Psalms 57:4
in Psalms 57My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts— with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
My soul is among lions; I lie among them that are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.
KJV
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 tongue a sharp sword.
⋯
This verse in Psalms 57
Commentary
17 notes on this verseMy soul is among lions,.... Not literally understood; though such there might be in the wildernesses where he sometimes was; but figuratively, men comparable to lions, for their stoutness, courage, strength, fierceness, and cruelty; meaning not his own men, as some think, who were fierce, and of keen resentment against Saul, and would fain have killed him when he was in the cave, had they not been restrained by David, 1Sa 24:4; but Saul, and those with him, who were three thousand chosen men, stout, courageous, fierce, and furious.
This site's exposition
He reaches down from heaven and saves me
on Psalms 57:3-5
God reaches down from heaven and sends out His loving devotion and truth, the way light and truth are sent out at Psalm 43:3. Verse 4 names the weapon: teeth that are spears and arrows, tongues that are sharp swords. Verse 5 lifts the prayer over the danger.
This site's exposition
My soul is among the lions
The lions are men, and the verse turns them into weapons, teeth as spears and tongues as swords. John Gill took the lions as Saul's three thousand men. Charles Spurgeon pictured the cave as a lion's den, where faith still let David lie down.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers5 voices
Had you become so hardened, false Israelites? Were you by your excessive malice so lost to all sense, as to imagine that you were unpolluted by the blood of the innocent, because you gave it up to be shed by another? Was even Pilate himself going to slay Him with his own hands, when made over by you into his power for the very purpose? If you did not wish Him to be slain; if you did not lay snares for Him; if you did not get Him to be betrayed to you for money; if you did not lay hands upon Him, and bind Him, and bring Him there; if you did not with your own hands present Him, and with your voices demand Him to be slain,-then boast that He was not put to death by you. But if in addition to all these former deeds of yours, you also cried out, "Crucify, crucify [him];" then hear what it is against you that the prophet proclaims: "The sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." These, look you, are the spears, the arrows, the sword, wherewith you slew the righteous, when you said that it was not lawful for you to put any man to death. Hence it is also that when for the purpose of apprehending Jesus the chief priests did not themselves come, but sent; yet the evangelist Luke says in the same passage of his narrative, "Then said Jesus unto those who were come to him, [namely] the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and elders, 'Be ye come out, as it were, against a thief?'" etc? As therefore the chief priests went not in their own persons, but by those whom they had sent, to apprehend Jesus, what else was that but coming themselves in the authority of their own order? and so all, who cried out with impious voices for the crucifixion of Christ, slew Him, not, indeed, directly with their own hands, but personally through him who was impelled to such a crime by their clamor.
"He was a murderer from the beginning." This it is that explains, "the lusts of your father ye will do." "Ye seek to kill me, a man that telleth you the truth." He, too, had ill-will to man, and slew man. For the devil, in his ill-will to man, assuming the guise of a serpent, spoke to the woman, and from the woman instilled his poison into the man. They died by listening to the devil, whom they would not have listened to had they but listened to the Lord; for man, having his place between Him who created and him who was fallen, ought to have obeyed the Creator, not the deceiver. Therefore "he was a murderer from the beginning." Look at the kind of murder brethren. The devil is called a murderer, not as armed with a sword, or girded with steel. He came to man, sowed his evil suggestions, and slew him. Think not, then, that thou art not a murderer when thou persuadest thy brother to evil. If thou persuadest thy brother to evil, thou slayest him. And to let thee know that thou slayest him, listen to the psalm: "The sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword."
Casting away therefore all anxiety and superfluous care, let us return to ourselves; and let us adorn the body and the soul with the ornament of virtue; converting our bodily members into instruments of righteousness and not instruments of sin. And first of all, let us discipline our tongue to be the minister of the grace of the Spirit, expelling from the mouth all virulence and malignity, and the practice of using disgraceful words. For it is in our power to make each one of our members an instrument of wickedness, or of righteousness. Hear then how men make the tongue an instrument, some of sin, others of righteousness! "Their tongue is a sharp sword." But another speaks thus of his own tongue: "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer." The former wrought destruction; the latter wrote the divine law. Thus was one a sword, the other a pen, not according to its own nature, but according to the choice of those who employed it. For the nature of this tongue and of that was the same, but the operation was not the same.
I have read the document sent from the East by our friend and good brother to a distinguished member of the Senate, Pammachius, which you have copied and forwarded to me. It brought to my mind the words of the prophet: "The sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword." But for these wounds that people inflict on one another with the tongue we can hardly find a physician; so I have turned to Jesus, the heavenly physician, and he has brought out for me from the medicine chest of the gospel an antidote of sovereign power; he has assuaged the violence of my grief with the assurance of the righteous judgment that I shall have at his hands. The potion that our Lord dispensed to me was nothing else than these words: "Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and leap for joy, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you." With this medicine I was content, and, as far as the matter concerned me, I had determined for the future to keep silence; for I said to myself, "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?" (that is, you and me, unworthy though we are). And, if it was said of him, "He is a deceiver, he deceives the people," I must not be indignant if I hear that I am called a heretic and that the name of mole is applied to me because of the slowness of my mind or indeed my blindness. Christ who is my Lord, yes, and who is God over all, was called "a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners." How can I, then, be angry when I am called a carnal man who lives in luxury?
