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Sunday, July 20th, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

Young's Literal Translation

Psalms 48:7

By an east wind Thou shiverest ships of Tarshish.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Meteorology and Celestial Phenomena;   Tarshish;   War;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Ships;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Winds;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Edom;   Psalms;   Tarshish;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - English Versions;   Greek Versions of Ot;   Korah, Korahites;   Psalms;   Sin;   Tarshish (1);   Morrish Bible Dictionary - East;   Ship;   Tarshish, Tharshish;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - God;   Korah;   Psalms the book of;   Tarshish;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Tar'shish;   Winds;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Beryl;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bible, the;   Psalms, Book of;   Ships and Boats;   Wind;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Tarshish;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for December 12;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
as you wrecked the ships of Tarshishwith the east wind.
Hebrew Names Version
With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish.
King James Version
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
English Standard Version
By the east wind you shattered the ships of Tarshish.
New Century Version
You destroyed the large trading ships with an east wind.
New English Translation
With an east wind you shatter the large ships.
Amplified Bible
With the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish.
New American Standard Bible
With the east wind You smash the ships of Tarshish.
World English Bible
With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish.
Geneva Bible (1587)
As with an East winde thou breakest the shippes of Tarshish, so were they destroyed.
Legacy Standard Bible
With the east windYou break the ships of Tarshish.
Berean Standard Bible
With a wind from the east You wrecked the ships of Tarshish.
Contemporary English Version
or like seagoing ships wrecked by eastern winds.
Complete Jewish Bible
Trembling took hold of them, pains like those of a woman in labor,
Darby Translation
With an east wind thou hast broken the ships of Tarshish.
Easy-to-Read Version
God, with a strong east wind, you wrecked their big ships.
George Lamsa Translation
With a violent storm, the ships of Tarshish shall be broken.
Good News Translation
like ships tossing in a furious storm.
Lexham English Bible
With an east wind you shatter the ships of Tarshish.
Literal Translation
You break the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Thou shalt breake ye shippes of the see, thorow the east wynde.
American Standard Version
With the east wind Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish.
Bible in Basic English
By you the ships of Tarshish are broken as by an east wind.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Trembling took hold of them there, pangs, as of a woman in travail.
King James Version (1611)
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an East wind.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thou didst breake the shippes of the sea: through the east wynde.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thou wilt break the ships of Tharsis with a vehement wind.
English Revised Version
With the east wind thou breakest the ships of Tarshish.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
in a greet spirit thou schalt al to-breke the schippis of Tharsis.
Update Bible Version
With the east wind You break the ships of Tarshish.
Webster's Bible Translation
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
New King James Version
As when You break the ships of Tarshish With an east wind.
New Living Translation
You destroyed them like the mighty ships of Tarshish shattered by a powerful east wind.
New Life Bible
You wreck the ships of Tarshish with the east wind.
New Revised Standard
as when an east wind shatters the ships of Tarshish.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
With an east wind, wilt thou shatter the ships of Tarshish.
Douay-Rheims Bible
(47-8) With a vehement wind thou shalt break in pieces the ships of Tharsis.
Revised Standard Version
By the east wind thou didst shatter the ships of Tarshish.
THE MESSAGE
You smashed the ships of Tarshish with a storm out of the East. We heard about it, then we saw it with our eyes— In God 's city of Angel Armies, in the city our God Set on firm foundations, firm forever.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
With the east wind You break the ships of Tarshish.

Contextual Overview

1 A Song, a Psalm, by sons of Korah. Great [is] Jehovah, and praised greatly, In the city of our God -- His holy hill. 2 Beautiful [for] elevation, A joy of all the land, [is] Mount Zion, The sides of the north, the city of a great king. 3 God in her high places is known for a tower. 4 For, lo, the kings met, they passed by together, 5 They have seen -- so they have marvelled, They have been troubled, they were hastened away. 6 Trembling hath seized them there, Pain, as of a travailing woman. 7 By an east wind Thou shiverest ships of Tarshish.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

breakest: Ezekiel 27:25, Ezekiel 27:26

ships: 1 Kings 22:48, Isaiah 2:16

east: Jeremiah 18:17

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 10:22 - Tharshish Psalms 107:23 - go down Isaiah 23:1 - ye ships Ezekiel 30:4 - pain Revelation 8:9 - the ships

