Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.

As when one ploweth and cleaveth the earth, Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

as when the thickness of the earth is broken up upon the ground: Our bones are scattered by the side of hell.

As when one ploweth and cleaveth the earth, our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth.

As one tilling and ripping up in the land, Have our bones been scattered at the command of Saul.

Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cuts and splits wood on the earth.

Our bones are broken up at the mouth of the underworld, as the earth is broken by the plough.

As when one cleaveth and breaketh up the earth, Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth.

As one who breaketh, etc. Here David complains that his enemies were not satisfied with inflicting upon him one death -- death of a common description -- but must first mangle him, and those associated with him, and then cast them into the grave. The common robber on the highway throws the body of his murdered victim whole into the ditch; David tells us, that he and those with him were treated more barbarously, their Bones being dispersed, as one cleaves wood or stones into fragments, or digs the earth. From this it appears, that David, like Paul, (2-Corinthians 1:9,) was delivered from deaths oft; [1] and we may learn the duty of continuing to cherish hope of life and deliverance even when the expression may apply to us, that our bones have been broken and scattered.

Footnotes

1 - If David here refers to the treatment he and his followers met with at the hands of Saul, this exhibits in dark colors the extreme inhumanity of that monarch. "We are not sufficiently informed," says Walford, "respecting the cruelties which were perpetrated against David and those who adhered to him, to enable us to point out the instances to which he here alludes; but the murder of Abimelech, and of the priests who were with him, furnishes a pregnant proof of the atrocities which Saul and his agents were capable of perpetrating. (See 1 Samuel 22.) It appears from the language of this verse that such enormities were not confined to a few cases, but must have been numerous, to give occasion to the image which is employed to describe them." How striking the contrast between David's treatment of Saul, and that which Saul adopted towards him! Mr. Peters in his Dissertations on Job, gives an exposition of this 7th verse which is ingenious, and which Archbishop Secker calls "admirable, though not quite unexceptionable." Understanding the verse as referring to the slaughter of the priests at Nob, just now adverted to, he renders the words s'vl lphy, (which Calvin translates, at the grave's mouth,) at the mouth, that is, at the command of Saul. In support of this translation he produces similar expressions, l phy phrh, at the command of Pharaoh, (Genesis 45:21,) and l phyk, at thy command. (Job 39:17.) To this rendering there is, however, this strong objection, that we do not find David ever mentioning Saul by name in any of the Psalms. Peters, indeed, states that this objection was offered to him against his view, and he endeavors to remove it, though, as we think, with indifferent success.

Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth - We are, indeed, now like bones scattered in the places of graves; we seem to be weak, feeble, disorganized. We are in a condition which of itself seems to be hopeless: as hopeless as it would be for dry bones scattered when they were buried to rise up and attack an enemy. The reference is to the condition of David and his followers as pursued by a mighty foe. His hope was not in his own forces, but in the power and interposition of God Psalm 141:8.
As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth - Like chips, blocks, splinters, that have no strength; as when these lie scattered around - a fit emblem of our feeble and scattered forces.

Our bones are scattered at the (h) grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth [wood] upon the earth.
(h) Here it appears that David was miraculously delivered out of many deaths as in (2-Corinthians 1:9-10).

Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth,.... Into which they were not suffered to be put, but lay unburied; or from whence they were dug up, and lay scattered about; which is to be understood of such of David's friends as fell into the hands of Saul and his men, and were slain: perhaps it may refer to the fourscore and five priests, and the inhabitants of Nob, slain by the order of Saul, 1-Samuel 22:18. Though the phrase may be only proverbial, and be expressive of the danger David and his men were in, and their sense of it, who looked upon themselves like dry bones, hopeless and helpless, and had the sentence of death in themselves, and were as it were at the mouth of the grave, on the brink of ruin;
as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth: and the chips fly here and there, and are disregarded; such was their case: or as men cut and cleave the earth with the plough, and it is tore up by it, and falls on each side of it, so are we persecuted, afflicted, and distressed by our enemies, and have no mercy shown us; so the Targum,
"as a man that cuts and cleaves with ploughshares in the earth, so our members are scattered at the grave's mouth.''
The Syriac and Arabic versions understand it of the ploughshare cutting the earth.

Our bones - Our case is almost as hopeless as of those who are dead, and whose bones are scattered in several places.