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Psalms 10:8
Verse
Context
The Perils of the Pilgrim
7His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and violence; trouble and malice are under his tongue. 8He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless. 9He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.
Summary
Commentary
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
The ungodly is described as a lier in wait; and one is reminded by it of such a state of anarchy, as that described in Hos 6:9 for instance. The picture fixes upon one simple feature in which the meanness of the ungodly culminates; and it is possible that it is intended to be taken as emblematical rather than literally. חצר (from חצר to surround, cf. Arab. hdr, hṣr, and especially hdr) is a farm premises walled in (Arab. hadar, hadâr, hadâra), then losing the special characteristic of being walled round it comes to mean generally a settled abode (with a house of clay or stone) in opposition to a roaming life in tents (cf. Lev 25:31; Gen 25:16). In such a place where men are more sure of falling into his hands than in the open plain, he lies in wait (ישׁב, like Arab. q‛d lh, subsedit = insidiatus est ei), murders unobserved him who had never provoked his vengeance, and his eyes להלכה יצפּנוּ. צפה to spie, Psa 37:32, might have been used instead of צפן; but צפן also obtains the meaning, to lie in ambush (Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18) from the primary notion of restraining one's self (Arab. ḍfn, fut. i. in Beduin Arabic: to keep still, to be immoveably lost in thought, vid., on Job 24:1), which takes a transitive turn in צפן "to conceal." חלכה, the dative of the object, is pointed just as though it came from חיל: Thy host, i.e., Thy church, O Jahve. The pausal form accordingly is חלכה with Segol, in Psa 10:14, not with Ṣere as in incorrect editions. And the appeal against this interpretation, which is found in the plur. חלכאים Psa 10:10, is set aside by the fact that this plural is taken as a double word: host (חל = חיל = חיל as in Oba 1:20) of the troubled ones (כּאים, not as Ben-Labrat supposes, for נכאים, but from כּאה weary, and mellow and decayed), as the Ker (which is followed by the Syriac version) and the Masora direct, and accordingly it is pointed חלכּאים with Ṣere. The punctuation therefore sets aside a word which was unintelligible to it, and cannot be binding on us. There is a verb הלך, which, it is true, does not occur in the Old Testament, but in the Arabic, from the root Arab. ḥk, firmus fuit, firmum fecit (whence also Arab. ḥkl, intrans. to be firm, ferm, i.e., closed), it gains the signification in reference to colour: to be dark (cognate with חכל, whence חכלילי) and is also transferred to the gloom and blackness of misfortune. (Note: Cf. Samachschari's Golden Necklaces, Proverb 67, which Fleischer translates: "Which is blacker: the plumage of the raven, which is black as coal, or thy life, O stranger among strangers?" The word "blacker" is here expressed by Arab. ahlaku, just as the verb Arab. halika, with its infinitives halak or hulkat and its derivatives is applied to sorrow and misery.) From this an abstract is formed חלך or חלך (like חפשׁ): blackness, misfortune, or also of a defective development of the senses: imbecility; and from this an adjective חלכּה = חלכּי, or also (cf. חפשׁי, עלפּה Eze 31:15 = one in a condition of languishing, עלף) חלכּה = חלכּי, plur. חלכּאים, after the form דּוּדאים, from דּוּדי, Ew. 189, g.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
eyes . . . privily--He watches with half-closed eyes, appearing not to see.
John Gill Bible Commentary
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages,.... Which were by the wayside, where thieves and robbers harboured, and out of which they came, and robbed passengers as they came by. The word (f) signifies "palaces" or "courts": and so it is rendered by the Chaldee paraphrase and Syriac version; and so the allusion is not to mean thieves and robbers, but to persons of note and figure. Hence the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, render it, "he sitteth in lurking places with the rich"; and may be fitly applied to the pope and his cardinals. Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and by his emissaries gets into the villages, the particular churches and congregations of saints, where they lie in ambush to do mischief, to corrupt their faith, worship, and manners; and like thieves and robbers enter in to steal, kill, and destroy; in secret places doth he murder the innocent; the harmless lambs and sheep of Christ; who, though they are not without sin in themselves, yet are innocent with respect to the cause and the things for which they suffer: these are the saints and prophets and martyrs of Jesus, whose blood is shed by antichrist; and the taking away of their lives is reckoned murder with God; and is so styled in the Scriptures, Rev 9:21; though the antichristian party call it doing God good service, and impute it to zeal for the good of holy church; and yet this they choose to do in secret, by private massacres, or by the inquisition; which having condemned men to death, delivers them over to the secular power to execute the sentence on them: just as the Jews delivered Christ to the Roman governor, to shift off the sin and blame from themselves; murder being what no one cares to be known in, or chargeable with; his eyes are privily set against the poor: the word rendered "poor", is used nowhere but in this psalm, in which it is used three times, here, and in Psa 10:1; and in the plural number in Psa 10:10. It is translated "poor" both in the Chaldee paraphrase and Septuagint version, and in those that follow them. In the Arabic language it signifies "black" (g), and may design such who are black by reason of persecution and affliction, who go mourning all the day long on account of sin, their own and others; and because of the distresses and calamities of the church and people of God. These the eyes of the wicked watch and observe, and are set against them to do them all the mischief they can; their eyes are full of envy and indignation at them, though it is all in a private and secret way. The allusion is to thieves and robbers, who hide themselves in some secret place, and from thence look out for them that pass by, and narrowly observe whether they are for their purpose, and when it will be proper to come out and seize upon them. (f) Symmachus in Drusius; "atriorum", Munster; so Hammond, Ainsworth, & Michaelis. (g) "Chalae, valde niger fuit", Golius, col. 646.
