3 They sharpened their tongue as a serpent, Poison of an adder `is' under their lips. Selah.
Their poison `is' as poison of a serpent, As a deaf asp shutting its ear,
My soul `is' in the midst of lions, I lie down `among' flames -- sons of men, Their teeth `are' a spear and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.
Mischiefs doth thy tongue devise, Like a sharp razor, working deceit. Thou hast loved evil rather than good, Lying, than speaking righteousness. Selah.
Lo, they belch out with their mouths, Swords `are' in their lips, for `Who heareth?'
A rash speaker is like piercings of a sword, And the tongue of the wise is healing.
Its latter end -- as a serpent it biteth, And as a basilisk it stingeth.
For your hands have been polluted with blood, And your fingers with iniquity, Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue perverseness doth mutter. There is none calling in righteousness, And there is none pleading in faithfulness, Trusting on emptiness, and speaking falsehood, Conceiving perverseness, and bearing iniquity. Eggs of a viper they have hatched, And webs of a spider they weave, Whoso is eating their eggs doth die, And the crushed hatcheth a viper.
Transgressing, and lying against Jehovah, And removing from after our God, Speaking oppression and apostacy, Conceiving and uttering from the heart Words of falsehood.
And they bend their tongue, their bow `is' a lie, And not for stedfastness have they been mighty in the land, For from evil unto evil they have gone forth, And Me they have not known, An affirmation of Jehovah!
`Brood of vipers! how are ye able to speak good things -- being evil? for out of the abundance of the heart doth the mouth speak.
A sepulchre opened `is' their throat; with their tongues they used deceit; poison of asps `is' under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
and the tongue `is' a fire, the world of the unrighteousness, so the tongue is set in our members, which is spotting our whole body, and is setting on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by the gehenna. For every nature, both of beasts and of fowls, both of creeping things and things of the sea, is subdued, and hath been subdued, by the human nature, and the tongue no one of men is able to subdue, `it is' an unruly evil, full of deadly poison,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 140
Commentary on Psalms 140 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 140
This and the four following psalms are much of a piece, and the scope of them the same with many that we met with in the beginning and middle of the book of Psalms, though with but few of late. They were penned by David (as it should seem) when he was persecuted by Saul; one of them is said to be his "prayer when he was in the cave,' and it is probable that all the rest were penned about the same time. In this psalm,
To the chief musician. A psalm of David.
Psa 140:1-7
In this, as in other things, David was a type of Christ, that he suffered before he reigned, was humbled before he was exalted, and that as there were many who loved and valued him, and sought to do him honour, so there were many who hated and envied him, and sought to do him mischief, as appears by these verses, where,
Psa 140:8-13
Here is the believing foresight David had,