Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in (his) wrath. He here, as in Psalms 58:1-2, at first addresses the wicked directly ("your") but then turns away from them and speaks of "them." A proverbial phrase, Before your pots' contents can feel the heat of the thorns burning underneath, He will, with a whirlwind, take them (the wicked) away, be the pots' contents, or flesh, raw (living) (Hebrew, chay (H2416)), or be it sodden (not as the English version, "and in His wrath") - literally, glowing (Hebrew, chaarown (H2740)). As the thorns quickly blaze and heat the pot (Psalms 118:12; Ecclesiastes 7:6), the phrase expresses great rapidity. The pots' contents answer to the plans of the wicked against the godly. Before your plans have come to maturity, ripe or unripe ('raw or sodden'), God will with a whirlwind carry you away from all your projects (Job 27:21). Rosenmuller translates, 'He shall, with a whirlwind, take them (the thorns) away, whether green (not yet reached by the fire) or burning.' It often happens to those who travel in a desert that, when they wish to get ready food, their fire is put out by a sudden tempest, and all their preparations are destroyed-an image of the sudden overthrow of all the plans of the wicked before they are matured.