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He again repeats all this in the tenth verse, giving a beautiful and graphic description of the very mien or gesture of such wicked men, just as if he set before our eyes a picture of them. They crouch low, says he, and cast themselves down, (220) that they may not, by their cruelty, frighten away their victims to a distance; for they would fain catch in their entanglements those whom they cannot hurt without coming close to them. We see how he joins these two things together, first snares or gins, and then sudden violence, as soon as the prey has fallen into their hands. For, by the second clause, he means, that whenever they see the simple to be fully in their power, they rush upon them by surprise with a savage violence, just as if a lion should furiously rise from his couch to tear in pieces his prey. (221) The obvious meaning of the Psalmist is, that the ungodly are to be dreaded on all sides, because they dissemble their cruelty, till they find those caught in their toils whom they wish to devour. There is some obscurity in the words, to which we shall briefly advert. In the clause which we have rendered an army of the afflicted, the Hebrew word חלכאים, chelcaim, an army, in the opinion of some, is a word of four letters. (222) Those, however, think more accurately who hold it to be compound, and equivalent to two words. (223) Although, therefore, the verb נפל, naphal, is in the singular number, yet the prophet, doubtless, uses חל כאים, chel caim, collectively, to denote a great company of people who are afflicted by every one of these lions. I have rendered עצומימ,atsumim, his strengths, as if it were a substantive; because the prophet, doubtless, by this term, intends the talons and teeth of the lion, in which the strength of that beast chiefly consists. As, however, the word is properly an adjective in the plural number, signifying strong, without having any substantive with which it agrees, we may reasonably suppose that, by the talons and teeth of the lion, he means to express metaphorically a powerful body of soldiers. In short, the meaning is this: These wicked men hide their strength, by feigned humility and crafty courteous demeanour, and yet they will always have in readiness an armed band of satellites, or claws and teeth, as soon as an opportunity of doing mischief is presented to them.
(220) The allusion is to the practice of the lion, who, when he intends to seize upon his prey, crouches, or lies down, and gathers himself together, both to conceal himself, and that he may make the greater spring upon his prey when it comes within his reach, (Job_38:39.)
(221) “Comme si un lion sortant de son giste se levoit furieusement pour mettre sa proye par pieces.” —Fr. “ if a lion issuing from his den, furiously raised himself to spring upon his prey, and to tear it to pieces.” “ the lion” says Buffon “ up on his prey, he gives a spring of ten or fifteen feet, falls on, seizes it with his fore-paws, tears it with his claws, and afterwards devours it with his teeth.”
(222) Being the plural of, חלכה, chelcah, which occurs three times in this psalm, namely, here and in the eighth and fourteenth verses, where it is rendered poor.
(223) Namely, חל כאים chel caim. Those who adopt this reading observe, that according to the other view, the verb נפל, naphal, translated may fall, which is singular, is joined with a plural noun, חלכאים chelcaim, but that, by dividing this last word into two, we get a singular nominative to the verb. Hammond, however, who adopts the first opinion, observes, “ it is an elegance, both in the Hebrew and Arabic, to use the verb singular with the nominative plural, especially when the verb is placed first, as here it is;” and, therefore, he denies the validity of that objection against the ordinary rendering.