Psalm 140:3
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent,.... Which Kimchi says it does before it bites. Aristotle {i} observes, that the tip or extreme point of a serpent's tongue is as small as a hair, and so exceeding sharp and piercing. Arama interprets this of the sharpness and cunning of the serpent; and particularly the serpent that deceived Eve, and spake cunningly to her. "For God knoweth", &c. and may design the calumnies and detractions, which were sharp as a razor; as swords, and spears, and arrows, and as the tongue of a serpent, Psalms 57:4; and the subtlety of false teachers, and deceitful workers; and the sharp and cutting words of wicked men against Christ and his people, Jude 1:15;
adder's poison is under their lips; which may signify the malignity of sin in wicked men, which comes from the old serpent the devil; is latent in men; very infectious, like poison, and deadly and incurable, but by the grace of God, and blood of Christ: and may describe particularly the mischief of the tongue, which is a little member, as the asp is a little creature; but very mischievous, full of deadly poison, which lurks in it, lies under it, and which spitting out, it stupifies and kills insensibly; as do the calumnies of wicked men, and the doctrines of false teachers; see Romans 3:13. The Targum is,
"the poison of the spider;''
though it is said {k} the spider is not venomous.
Selah; on this word, See Gill on "Psalms 3:2".
{i} Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 17.
{k} Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 2. p. 800. & vol. 5. par. 1. p. 24.