Psalm 56:6
They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
They gather themselves together,.... And meet in some one place, to contrive ways and means to do hurt, and then assemble together again to put them in execution; as did the Jews with respect to Christ, Matthew 26:3. Aben Ezra supposes a various reading without any reason; and that, instead of wrwgy which Jarchi renders "they lodge", and the Septuagint, and the versions following that, "they sojourn", it should be read wdwgy, "they assemble in troops": because they were many: but the sense is, "they stay" {x}, or continue in some certain place:
they hide themselves; the Targum adds, "in ambush": they lay in wait, and caused others to lie in wait for him, in order to take him; as did Saul and his men, and the servants of the king of Gath;
they mark my steps; they observed where he went, that they might seize him; or they observed his heels, as the old serpent did the Messiah's, that he might bruise them; or they watched for his halting, as Jeremiah's familiars did for his;
when they wait for my soul; to take away his life, to destroy him; see
Ps 119:95; they wanted not a will to do it, they only waited for an opportunity. The Targum is,
"as they waited, they did to my soul:''
or rather, "after they had hoped for my soul" {y}: when they had entertained hopes of taking him, this animated them to do the above things.
{x} "Commorabuntur", Montanus; "simul ipsi morantur", Vatablus; so Gussetius, p. 166.
{y} Vid. Gusset. Ebr. Comment. p. 361.