One thing you can count on: Corruption does not save those who get into it. On the contrary, it sets itself up against them, tears them down and brings about their doom. Woe to those people against whom this prophecy is written! For the evil they pursue is sharper than a two-edged sword, and it will first slay those who lay hold of it. Even their own tongue, as the psalmist points out, "is a sharp sword, and their teeth are spears and arrows."
9 more voices on this verse
The Church Fathers1 voice
..."He hath sent from heaven His mercy and His truth." For what purpose? "And hath drawn out my soul from the midst of the lions' whelps" [Psalm 57:4]. "Hath sent," he saith, "from heaven His mercy and His truth:" and Christ Himself saith, "I am Truth." There was sent therefore Truth, that it should draw out my soul hence from the midst of the lions' whelps: there was sent mercy. Christ Himself we find to be both mercy and truth; mercy in suffering with us, and truth in requiting us. ...Who are the lions' whelps? That lesser people, unto evil deceived, unto evil led away by the chiefs of the Jews: so that these are lions, those lions' whelps. All roared, all slew. For we are to hear even here the slaying of these very men, presently in the following verses of this Psalm. "And hath drawn out," he saith, "my soul from the midst of the lions' whelps." Why sayest thou, "And hath drawn out my soul"? For what hadst thou suffered, that thy soul should be drawn out? "I have slept troubled." Christ hath intimated His death. ...
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
): My soul is among lions. So fierce and furious was Saul, and those about him, against David, that he might have been as safe in a den of lions as among such men, who were continually roaring against him and ready to make a prey of him.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
The Nineteenth Century7 voices
My soul is among lions. He was a very Daniel. Howled at, hunted, wounded, but not slain. His place was in itself one of extreme peril, and yet faith made him feel himself secure, so that he could lie down. The cave may have reminded him of a lion's den, and Saul and his band shouting and yelling in their disappointment at missing him, were the lions; yet beneath the divine shelter he finds himself safe. And I lie even among them that are set on fire.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
The mingled figures of wild beasts (Ps 10:9; 17:12) and weapons of war (Ps 11:2) heighten the picture of danger. whose . . . tongue--or slanders.
My soul is among lions. He was a very Daniel. Howled at, hunted, wounded, but not slain. His place was in itself one of extreme peril, and yet faith made him feel himself secure, so that he could lie down. The cave may have reminded him of a lion's den, and Saul and his band shouting and yelling in their disappointment at missing him, were the lions; yet beneath the divine shelter he finds himself safe. And I lie even among them that are set on fire. Perhaps Saul and his band kindled a fire in the cavern while they halted in it, and David was thus reminded of the fiercer fire of their hate which burned within their hearts. Like the bush in Horeb, the believer is often in the midst of flames, but never consumed. It is a mighty triumph of faith when we can lie down even among firebrands and find rest, because God is our defence. Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Malicious men carry a whole armoury in their mouths; they have not harmless mouths, whose teeth grind their own food as in a mill, but their jaws are as mischievous as if every tooth were a javelin or an arrow. They have no molars, all their teeth are canines, and their nature is canine, leonine, wolfish, devilish. As for that busy member the tongue, in the case of the malicious, it is a two edged, keen, cutting, killing sword. The tongue, which is here compared to a sword, has the adjective sharp added to it, which is not used in reference to the teeth, which are compared to spears, as if to show that if men were actually to tear us with their teeth, like wild beasts, they could not thereby wound us so severely as they can do with their tongues.
SOME of you cannot say this and you ought to be very thankful that you are not obliged to do so. Happy are you young people who have godly parents and who dwell in Christian families. You ought to grow like the flowers in a conservatory, where killing frosts and biting blasts are unknown. You live under very favorable circumstances.
SOME of you cannot say this and you ought to be very thankful that you are not obliged to do so. Happy are you young people who have godly parents and who dwell in Christian families. You ought to grow like the flowers in a conservatory, where killing frosts and biting blasts are unknown. You live under very favorable circumstances. Your soul, I might almost say, is among angels, for you dwell where God is worshipped, where family prayer is not forgotten, where you can have a kindly guidance in the hour of difficulty and comfort in the time of trial. You dwell where angels come and go and God, Himself, deigns to dwell! Happy should young people be in such circumstances! How grateful and how holy you ought to be! I want all who dwell where everything helps them, to remember the many gracious ones who dwell where everything hinders them. You who live near the Beautiful Gate of the temple must not forget the many who are sighing in the tents of Kedar. If your soul is not among lions, praise God for it—and then let your sympathies go out towards those who mournfully complain— "My soul with him that hates peace Has long a dweller been. I am for peace, but when I speak, For battle they are keen." It is a Christian duty to "remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." And whenever our own favored circumstances lead us to forget those who are persecuted and tried, our very mercies are working mischief in us. "We are all members, one of another." If one member suffers, all the rest should suffer with him and, therefore, we will turn our thoughts towards our persecuted Brothers and Sisters tonight, that our united supplications may sustain them under their difficulties and, if the Lord is so pleased, may even deliver them.
