Psalm 140:5

The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) Net.—An elaboration of the favourite image of the net. (Psalm 9:15.) The frequent occurrence of this figure well indicates the dangers to which Israel was subjected through the leaning of many of the nation itself to foreign influences.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

140:1-7 The more danger appears, the more earnest we should be in prayer to God. All are safe whom the Lord protects. If he be for us, who can be against us? We should especially watch and pray, that the Lord would hold up our goings in his ways, that our footsteps slip not. God is as able to keep his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to depend upon him in other dangers.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The proud have hid a snare for me - Haughty; arrogant; oppressive men. See Psalm 35:7, note; Psalm 57:6, note.

And cords - Strings; twine; as those do who lay a net to catch birds, and who design to spring it upon them unawares.

They have spread a net by the wayside - Where I may be expected to walk, and where it may be suddenly sprung upon me.

They have set gins for me - Snares, toils - such as are set for wild beasts. The meaning is, that they had not only made open war upon him, but they had sought to bring him into an ambush - to rush upon him suddenly when he was not on his guard, and did not know that, danger was near.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. snare [and] net—for threatening dangers (compare Ps 38:12; 57:6).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The proud; my insolent enemies, who despise me for my meanness, and exalt themselves against thee.

By the wayside; in which I used to walk.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords,.... These were the Ziphites, according to Arama; see Psalm 119:85; the character well agrees with the Scribes and Pharisees, who were proud boasters, and despised others, and often laid snares for Christ to take away his life; and with the enemies of the church and people of God; who, through their pride, persecute them, and are insidious, and use artful methods to ensnare them; as the fowler lays his snare for the bird, and has his cords to draw it to him when it is taken in the snare, to which the allusion is;

they have spread a net by the wayside: they waylaid him; knowing the way he would go, they lay in wait for him, to seize him at once as he went along; see John 18:1; the word "cords" in the preceding clause should be connected with this, and be read, "and with cords they have spread a net by the wayside": it being usual, as Jarchi observes, to fasten a long cord at the top of the net; and when the fowler sees the birds under the net, he draws the cord, and the net falls upon the fowls;

they have set gins for me; all these expressions design the insidiousness, and the private, secret, artful methods, the enemies of David, of Christ and his people, took and do take to ensnare them. Arama interprets the "snare and cords" of the watching of David's house; the "net by the wayside" of posting themselves at the gates of the city, and surrounding it; and gins of spies; see 1 Samuel 19:11.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psalm 3:2.

Geneva Study Bible

The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. For the figures cp. Psalm 31:4; Psalm 119:110; Psalm 141:9; Psalm 142:3. The hunter sets his snares in the ‘run’ of the animal he wishes to catch, and the Psalmist’s enemies are scheming to ruin him as he goes about his daily duties. Cp. Matthew 22:15, “how they might ensnare (παγιδεύσωσιν, cp. LXX παγίδα here) him in talk.” He calls them proud, for their hostility to God’s servant is virtually a defiance of God (Psalm 10:2).

grins] More properly, baits or lures, to entice him to his ruin. Grins, the original reading of the A.V. of 1611, restored by Scrivener, is an obsolete word of the same meaning as gins, which has been substituted for it in modern editions of the A.V. here and in Psalm 141:9. For examples of its use see Wright’s Bible Word Book.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords. An instance of the figure hendiadys. What is meant is a snare composed of cords. Such snares, when laid for animals, were "hidden" in long grass, or low shrubs, or rough ground. They have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me (comp. Psalm 31:4; Psalm 35:7; Psalm 57:6; Psalm 119:10; Psalm 141:9; Psalm 142:3). A second pause-sign marks off a second stanza. Psalm 140:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The course of this second strophe is exactly parallel with the first. The perfects describe their conduct hitherto, as a comparison of Psalm 140:3 with Psalm 140:3 shows. פּעמים is poetically equivalent to רגלים, and signifies both the foot that steps (Psalm 57:5; Psalm 58:11) and the step that is made by the foot (Psalm 85:14; Psalm 119:133), and here the two senses are undistinguishable. They are called גּאים on account of the inordinate ambition that infatuates them. The metaphors taken from the life of the hunter (Psalm 141:9; Psalm 142:4) are here brought together as it were into a body of synonyms. The meaning of ליד־מעגּל becomes explicable from Psalm 142:4; ליד, at hand, is equivalent to "immediately beside" (1 Chronicles 18:17; Nehemiah 11:24). Close by the path along which he has to pass, lie gins ready to spring together and ensnare him when he appears.