to hide (by covering over) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
snare
פַּ֡חpach
H6341
a (metallic) sheet (as pounded thin) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
cords
וַחֲבָלִ֗יםva.cha.va.Lim
H2256
a rope (as twisted) · conjunction + noun, common both genders plural absolute
spread
פָּ֣רְשׂוּPa.re.su
H6566
to break apart · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
net
רֶ֭שֶׁתRe.shet
H7568
a net (as catching animals) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
wayside
לְיַדle.yad-
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct
set
שָֽׁתוּsha.tu-
H7896
to place (in a very wide application) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
gins
מֹקְשִׁ֖יםmo.ke.Shim
H4170
a noose (for catching animals) (literally or figurative… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
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 35:7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
Psalms 142:3 When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
Jeremiah 18:22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snare…
Psalms 57:6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen thems…
Psalms 119:85 The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.
Psalms 123:3-4 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.
Jeremiah 18:20 Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to…
Luke 20:20-23 And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they mig…
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…
The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords,.... These were the Ziphites, according to Arama; see Psalm 119:85; the character well agrees with the Scribes and Pharisees, who were proud boasters, and despised others, and often laid snares for Christ to take away his life; and with the enemies of the church and people of God; who, through their pride, persecute them, and are insidious, and use artful methods to ensnare them; as the fowler lays his snare for the bird, and has his cords to draw it to him when it is taken in the snare, to which the allusion is;
they have spread a net by the wayside: they waylaid him; knowing the way he would go, they lay in wait for him, to seize him at once as…
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
Beside the path they have set a stumbling-block for me. That is: by bringing forward testimonies from the Scriptures, which seemed to have some semblance of reason, they were trying to deceive me.
Divine readings uplift us, lest we be broken by despair; and again they terrify us, lest we be inflated by pride. To hold, however, the middle way, true and straight, as if between the left of despair and the right of presumption, would be very difficult for us, unless Christ said: I am the way. I am, he says, the way, the truth, and the life. As if he were saying: Which way do you want to go? I am the way. Where do you want to go? I am the truth. Where do you want to remain? I am the life. Therefore, let us walk securely in the way; but let us fear the pitfalls next to the way. The enemy does not dare ambush on the way, because Christ is the way; but next to the way, he plainly does not cease. Hence it is said in the Psalm: They have set snares for me alongside the path. Another Scripture says: Remember that you are walking amidst traps. These traps, among which we walk, are not on the way, but still they are next to the way. Why do you fear, why do you dread, if you walk on the way? Then you should fear if you leave the way. For this reason, the enemy is even allowed to set traps alongside the way, so that out of the exultation of security, the way is not abandoned, and one does not fall into the snares.
Now these demons, if they see all Christians—and especially monks—joyfully laboring and making progress, first attack by attempting to place stumbling blocks in their way. Their "stumbling blocks" are filthy thoughts. But there is no need for us to fear the things they throw at us; through prayer and fasting and faith in the Lord the demons immediately fall. Having fallen, however, they do not stop but advance once more with deceit and cunning. Since they have been unable to deceive the heart openly through filthy pleasure, they renew their attacks on it by other means. From this point on, fabricating apparitions, they pretend to frighten us by changing their shapes and taking on the appearance of women, wild beasts, reptiles and huge bodies and legions of soldiers.Nevertheless, we need have no fear at all of their apparitions, for they are nothing, and they disappear in a hurry, especially if each person protects himself with faith and the sign of the cross. But they are brazen and completely shameless, for even if they are defeated by these means they attack again by some other method. They act like soothsayers, saying they can predict the future, and they make themselves as tall as the roof and as wide as a house so that by illusions of this sort they can carry away those whom they have been unable to deceive by thoughts. But if they find that the soul has been secured with faith and hopeful resolve, then they bring in their leader. LIFE OF ST.
Dictionary and topics
Gin — A trap. (1.) Ps. 140:5, 141:9, Amos 3:5, the Hebrew word used, mokesh, means a noose or “snare,” as it is elsewhere rendered (Ps. 18:5; Prov. 13:14, etc.). (2.) Job 18:9, Isa. 8:14, Heb. pah, a plate…
Net — In use among the Hebrews for fishing, hunting, and fowling. The fishing-net was probably constructed after the form of that used by the Egyptians (Isa. 19:8). There were three kinds of nets. (1.) The…
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…
Hunting · Fowling — Fowling
Net · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Rope · .Of temptations — .Of temptations
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).
The course of this second strophe is exactly parallel with the first. The perfects describe their conduct hitherto, as a comparison of Psa 140:3 with Psa 140:3 shows. פּעמים is poetically equivalent to רגלים, and signifies both the foot that steps (Psa 57:5; Psa 58:11) and the step that is made by the foot (Ps 85:14; Psa 119:133), and here the two senses are undistinguishable. They are called גּאים on account of the inordinate ambition that infatuates them. The metaphors taken from the life of the hunter (Psa 141:9; Psa 142:4) are here brought together as it were into a body of synonyms. The meaning of ליד־מעגּל becomes explicable from Psa 142:4; ליד, at hand, is equivalent to "immediately b…
The psalmist asks for divine protection (see Ps 121), praying that the Lord will keep him safe from the many schemes of the wicked.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 140:5
The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.
The proud have hid a snare for me. Proud as they are, they stoop to this mean action: they use a snare, and they hide it away, that their victim may be taken like a poor hare who is killed without warning—killed in its usual run, by a snare which it could not see. David's enemies wished to snare him in his path of service, the usual way of his life. Saul laid many snares for David, but the Lord preserved him. All around us there are snares of one sort or another, and he will be well kept, aye, divinely kept, who never falls into one of them. And cords. With these they pull…