Psalms 10:8
The Perils of the Pilgrim
7His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and violence; trouble and malice are under his tongue. 8He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless. 9He lies in wait like a lion in a thicket; he lurks to seize the oppressed; he catches the lowly in his net.
- Scripture
- Sermons
- Commentary
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
The ungodly is described as a lier in wait; and one is reminded by it of such a state of anarchy, as that described in Hos 6:9 for instance. The picture fixes upon one simple feature in which the meanness of the ungodly culminates; and it is possible that it is intended to be taken as emblematical rather than literally. חצר (from חצר to surround, cf. Arab. hdr, hṣr, and especially hdr) is a farm premises walled in (Arab. hadar, hadâr, hadâra), then losing the special characteristic of being walled round it comes to mean generally a settled abode (with a house of clay or stone) in opposition to a roaming life in tents (cf. Lev 25:31; Gen 25:16). In such a place where men are more sure of falling into his hands than in the open plain, he lies in wait (ישׁב, like Arab. q‛d lh, subsedit = insidiatus est ei), murders unobserved him who had never provoked his vengeance, and his eyes להלכה יצפּנוּ. צפה to spie, Psa 37:32, might have been used instead of צפן; but צפן also obtains the meaning, to lie in ambush (Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18) from the primary notion of restraining one's self (Arab. ḍfn, fut. i. in Beduin Arabic: to keep still, to be immoveably lost in thought, vid., on Job 24:1), which takes a transitive turn in צפן "to conceal." חלכה, the dative of the object, is pointed just as though it came from חיל: Thy host, i.e., Thy church, O Jahve. The pausal form accordingly is חלכה with Segol, in Psa 10:14, not with Ṣere as in incorrect editions. And the appeal against this interpretation, which is found in the plur. חלכאים Psa 10:10, is set aside by the fact that this plural is taken as a double word: host (חל = חיל = חיל as in Oba 1:20) of the troubled ones (כּאים, not as Ben-Labrat supposes, for נכאים, but from כּאה weary, and mellow and decayed), as the Ker (which is followed by the Syriac version) and the Masora direct, and accordingly it is pointed חלכּאים with Ṣere. The punctuation therefore sets aside a word which was unintelligible to it, and cannot be binding on us. There is a verb הלך, which, it is true, does not occur in the Old Testament, but in the Arabic, from the root Arab. ḥk, firmus fuit, firmum fecit (whence also Arab. ḥkl, intrans. to be firm, ferm, i.e., closed), it gains the signification in reference to colour: to be dark (cognate with חכל, whence חכלילי) and is also transferred to the gloom and blackness of misfortune. (Note: Cf. Samachschari's Golden Necklaces, Proverb 67, which Fleischer translates: "Which is blacker: the plumage of the raven, which is black as coal, or thy life, O stranger among strangers?" The word "blacker" is here expressed by Arab. ahlaku, just as the verb Arab. halika, with its infinitives halak or hulkat and its derivatives is applied to sorrow and misery.) From this an abstract is formed חלך or חלך (like חפשׁ): blackness, misfortune, or also of a defective development of the senses: imbecility; and from this an adjective חלכּה = חלכּי, or also (cf. חפשׁי, עלפּה Eze 31:15 = one in a condition of languishing, עלף) חלכּה = חלכּי, plur. חלכּאים, after the form דּוּדאים, from דּוּדי, Ew. 189, g.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
eyes . . . privily--He watches with half-closed eyes, appearing not to see.
John Gill Bible Commentary
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages,.... Which were by the wayside, where thieves and robbers harboured, and out of which they came, and robbed passengers as they came by. The word (f) signifies "palaces" or "courts": and so it is rendered by the Chaldee paraphrase and Syriac version; and so the allusion is not to mean thieves and robbers, but to persons of note and figure. Hence the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, render it, "he sitteth in lurking places with the rich"; and may be fitly applied to the pope and his cardinals. Antichrist sits in the temple of God, and by his emissaries gets into the villages, the particular churches and congregations of saints, where they lie in ambush to do mischief, to corrupt their faith, worship, and manners; and like thieves and robbers enter in to steal, kill, and destroy; in secret places doth he murder the innocent; the harmless lambs and sheep of Christ; who, though they are not without sin in themselves, yet are innocent with respect to the cause and the things for which they suffer: these are the saints and prophets and martyrs of Jesus, whose blood is shed by antichrist; and the taking away of their lives is reckoned murder with God; and is so styled in the Scriptures, Rev 9:21; though the antichristian party call it doing God good service, and impute it to zeal for the good of holy church; and yet this they choose to do in secret, by private massacres, or by the inquisition; which having condemned men to death, delivers them over to the secular power to execute the sentence on them: just as the Jews delivered Christ to the Roman governor, to shift off the sin and blame from themselves; murder being what no one cares to be known in, or chargeable with; his eyes are privily set against the poor: the word rendered "poor", is used nowhere but in this psalm, in which it is used three times, here, and in Psa 10:1; and in the plural number in Psa 10:10. It is translated "poor" both in the Chaldee paraphrase and Septuagint version, and in those that follow them. In the Arabic language it signifies "black" (g), and may design such who are black by reason of persecution and affliction, who go mourning all the day long on account of sin, their own and others; and because of the distresses and calamities of the church and people of God. These the eyes of the wicked watch and observe, and are set against them to do them all the mischief they can; their eyes are full of envy and indignation at them, though it is all in a private and secret way. The allusion is to thieves and robbers, who hide themselves in some secret place, and from thence look out for them that pass by, and narrowly observe whether they are for their purpose, and when it will be proper to come out and seize upon them. (f) Symmachus in Drusius; "atriorum", Munster; so Hammond, Ainsworth, & Michaelis. (g) "Chalae, valde niger fuit", Golius, col. 646.