The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, To cast down the poor and needy, To slay such as are upright in the way.

The wicked have drawn out the sword : they have bent their bow. To cast down the poor and needy, to kill the upright of heart.

The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the afflicted and needy, to slay those that are upright in the way:

The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as are of upright deportment.

A sword have the wicked opened, And they have trodden their bow, To cause to fall the poor and needy, To slaughter the upright of the way.

The evil-doers have taken out their swords, their bows are bent; for crushing the poor, and to put to death those who are upright in their ways.

The wicked draw their sword, and bend their bow. David now goes on to say, that the ungodly, being armed with sword and bow, threaten with death the children of God; and this he does in order to meet the temptation which would otherwise overwhelm them. The promises of God do not have place in a time of quietness and peace, but in the midst of severe and terrible conflicts. And, therefore, David now teaches us that the righteous are not deprived of that peace of which he had spoken a little before, although the wicked should threaten them with instant death. The sentence ought to be explained in this way: Although the wicked draw their swords and bend their bows to destroy the righteous, yet all their efforts shall return upon their own heads, and shall tend to their own destruction. But it is necessary to notice the particular terms in which the miserable condition of the righteous is here described, until God at length vouchsafe to help them. First, they are called poor and needy; and, secondly, they are compared to sheep devoted to destruction, because they have no power to withstand the violence of their enemies, but rather lie oppressed under their feet. Whence it follows, that a uniform state of enjoyment here is not promised to them in this psalm, but there is only set before them the hope of a blessed issue to their miseries and afflictions, in order to console them under them. But as it often happens that the wicked are hated and treated with severity for their iniquity, the Psalmist adds, that those who thus suffered were those who were of upright ways; meaning by this, that they were afflicted without cause. Formerly he described them as the upright in heart, by which he commended the inward purity of the heart; but now he commends uprightness in the conduct, and in fulfilling every duty towards our neighbor; and thus he shows not only that they are unjustly persecuted, because they have done no evil to their enemies, and have given them no cause of offense, but also, that though provoked by injuries, they nevertheless do not turn aside from the path of duty. In the 15th verse, David is not speaking of the laughter of God, but is denouncing vengeance against the ungodly, just as we have already seen in the second psalm, at the fourth verse, that although God, by conniving at the wicked, has often suffered them for a time to run to every excess in mirth and rioting, yet he at length speaks to them in his anger to overthrow them. The amount of what is stated is, that the ungodly should prevail so little, that the sword which they had drawn should return into their own bowels, and that their bow should be broken in pieces.

The wicked have drawn out the sword - That is, they have prepared themselves with a full purpose to destroy the righteous.
And have bent their bow - literally, "have trodden the bow," in allusion to the method by which the bow was bent: to wit, by placing the foot on it, and drawing the string back.
To cast down the poor and needy - To cause them to fall.
And to slay such as be of upright conversation - Margin, as in Hebrew: "the upright of way." That is, those who are upright in their manner of life, or in their conduct.

The wicked have drawn out the sword - There is an irreconcilable enmity in the souls of sinners against the godly; and there is much evidence that the idolatrous Babylonians whetted their tongue like a sword, and shot out their arrows, even bitter words, to malign the poor captives, and to insult them in every possible way.

The wicked have drawn out the sword,.... That is, out of the scabbard; they drew upon the righteous, in order to sheath it in them; or they sharpened the sword, as Aben Ezra observes some interpret the word; it may be literally rendered, "opened the sword" (q), which before lay hid in the scabbard:
and have bent their bow; having put the arrow in it, in order to shoot. The former expression may design the more open, and this the more secret way of acting against the righteous; and their view in both is
to cast down the poor and needy, who are so, both in a temporal and spiritual sense; to cause such to fall either into sin, or into some calamity or another:
and to slay such as be of upright conversation; who walk according to the rule of the word of God, and as becomes the Gospel of Christ: nothing less than the blood and life of these men will satisfy the wicked; and it is an aggravation of their wickedness that they should attempt to hurt men of such character who are poor and needy, holy, harmless, inoffensive, and upright; and this points at the reason why they hate them, and seek their ruin, because of the holiness and uprightness of their lives; see John 15:19.
(q) "aperuerunt gladium", Gejerus.

sword, and . . . bow--for any instruments of violence.
slay--literally, "slaughter" (1-Samuel 25:11).
poor and needy--God's people (Psalm 10:17; Psalm 12:5). The punishment of the wicked as drawn on themselves--often mentioned (compare Psalm 7:15-16; Psalm 35:8).

That which corresponds to the "treading" or stringing of the bow is the drawing from the sheath or unsheathing of the sword: פּתח, Ezekiel 21:28, cf. Psalm 55:22. The combination ישׁרי־דּרך is just like תמימי־דוך, Psalm 119:1. The emphasis in Psalm 37:14 is upon the suffix of בלבּם: they shall perish by their own weapon. קשּׁתותם has (in Baer) a Shebג dirimens, as also in Isaiah 5:28 in correct texts.