Trap

A trap, in the umbrella's three texts, is always set for someone — by an enemy, by a hidden hand, or by the wicked among one's own people. The image ranges from the historical (the unconquered nations becoming Israel's snare) to the proverbial (the noose hidden along the path) to the prophetic (men setting traps for men).

The Nations as Israel's Trap

In Joshua's farewell warning, the nations Israel has failed to drive out are themselves named as the trap:

"know for a certainty that [the Speech of] Yahweh your⁺ God will no more drive these nations from out of your⁺ sight; but they will be a snare and a trap to you⁺, and a scourge in your⁺ sides, and thorns in your⁺ eyes, until you⁺ perish from off this good land which Yahweh your⁺ God has given you⁺" (Jos 23:13).

The trap here is not a single device but a sustained condition — snare, trap, scourge, thorns — and it is the consequence of incomplete obedience: what Israel did not remove becomes what catches Israel.

The Hidden Trap on the Path

Job's friend Bildad uses the trap as a stock figure for the fate of the wicked. The danger is not visible — it is buried in the ground and waiting on the road:

"A noose is hid for him in the ground, / And a trap for him in the way" (Job 18:10).

Two parallel lines, two devices, one path. The wicked man does not see the trap because the trap is hidden; he meets it by walking where it is set.

The Wicked Set Traps for Men

Jeremiah turns the same figure inward. The trap-setters are not foreign nations or fated calamity but men inside the covenant community:

"For among my people are found wicked men: they watch, as a fowler lying in wait; they set a trap, they catch men" (Jer 5:26).

The image is the bird-catcher applied to human beings: silent watching, the laid trap, and a catch. Across the three passages the figure stays consistent — a trap is what waits, hidden, for someone to step into it — but the agent shifts: foreign nations, anonymous fate, and finally the wicked within Israel themselves.