Cross-References

Genesis 25:20
and Isaac is a son of forty years in his taking Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramaean, from Padan-Aram, sister of Laban the Aramaean, to him for a wife.
Genesis 35:9
And God appeareth unto Jacob again, in his coming from Padan-Aram, and blesseth him;
Genesis 48:16
the Messenger who is redeeming me from all evil doth bless the youths, and my name is called upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and they increase into a multitude in the midst of the land.'
Genesis 48:19
And his father refuseth, and saith, `I have known, my son, I have known; he also becometh a people, and he also is great, and yet, his young brother is greater than he, and his seed is the fulness of the nations;'
Ruth 1:2
And the name of the man [is] Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites from Beth-Lehem-Judah; and they come into the fields of Moab, and are there.
1 Samuel 1:1
And there is a certain man of Ramathaim-Zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name [is] Elkanah, son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, and Ephrathite,
1 Samuel 10:2
In thy going to-day from me -- then thou hast found two men by the grave of Rachel, in the border of Benjamin, at Zelzah, and they have said unto thee, The asses have been found which thou hast gone to seek; and lo, thy father hath left the matter of the asses, and hath sorrowed for you, saying, What do I do for my son?
1 Samuel 17:12
And David [is] son of this Ephrathite of Beth-Lehem-Judah, whose name [is] Jesse, and he hath eight sons, and the man in the days of Saul hath become aged among men;
Micah 5:2
And thou, Beth-Lehem Ephratah, Little to be among the chiefs of Judah! From thee to Me he cometh forth -- to be ruler in Israel, And his comings forth [are] of old, From the days of antiquity.
Matthew 2:18
`A voice in Ramah was heard -- lamentation and weeping and much mourning -- Rachel weeping [for] her children, and she would not be comforted because they are not.'

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with east wind. This is either another simile, expressing the greatness of the dread and fear that shall now seize the kings of the earth; which will be, as Kimchi observes, as if they were smitten with a strong east wind, which breaks the ships of Tarshish; and to the same purpose is the note of Aben Ezra; who says, the psalmist compares the pain that shall take hold upon them to an east wind in the sea, which breaks the ships; for by Tarshish is meant, not Tartessus in Spain, nor Tarsus in Cilicia, or the port to which the Prophet Jonah went and took shipping; but the sea in general: or else this phrase denotes the manner in which the antichristian kings, and antichristian states, wilt be destroyed; just as ships upon the ocean are dashed to pieces with a strong east wind: or it may design the loss of all their riches and substance brought to them in ships; hence the lamentations of merchants, and sailors, and ship masters, Revelation 18:15.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish - On the ships of Tarshish, see the notes on Isaiah 2:16. The allusion to these ships here may have been to illustrate the power of God; the ease with which he destroys that which man has made. The ships so strong - the ships made to navigate distant seas, and to encounter waves and storms - are broken to pieces with infinite ease when God causes the wind to sweep over the ocean. With so much ease God overthrows the most mighty armies, and scatters them. His power in the one case is strikingly illustrated by the other. It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose that there was any actual occurrence of this kind particularly in the eye of the psalmist; but it is an interesting fact that such a disaster did befall the navy of Jehoshaphat himself, 1 Kings 22:48 : “Jehoshaphat made “ships of Tarshish” to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not: “for the ships were broken” at Ezion-geber.” Compare 2 Chronicles 20:36-37. This coincidence would seem to render it not improbable that the discomfiture of the enemies of Jehoshaphat was particularly referred to in this psalm, and that the overthrow of his enemies when Jerusalem was threatened called to remembrance an important event in his own history, when the power of God was illustrated in a manner not less unexpected and remarkable. If this was the allusion, may not the reference to the “breaking of the ships of Tarshish” have been designed to show to Jehoshaphat, and to the dwellers in Zion, that they should not be proud and self-confident, by reminding them of the ease with which God had scattered and broken their own mighty navy, and by showing them that what he had done to their enemies he could do to them also, notwithstanding the strength of their city, and that their “real” defense was not in walls and bulwarks reared by human hand, anymore than it could be in the natural strength of their position only, but in God.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 48:7. Thou breakest the ships of TarshishCalmet thinks this may refer to the discomfiture of Cambyses, who came to destroy the land of Judea. "This is apparently," says he, "the same tempest which struck dismay into the land-forces of Cambyses, and wrecked his fleet which was on the coasts of the Mediterranean sea, opposite to his army near the port of Acco, or the Ptolemais; for Cambyses had his quarters at Ecbatana, at the foot of Mount Carmel; and his army was encamped in the valley of Jezreel." Ships of Tarshish he conjectures to have been large stout vessels, capable of making the voyage of Tarsus, in Cilicia.


 
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