to point (transitive or intransitive) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
tongues
לְשׁוֹנָם֮le.sho.Nam
H3956
the tongue (of man or animals) · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
serpent
נָ֫חָ֥שׁna.Chash
H5175
a snake (from its hiss) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
adders’
עַכְשׁ֑וּב'akh.Shuv
H5919
an asp (from lurking coiled up) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
poison
חֲמַ֥תcha.Mat
H2534
heat · noun, common feminine singular construct
lips
שְׂפָתֵ֣ימוֹse.fa.Tei.mov
H8193
the lip (as a natural boundary) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Selah
סֶֽלָהSe.lah
H5542
suspension (of music) · interjection
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 58:4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
Romans 3:13-14 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that…
Proverbs 23:32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Psalms 57:4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their t…
Isaiah 59:3-5 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
Jeremiah 9:3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to ev…
Jeremiah 9:5 And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselv…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 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,
I. He gives a character of his enemies, and paints them out in their own colours, as dangerous men, whom he had reason to be afraid of, but wicked men, whom he had no reason to think the righteous God would countenance. There was one that seems to have been the ring-leader of them, whom he calls the evil man and the man of violences (Psa 140:1, Psa 140:4), probably he means S…
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent,.... Which Kimchi says it does before it bites. Aristotle (i) observes, that the tip or extreme point of a serpent's tongue is as small as a hair, and so exceeding sharp and piercing. Arama interprets this of the sharpness and cunning of the serpent; and particularly the serpent that deceived Eve, and spake cunningly to her. "For God knoweth", &c. and may design the calumnies and detractions, which were sharp as a razor; as swords, and spears, and arrows, and as the tongue of a serpent, Psalm 57:4; and the subtlety of false teachers, and deceitful workers; and the sharp and cutting words of wicked men against Christ and his people, Jde 1:15;…
Psalm 140:1-5
1. Deliver me, O Jehovah! from the evil man, (homo,) preserve me from the man (vir) [222] of injuries. 2. Who imagine mischiefs in their heart; daily they congregate for war. 3. They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent: [223] the poison of an asp [224] is under their lips. Selah 4. Keep us, O Jehovah! from the hands of the wicked: preserve me from the man of injuries, who plot to overthrow my goings. 5. The proud have set a snare for me, and have spread a net with cords: by the way side they have set gins for me. [225] Selah
To the chief Musician, etc. I cannot bring myself to restrict this Psalm to Doeg, as the great body of interpreters do, for the context will clear…
The Church Fathers
The venom of asps is under their lips. For they seem to have words of friendship, yet they are full of death-dealing poison.
"They have sharpened their tongues like serpents" [Psalm 140:3]. If still thou seekest to make out the man, behold a comparison. In the serpent above all beasts is there cunning and craft to hurt; for therefore does it creep. It hath not even feet, so that its footsteps when it cometh may be heard. In its progress it draweth itself, as it were, gently along, yet not straightly. Thus then do they creep and crawl to hurt, having poison hidden even under a gentle touch. And so it followeth, "the poison of asps is under their lips." Behold, it is "under" their lips, that we may perceive one thing under their lips, another in their lips. ...
Do you see how holy Scripture knows how to call human only the person practicing virtue and does not think the others are human, calling them instead flesh at one time and earth at another? Hence at this place, too, in promising to list the genealogy of the good person it says, "Noah was a human being." You see, he alone was a human being, whereas the others were not human beings; instead, while having the appearance of human beings they had forfeited the nobility of their kind by the evil of their intention, and instead of being human they reverted to the irrationality of wild animals. Sacred Scripture assigns the names of wild beasts to human beings, rational creatures that they should be, in the event of their lapsing into evil and falling prey to irrational passions. Listen, for example, to its words, "They turned into rutting horses." See how it gives them the animal's name on account of their unbridled lust. Elsewhere, on the other hand, it says, "Poison of serpents on their lips"; here it highlights their resemblance to the animal's trickery and duplicity. Again, it calls them "dumb dogs." And again, "Like a deaf adder that blocks its ears," referring to their stopping their ears against instruction in virtue. You would find many other names imposed by sacred Scripture on people seduced by their indifference into bestial passions.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Adder — (Ps. 140:3; Rom. 3:13, “asp”) is the rendering of, (1.) Akshub (“coiling” or “lying in wait”), properly an asp or viper, found only in this passage. (2.) Pethen (“twisting”), a viper or venomous…
Poison — (1.) Heb. hemah, “heat,” the poison of certain venomous reptiles (Deut. 32:24, 33; Job 6:4; Ps. 58:4), causing inflammation. (2.) Heb. rosh, “a head,” a poisonous plant (Deut. 29:18), growing…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Serpent — (Heb. nahash; Gr. ophis), frequently noticed in Scripture. More than forty species are found in Syria and Arabia. The poisonous character of the serpent is alluded to in Jacob’s blessing on Dan (Gen.…
Adder · A venomous serpent — A venomous serpent
Asp · Venom of, il — Venom of, il
Asp, Or Adder · (Venom of), of the speech of the wicked — (Venom of), of the speech of the wicked
Malice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Serpent · Venom of — Venom of
Serpents · Illustrative: (Sharp tongue of,) of malice of the wicked — Illustrative: (Sharp tongue of,) of malice of the wicked
The assimilation of the Nun of the verb נצר is given up, as in Psa 61:8; Psa 78:7, and frequently, in order to make the form more full-toned. The relative clause shows that אישׁ חמסים is not intended to be understood exclusively of one person. בּלב strengthens the notion of that which is deeply concealed and premeditated. It is doubtful whether יגוּרוּ signifies to form into troops or to stir up. But from the fact that גּוּר in Psa 56:7; Psa 59:4, Isa 54:15, signifies not congregare but se congregare, it is to be inferred that גּוּר in the passage before us, like גּרה (or התגּרה in Deu 2:9, Deu 2:24), in Syriac and Targumic גּרג, signifies concitare, to excite (cf. שׂוּר together with שׂרה,…
sting like a snake . . . a viper: These creatures depict the wicked as very corrupt people (see Prov 23:32; Isa 14:29; Rom 3:13).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 140:3
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent. The rapid motion of a viper's tongue gives you the idea of its sharpening it; even thus do the malicious move their tongues at such a rate that one might suppose them to be in the very act of wearing them to a point, or rubbing them to a keen edge. It was a common notion that serpents inserted their poison by their tongues, and the poets used the idea as a poetical expression, although it is certain that the serpent wounds by his fangs and not by his tongue. We are not to suppose that all authors who used such language were mistaken in their natural…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
