begun to be warm.

Before your pots can feel the thorns - Ye shall be destroyed with a sudden destruction. From the time that the fire of God's wrath is kindled about you, it will be but as a moment before ye be entirely consumed by it: so very short will be the time, that it may be likened to the heat of the first blaze of dry thorns under a pot, that has not as yet been able to penetrate the metal, and warm what is contained in it.
A whirlwind - Or the suffocating simoon that destroys life in an instant, without previous warning: so, without pining sickness - while ye are living - lively and active, the whirlwind of God's wrath shall sweep you away.

(g) Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in [his] wrath.
(g) As flesh is taken raw out of the pot before the water boils: so he desires God to destroy their enterprises before they bring them to pass.

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 ones, as Jarchi; that is, as he interprets it, before the children of the wicked are grown up, they are destroyed; those sons of Belial, who are like to thorns thrust away, 2-Samuel 23:6. Others, as Aben Ezra, "before they understand"; that is, wise and knowing men; "that your thorns are a bramble"; or from lesser ones are become greater; and so denotes, as before, the suddenness and quickness of their destruction, as follows:
he, that is, God,
shall take them away as with a whirlwind: not to himself, as Enoch; nor to heaven, whither Elijah went up by a whirlwind; but out of the land of the living, and as with a tempest, to hell, where snares, fire, and brimstone, are rained upon them; see Job 27:20;
both living, and in his wrath: when in health and full strength, and so go quick to hell; as Korah and his company alive into the earth; and all in wrath and sore displeasure: for the righteous are also taken away; but then it is from the evil to come, and to everlasting happiness; and through many tempestuous providences, which are in love, and for their good, do they enter the kingdom: and those that are alive at Christ's coming will be caught up to meet him in the air; but the wicked are taken away as in a whirlwind, alive, and in wrath.
(i) Tigurine version.

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.

Before - Before your pots can be heated. Take them - Violently and irresistibly. Living - Alive, as he did Korah.