Psalms Chapter 58 verse 4 Holy Bible

ASV Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: `They are' like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,
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BBE Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a snake; they are like the adder, whose ears are shut;
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DARBY Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: [they are] like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ear;
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KJV Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
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WBT Psalms 58:4

The wicked are estranged from their birth: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
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WEB Psalms 58:4

Their poison is like the poison of a snake; Like a deaf cobra that stops its ear,
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YLT Psalms 58:4

Their poison `is' as poison of a serpent, As a deaf asp shutting its ear,
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - Their poison is like the poison of a serpent (comp. Psalm 140:3; Song of Sirach 25:15). They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. The "adder" was supposed to be deaf, on account of its being very difficult to charm. It was thought obstinately to set itself against the charmer, and, as it were, stop its ears against him.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Their poison . . .--Better, they have a venom like, &c. The term for serpent is the generic n?chash.The most forcible images of determined wickedness, and of the destruction it entails, now follow. The first is supplied by the serpent, the more suggestive from the accumulated evil qualities of which that animal has from the first been considered the type. Here the figure is heightened, since the animal is supposed to have been first tamed, but suddenly darts forth its fangs, and shows itself not only untamed, but untameable.Adder.--Heb., pethen, translated asp in Deuteronomy 32:33; Job 20:14; Isaiah 11:8 (and here by the LXX.) In the Bible Educator iv. 103, the pethen is identified with the Egyptian cobra, the species upon which the serpent charmers practise their peculiar science.Deaf.--So Jeremiah 8:17 refers to various kinds of serpents that "will not be charmed." Here, however, it would seem as if the poet were thinking of some individual of a species, generally tractable, that obstinately resists the spells and incantations of the charmer. . . .