Mazmur 72:9

72:9 Before him the coastlands ¹  will bow down,

and his enemies will lick the dust. ² 

Yesaya 49:23

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ³  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ⁴ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ⁵  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

Yesaya 65:25

65:25 A wolf and a lamb will graze together; ⁶ 

a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, ⁷ 

and a snake’s food will be dirt. ⁸ 

They will no longer injure or destroy

on my entire royal mountain,” ⁹  says the Lord.

Mikha 7:17

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ¹⁰ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ¹¹ 

they will be terrified ¹²  of you. ¹³ 

[72:9]  ¹ tn Or “islands.” The term here refers metonymically to those people who dwell in these regions.

[72:9]  ² sn As they bow down before him, it will appear that his enemies are licking the dust.

[49:23]  ³ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ⁵ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”

[65:25]  ⁶ sn A similar statement appears in 11:6.

[65:25]  ⁷ sn These words also appear in 11:7.

[65:25]  ⁸ sn Some see an allusion to Gen 3:14 (note “you will eat dirt”). The point would be that even in this new era the snake (often taken as a symbol of Satan) remains under God’s curse. However, it is unlikely that such an allusion exists. Even if there is an echo of Gen 3:14, the primary allusion is to 11:8, where snakes are pictured as no longer dangerous. They will no longer attack other living creatures, but will be content to crawl along the ground. (The statement “you will eat dirt” in Gen 3:14 means “you will crawl on the ground.” In the same way the statement “dirt will be its food” in Isa 65:25 means “it will crawl on the ground.”)

[65:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “in all my holy mountain.” These same words appear in 11:9. See the note there.

[65:25]  sn As in 11:1-9 the prophet anticipates a time when the categories predator-prey no longer exist. See the note at the end of 11:8.

[7:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ¹¹ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

[7:17]  ¹² tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ¹³ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.