45:5 Your arrows are sharp
and penetrate the hearts of the king’s enemies.
Nations fall at your feet. 1
64:3 They 2 sharpen their tongues like a sword;
they aim their arrow, a slanderous charge, 3
140:3 Their tongues wound like a serpent; 4
a viper’s 5 venom is behind 6 their lips. (Selah)
1 tn Heb “your arrows are sharp – peoples beneath you fall – in the heart of the enemies of the king.” The choppy style reflects the poet’s excitement.
2 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
3 tn Heb “a bitter word.”
3 tn Heb “they sharpen their tongue like a serpent.” Ps 64:3 reads, “they sharpen their tongues like sword.” Perhaps Ps 140:3 uses a mixed metaphor, the point being that “they sharpen their tongues [like a sword],” as it were, so that when they speak, their words wound like a serpent’s bite. Another option is that the language refers to the pointed or forked nature of a serpent’s tongue, which is viewed metaphorically as “sharpened.”
4 tn The Hebrew term is used only here in the OT.
5 tn Heb “under.”