Topic
Entangle
8 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Exodus 14:3ISBE
For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.
- Ecclesiastes 9:12ISBE
For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
- Nahum 1:10ISBE
For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
- Matthew 22:15ISBE
¶ Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.
- Galatians 4:8ISBE
Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
- Galatians 5:1ISBE
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
- 2 Timothy 2:4ISBE
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
- 2 Peter 2:20ISBE
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 8 references
en-tan'-g'-l:
Found but 5 times in the Scriptures (the King James Version), once in the Old Testament, yet most significant as illustrating the process of mental, moral and spiritual confusion and enslavement.
(1) Physical:
Used of physical entanglement, as in the mazes of a labyrinth (bukh, to involve, "be perplexed"). At Moses' command the children of Israel, before crossing the Red Sea, took the wrong way in order to give Pharaoh the impression that they were lost in the wilderness and cause him to say "They are entangled in the land" (Ex 14:3).
(2) Mental:
pagideuo, "to entrap," "ensnare," with words, as birds are caught in a snare; compare Ec 9:12. The Pharisees sought to "entangle" (the Revised Version (British and American) "ensnare") Jesus in His talk (Mt 22:15).
(3) Moral:
`empleko, "to inweave," hence, intertwine and involve. "A god soldier of Jesus Christ," says Paul, does not "entangle himself," i.e. become involved, "in the affairs of this life" (2Ti 2:4). Having "escaped the defilements of the world," Christians are not to be "again entangled therein" (2Pe 2:20).
(4) Spiritual:
enecho, "to hold in," hence, to hold captive, as a slave in fetters or under a burden. Having experienced spiritual emancipation, freedom, through Christ from bondage to sin and false religion (Ga 5:1; compare Ga 4:8), the Gentiles were not to become "entangled again in a yoke of bondage" by submission to mere legal requirements, as the external rite of circumcision.
With reference to the thoroughness and irresistibleness of God's judgments, we read in Na 1:10, "For entangled like thorns" (the King James Version "while they be folden together as thorns"), damp, closely packed and intertwined, "they are consumed utterly as dry stubble" (the King James Version "devoured as stubble fully dry").
Dwight M. Pratt
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.