The Bible Commentaries and Others: Psalms 140 v 3

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Posted by Psalms on Saturday, 23 January 2016

Psalms 140:3

They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.

140:3. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent. The rapid motion of a viper’s tongue gives you the idea of its sharpening it; even thus do the malicious move their tongues at such a rate that one might suppose them to be in the very act of wearing them to a point, or rubbing them to a keen edge. It was a common notion that serpents inserted their poison by their tongues, and the poets used the idea as a poetical expression, although it is certain that the serpent wounds by his fangs and not by his tongue. We are not to suppose that all authors who used such language were mistaken in their natural history any more than a writer can be charged with ignorance of astronomy because he speaks of the sun’s traveling from east to west.

Adders’ poison is under their lips. The deadliest of all venom is the slander of the unscrupulous. Our text, however, must not be confined in its reference to some few individuals, for in the inspired epistle to the Romans it is quoted as being true of us all. The old serpent has not only inoculated us with his venom, but he has caused us to be ourselves producers of the like poison: it lies under our lips, ready for us, and, alas, it is all too freely used when we grow angry, and desire to take vengeance upon any who have caused us vexation. It is sadly wonderful what hard things even good people will say when provoked. O Lord, take the poison-bags away, and cause our lips to drop nothing but honey.

Selah. This is heavy work. Go up, go up, my heart! Sink not too low. Fall not into the lowest key. Lift up thyself to God.

Excerpt from:

The Treasury of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)