Verse 3
3. How long will ye imagine mischief He addresses the leaders of the rebellion. The Hebrew word translated “imagine mischief” occurs nowhere else, and its derivation has been variously understood. The sense most in accordance with the imagery of the context, and sustained by modern oriental usage and the ancient Versions, is, to storm against, to break in upon, and hence to persecute, assail. “How long will ye storm against, or break in upon, a man?”
Ye shall be slain Ye will crush, all of you. The verb is to be taken in Piel, not passive, as describing what they would do, not what should be done to them; and the metaphor requires the radical sense as above, not the secondary sense as in the common Version.
As a bowing wall… and… tottering fence As a leaning wall, a wall thrust at, or thrust down. The idea of the latter, which is in the form of climax, is that of a wall which, from a violent shock, is thrown out of line and is ready to fall, or is already falling. Such was the contemptuous idea which the conspirators held of David. Perowne translates the passage:
How long will ye rush against a man.
Will ye all of you break [him] down,
As [though he were] a bowing wall, a tottering fence?
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