Psalms 64:3
who sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows,
BSB
ASV
Who have whet their tongue like a sword, And have aimed their arrows, even bitter words,
KJV
Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:
Who whet their tongue like a sword. Slander has ever been the master weapon of the good man's enemies, and great is the care of the malicious to use it effectively. As warriors grind their swords, to give them an edge which will cut deep and wound desperately, so do the unscrupulous invent falsehoods which shall be calculated to inflict pain, to stab the reputation, to kill the honour of the righteous. What is there which an evil tongue will not say? What misery will it not labour to inflict?
But, (1.) Their tongues are their swords, flaming swords, two-edged swords, drawn swords, drawn in anger, with which they cut, and wound, and kill, the good name of their neighbours. The tongue is a little member, but, like the sword, it boasts great things, Jam. iii. It is a dangerous weapon.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 57:4My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts— with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
leads to
O God, shatter their teeth in their mouths; O LORD, tear out the fangs of the lions.
there is a generation whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are knives, devouring the oppressed from the earth and the needy from among men.
How long, O Lord, will You look on? Rescue my soul from their ravages, my precious life from these lions.
Through
Jeremiah 9:3“They bend their tongues like bows; lies prevail over truth in the land. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not take Me into account,” declares the LORD.
leads to
“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
After that whole generation had also been gathered to their fathers, another generation rose up who did not know the LORD or the works that He had done for Israel.
rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart.
Through
Psalms 58:7May they vanish like water that runs off; when they draw the bow, may their arrows be blunted.
leads to
And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of them, chasing them from the gate as far as the quarries and striking them down on the slopes. So the hearts of the people…