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In the verse which follows, he describes their fierceness. The expression, prating, or belching out with their mouth, denotes that they proclaimed their infamous counsels openly, and without affecting concealment. The Hebrew word נבע, nabang, means, metaphorically, to speak, but properly, it signifies to gush out, (364) and here denotes more than simply speaking. He would inform us, that not content with plotting the destruction of the innocent secretly amongst themselves, they published their intentions abroad, and boasted of them. Accordingly, when he adds, that swords were in their lips, he means that they breathed out slaughter, and that every word they spoke was a sword to slay the oppressed. He assigns as the cause of their rushing to such excess of wickedness, that they had no reason to apprehend disgrace. It may be sufficiently probable, that David adverts here, as in many other places, to the gross stupidity of the wicked, who, in order to banish fear from their minds, conceive of God as if he were asleep in heaven; but I am of opinion that he rather traces the security with which they prosecuted their counsels, and openly proclaimed them, to the fact, that they had long ere now been in possession of the uncontrolled power of inflicting injury. They had succeeded so completely in deceiving the people, and rendering David odious by their calumnies, that none had the courage to utter a word in his defense. Nay, the more atrociously that any man might choose to persecute this victim of distress, from no other motive than to secure the good graces of the king, the more did he rise in estimation as a true friend to the commonwealth.
(364) Ainsworth reads, “to utter or well out, as from a fountain;belch orbabble, as Pro_15:2, ‘ a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her malice.’” “Le mot Hebrieu signifie se repandre en paroles ,etc.;” i. e. , “ Hebrew word signifies to break out in words, and it here denotes the oft repeated and passionate expressions which proceed from the mouth of persons actuated by hatred and rage, as in Psa_94:4. To it the word bark answers very well, which is borrowed from dogs, and expresses the noise made by these animals; and this word is here the more apposite, that David in the preceding verse compares his enemies to dogs which incessantly run about and do nothing but bark.” —Martin.