My soul is among lions - בתוך לבאם bethoch lebaim. I agree with Dr. Kennicott that this should be translated, “My soul dwells in parched places,” from לאב laab, he thirsted. And thus the Chaldee seems to have understood the place, though it be not explicit. I lie even among them that are set on fire - I seem to be among coals. It is no ordinary rage and malice by which I am pursued: each of my enemies seems determined to have my life.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
My soul is among lions - That is, among people who resemble lions; men, fierce, savage, ferocious. And I lie even among them that are set on fire - We have a term of similar import in common use now, when we say that one is “inflamed” with passion, referring to one who is infuriated and enraged. So we speak of “burning” with rage or wrath - an expression derived, perhaps, from the inflamed “appearance” of a man in anger. The idea here is not that he “would” lie down calmly among those persons, as Prof. Alexander suggests, but that he actually “did” thus lie down. When he laid himself down at night, when he sought repose in sleep, he was surrounded by such persons, and seemed to be sleeping in the midst of them. Even the sons of men - Yet they are not wild beasts, but “men” who seem to have the ferocious nature of wild beasts. The phrase, “sons of men,” is often used to denote men themselves. Whose teeth are spears and arrows - Spears and arrows in their hands are what the teeth of wild beasts are. And their tongue a sharp sword - The mention of the tongue here has reference, probably, to the abuse and slander to which he was exposed, and which was like a sharp sword that pierced even to the seat of life. See the notes at Psa 55:21.
The words behind it
13 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| נַפְשִׁ֤י׀ | nafshi | self my | H5315 → | 754 times |
| בְּת֥וֹךְ | betokh | in among | H8432 → | 418 times |
| לְבָאִם֮ | levaim | lions | H3833 → | |
| אֶשְׁכְּבָ֪ה | ʾeshkevah | I lie with | H7901 → | 212 times |
| לֹ֫הֲטִ֥ים | lohatim | [those that] devour | H3857 → | 11 times |
| בְּֽנֵי־ | benei- | [the] children of | H1121 → | 4930 times |
| אָדָ֗ם | ʾadam | humankind | H120 → | 551 times |
| שִׁ֭נֵּיהֶם | shineihem | teeth their | H8127 → | 55 times |
| חֲנִ֣ית | chanit | [are] a spear | H2595 → | 47 times |
| וְחִצִּ֑ים | vechitzim | and arrows | H2671 → | 53 times |
| וּ֝לְשׁוֹנָ֗ם | uleshonam | and tongue their | H3956 → | 117 times |
| חֶ֣רֶב | cherev | [is] a sword | H2719 → | 413 times |
| חַדָּֽה׃ | chadah | sharp | H2299 → |
נַפְשִׁ֤י׀self my
nafshiH5315 →754 times
בְּת֥וֹךְin among
betokhH8432 →418 times
לְבָאִם֮lions
levaimH3833 →
אֶשְׁכְּבָ֪הI lie with
ʾeshkevahH7901 →212 times
לֹ֫הֲטִ֥ים[those that] devour
lohatimH3857 →11 times
בְּֽנֵי־[the] children of
benei-H1121 →4930 times
אָדָ֗םhumankind
ʾadamH120 →551 times
שִׁ֭נֵּיהֶםteeth their
shineihemH8127 →55 times
חֲנִ֣ית[are] a spear
chanitH2595 →47 times
וְחִצִּ֑יםand arrows
vechitzimH2671 →53 times
וּ֝לְשׁוֹנָ֗םand tongue their
uleshonamH3956 →117 times
חֶ֣רֶב[is] a sword
cherevH2719 →413 times
חַדָּֽה׃sharp
chadahH2299 →
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
Proverbs 30:14there is a generation whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are knives, devouring the oppressed from the earth and the needy from among men.
it leads to
- Psalms 3:7
Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Job 29:17
I shattered the fangs of the unjust and snatched the prey from his teeth.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Psalms 14:4
Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon the LORD.
- Psalms 3:7
Through
Psalms 55:21His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than oil, yet they are swords unsheathed.
it leads to
- Proverbs 5:3–4
Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
- Proverbs 26:28
A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth causes ruin.
- Psalms 28:3
Do not drag me away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors while malice is in their hearts.
- Psalms 64:3
who sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows,
- Proverbs 5:3–4
Through
Psalms 35:17How long, O Lord, will You look on? Rescue my soul from their ravages, my precious life from these lions.
it leads to
- Habakkuk 1:13
Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than…
- Habakkuk 1:13
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Psalms
This page draws on 16 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Athanasius of Alexandria, FESTAL LETTERS 9; Augustine of Hippo, TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 114:4; Augustine of Hippo, TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 42:11; Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 57; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 3; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1496: “Among Lions” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Chrysostom, HOMILIES CONCERNING THE STATUES 4:10-11; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Tyrannius Rufinus, APOLOGY 1:1.