a snail (as if floating in its own slime) · noun, common masculine singular construct
melteth
תֶּ֣מֶסTe.mes
H8557
liquefaction · noun, common masculine singular absolute
away
יַהֲלֹ֑ךְya.ha.Lokh
H1980
to walk (in a great variety of applications · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
birth
נֵ֥פֶלNe.fel
H5309
something fallen · noun, common masculine singular construct
woman
אֵ֝֗שֶׁת'E.shet
H802
a woman · noun, common feminine singular construct
see
חָ֥זוּCha.zu
H2372
to gaze at · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
sun
שָֽׁמֶשׁSha.mesh
H8121
the sun · noun, common both genders singular absolute
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
Job 3:16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
Ecclesiastes 6:3 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and al…
Psalms 37:35-36 I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
James 1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 58:6–end
In these verses we have,
I. David's prayers against his enemies, and all the enemies of God's church and people; for it is as such that he looks upon them, so that he was actuated by a public spirit in praying against them, and not by any private revenge. 1. He prays that they might be disabled to do any further mischief (Psa 58:6): Break their teeth, O God! Not so much that they might not feed themselves as that they might not be able to make prey of others, Psa 3:7. He does not say, "Break their necks" (no; let them live to repent, slay them not, lest my people forget), but, "Break their teeth, for they are lions, they are young lions, that live by rapine." 2. That they might be disappoint…
Other figures of this utter ruin; the last denoting rapidity. In a shorter time than pots feel the heat of thorns on fire--
John Gill on Psalms 58:8
As a snail which melteth, let everyone of them pass away,.... As a snail when it comes out of its shell liquefies, drops its moisture, and with it makes a "path", from whence it has its name in the Hebrew language; and so the Targum here,
"as the snail moistens its way;''
which moistness it gradually exhausts, and melts away, and dies: so the psalmist prays that everyone of his enemies might die in like manner. Some think reference is had to the snail's putting out its horns to no purpose when in danger, and apply it to the vain threatenings of the wicked; a strange difference this, between a roaring young lion, Psalm 58:6, and a melting snail. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and all the O…
Psalm 58:6-9
6. Break their teeth, O God! in their mouth: break the jaws of the lions. 7. Let them flow away like waters, let them depart: let them bend their bow, and let their arrows be as broken. [352] 8. Let him vanish like a snail, which melts away; like the untimely birth of a woman, which does not see the sun. 9. Before your pots [353] can feel the fire of the thorns, a whirlwind shall carry him away, like flesh yet raw.
6. Break their teeth, O God! in their mouth [354] From this part of the psalm he assumes the language of imprecation, and solicits the vengeance of God, whose peculiar prerogative it is to repel oppression and vindicate injured innocence. It is necessary, however, t…
The Church Fathers
"Like wax melted they shall be taken away" [Psalm 58:8]. For thou wast about to say, all men are not so made weak, like myself, in order that they may believe: many men do persevere in their evil, and in their malice. And of the same fear thou nothing: "Like wax melted they shall be taken away." Against thee they shall not stand, they shall not continue: with a sort of fire of their own lusts they shall perish. For there is here a kind of hidden punishment, of it the Psalm is about to speak now, to the end of it. There are but a few verses; be attentive. There is a certain punishment future, fire of hell, fire everlasting. For future punishment hath two kinds: either of the lower places it is, where was burning that rich man, who was wishing for himself a drop of water to be dropped on his tongue off the finger of the poor man, whom before his gate he had spurned, when he saith, "For I am tormented in this flame." [Luke 16:24] And the second is that at the end, whereof they are to hear, that on the left hand are to be set: "Go ye into fire everlasting, that hath been prepared for the devil and his angels." [Matthew 25:41] Those punishments shall be manifest at that time, when we shall have departed out of this life, or when at the end of the world men shall have come to the resurrection of the dead. Now therefore is there no punishment, and doth God suffer sins utterly unpunished even unto that day? There is even here a sort of hidden punishment, of the same he is treating now....We see nevertheless sometimes with these punishments just men to be afflicted, and to these punishments unjust men to be strangers: for which reason did totter the feet of him that afterwards rejoicing saith, "How good is the God of Israel to men right in heart! But my own feet have been almost shaken, because I have been jealous in the case of sinners, beholding the peace of sinners." For he had seen the felicity of evil men, and well-pleased he had been to be an evil man, seeing evil men to reign, seeing that it was well with them, that they abounded in plenty of all things temporal, such as he too, being as yet but a babe, was desiring from the Lord: and his feet did totter, even until he saw what at the end is either to be hoped for or to be feared. For he saith in the same Psalm, "This thing is a labour before me, until I enter into the sanctuary of God, and understand unto…
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
Altaschith — Destroy not, the title of Ps. 57, 58, 59, and 75. It was probably the name of some song to the melody of which these psalms were to be chanted.
Snail — (1.) Heb. homit, among the unclean creeping things (Lev. 11:30). This was probably the sand-lizard, of which there are many species in the wilderness of Judea and the Sinai peninsula. (2.) Heb.…
Reptiles · Mentioned in scripture: Snail — Mentioned in scripture: Snail
Snail · Perishable — Perishable
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 verb הרס is used much in the same way in Psa 58:7 as ἀράσσειν (e.g., Iliad, xiii. 577, ἀπὸ δὲ τρυφάλειαν ἄραξεν), which presents a similar onomatope. The form ימּאסוּ is, as in Job 7:5, = ימּסּוּ. The Jewish expositors, less appropriately, compare צנאכם, Num 32:24, and בּזאוּ = בּזזוּ, Isa 18:2, Isa 18:7; שׁאסיך, Chethb, Jer 30:16, and ראמה, Zac 14:10, more nearly resemble it. The treading (bending) of the bow is here, as in Psa 64:4, transferred to the arrows (= כּונן, Psa 11:2): he bends and shoots off his arrows, they shall be as though cut off in the front, i.e., as inoperative as if they had no heads or points (כּמו as in Isa 26:18). In Psa 58:9 follow two figures to which t…
As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away. As the snail makes its own way by its slime, and so dissolves as it goes, or as its shell is often found empty, as though the inhabitant had melted away, so shall the malicious eat out their own strength while they proceed upon their malevolent designs, and shall themselves disappear. To destroy himself by envy and chagrin is the portion of the ill disposed. Like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Solemn is this curse, but how surely does it fall on many graceless wretches! They are…
