Psalms 63:10
in Psalms 63They will fall to the power of the sword; they will become a portion for foxes.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
They shall be given over to the power of the sword: They shall be a portion for foxes.
KJV
They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.
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This verse in Psalms 63
Commentary
8 notes on this verseThey shall fall by the sword. So David's enemies did. They that take the sword shall perish with the sword; bloody men shall feel their own life gushing forth from them, when their evil day shall at last come, and they shall be given up to feel in their own persons the horrors of death. They shall be a portion for foxes. Too mean to be fit food for the lions, the foxes shall sniff around their corpses, and the jackals shall hold carnival over their carcases. Unburied and unhonoured they shall be meat for the dogs of war.
This site's exposition
those who seek my life
on Psalms 63:9-10
The psalm turns from his thirst to the men hunting him. They go down into the depths of the earth, fall to the sword, and become a portion for foxes. Henry reads the foxes as the indignity of a body left unburied.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
"They shall be delivered unto the hands of the sword" [Psalm 63:10]. In truth, thus it has visibly befallen them, they have been taken by storm by enemies breaking in. "Portions of foxes they shall be." Foxes he calls the kings of the world, that then were when Judæa was conquered. Hear in order that you may know and perceive, that those he calls foxes. Herod the king the Lord Himself has called a fox. "Go," He says, "and tell that fox." [Luke 13:32] See and observe, my brethren: Christ as King they would not have, and portions of foxes they have been made. For when Pilate the deputy governor in Judæa slew Christ at the voices of the Jews, he said to the same Jews, "Your King shall I crucify?" [John 19:15] Because He was called King of the Jews, and He was the true King. And they rejecting Christ said, "We have no king but Cæsar." They rejected a Lamb, chose a fox: deservedly portions of foxes they were made.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
They shall die a violent death, Rev. xiii. This was fulfilled in Saul, who fell by the sword, his own sword; David foretold this, yet he would not execute it when it was in the power of his hand, once and again; for precepts, not prophecies, are our rule.
They shall fall by the sword,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
They shall fall by the sword. So David's enemies did. They that take the sword shall perish with the sword; bloody men shall feel their own life gushing forth from them, when their evil day shall at last come, and they shall be given up to feel in their own persons the horrors of death. They shall be a portion for foxes. Too mean to be fit food for the lions, the foxes shall sniff around their corpses, and the jackals shall hold carnival over their carcases. Unburied and unhonoured they shall be meat for the dogs of war. Frequently have malicious men met with a fate so dire as to be evidently the award of retributive justice. Although the great assize is reserved for another world, yet even here, at the common sessions of providence, justice often bares her avenging sword in the eyes of all the people.
They shall fall by the sword - They shall be poured out by the hand of the sword, Hebrews That is, their life’s blood shall be shed either in war, or by the hand of justice. They shall be a portion for foxes - They shall be left unburied, and the jackals shall feed upon their dead bodies. Or, being all cut off by utter destruction, their Inheritance shall be left for the wild beasts. That which was their portion shall shortly be the portion of the wild beasts of the forest. If he here refers to the destruction of the Babylonians, the prediction has been literally fulfilled. Where ancient Babylon stood, as far as it can be ascertained, is now the hold of dangerous reptiles and ferocious beasts. The jackal, or chokal, is a very ravenous beast, and fond of human flesh. It devours dead bodies, steals infants out of the lap of their mothers, devours alive the sick who are left by the side of the Ganges, and even in the streets of Calcutta has been known to eat persons who were in a state of intoxication. Ward’s Customs.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
They shall fall by the sword - Margin, They shall make him run out like water by the hands of the sword. The word rendered in the text “they shall fall,” and in the margin “they shall make him run out” - נגר nâgar - means properly, to flow, to pour out, as water; and then, to pour out; then, to give up or deliver. The idea here is that of delivering over, as one pours out water from a basin or pitcher: they shall be delivered over to the sword. The original rendered “sword” is, as in the margin, “by the hands of the sword;” that is, the sword is represented as accomplishing its purpose as if it had hands. The sword shall slay them. They shall be a portion for foxes - The original word - שׁועל shû‛âl - means properly and commonly a fox. But under this general name fox, the Orientals seem to have comprehended other animals also, having some resemblance to a fox, and particularly jackals. Thus jackals seem to be meant in Jdg 15:4; since foxes are with great difficulty taken alive; and in this place also it has the same meaning, inasmuch as foxes do not feast on dead bodies, though a favorite repast of the jackal. Gesenius, Lexicon. Compare Bochart Hieroz. T. ii. p. 190, ed. Lips. Jackals are wild, fierce, savage; they howl around dwellings at night - producing most hideous music, beginning “in a sort of solo, a low, long-drawn wail, rising and swelling higher and higher until it quite overtops the wind,” (Thomson’s “Land and the Book,” i. 133) - and ready to gather at any moment when there is prey to be devoured. “These sinister, guilty, wo-begone brutes, when pressed with hunger, gather in gangs among the graves, and yell in rage, and fight like fiends over their midnight orgies; but on the battlefield is their great carnival. Oh! […]
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
May he be dragged by the sword May enemies come upon my pursuers and drag each one of them with a sword, killing him. This is an elliptical verse, since it does not explain who will drag him.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| יַגִּירֻ֥הוּ | yagiruhu | people will pour him | H5064 → | 10 times |
| עַל־ | ʾal- | over | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| יְדֵי־ | yedei- | [the] hands of | H3027 → | 1618 times |
| חָ֑רֶב | charev | [the] sword | H2719 → | 413 times |
| מְנָ֖ת | menat | [the] portion of | H4521 → | |
| שֻׁעָלִ֣ים | shualim | foxes | H7776 → | |
| יִהְיֽוּ׃ | yihyu | they will be | H1961 → | 3559 times |
יַגִּירֻ֥הוּpeople will pour him
yagiruhuH5064 →10 times
עַל־over
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
יְדֵי־[the] hands of
yedei-H3027 →1618 times
חָ֑רֶב[the] sword
charevH2719 →413 times
מְנָ֖ת[the] portion of
menatH4521 →
שֻׁעָלִ֣יםfoxes
shualimH7776 →
יִהְיֽוּ׃they will be
yihyuH1961 →3559 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Song of Solomon 2:15Catch for us the foxes—the little foxes that ruin the vineyards—for our vineyards are in bloom.
it leads to
- Luke 13:32
But Jesus replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I will keep driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach My goal.’
- 2 Peter 2:1–3
Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on…
- Song of Solomon 7:12
Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vine has budded, if the blossom has opened, if the pomegranates are in bloom—there I will give you my love.
- Psalms 80:13
The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it.
- Ezekiel 13:4–16
Your prophets, O Israel, are like foxes among the ruins.
- Luke 13:32
Through
Ezekiel 35:5Because you harbored an ancient hatred and delivered the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their disaster at the final stage of their punishment,
it leads to
- Psalms 137:7
Remember, O LORD, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”
- Psalms 137:7
Through
1 Samuel 26:10David added, “As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD Himself will strike him down; either his day will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.
it leads to
- Genesis 47:29
When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise…
- Romans 12:19
Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”
- Genesis 47:29
About Psalms
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 63; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 3; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.