Salmos 58:8

La Biblia de las Americas

Que sean como el caracol, que se deslíe según se arrastra, como los que nacen muertos, que nunca ven el sol.

Parallel Translations

La Biblia Reina-Valera
Pasen ellos como el caracol que se desl�e: Como el abortivo de mujer, no vean el sol.

La Biblia Reina-Valera Gomez
Pasen ellos como el caracol que se desl�e; como el abortivo de mujer, no vean el sol.

Sagradas Escrituras (1569)
Pasen de este mundo como el caracol que se desl�e; como el abortivo de mujer, no vean el sol.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

a snail: Shabbelool, in Chaldee tivlala, the snail, is probably so called from the Arabic balla, to wet, moisten, because of the glutinous slime emitted from its body, by which it appears to waste itself away in its own motion; and in the same manner the wicked prove their own destruction.

pass: Psalms 37:35, Psalms 37:36, Matthew 24:35, James 1:10

untimely: Job 3:16, Ecclesiastes 6:3

Reciprocal: Numbers 12:12 - of whom Job 3:11 - died I Job 10:19 - General Job 24:19 - so doth Job 29:17 - I brake Psalms 112:10 - melt Ecclesiastes 6:5 - this Hosea 9:11 - from the birth

Gill's Notes on the Bible

As a snail [which] melteth, let [everyone of them] pass away,.... As a snail when it comes out of its shell liquefies, drops its moisture, and with it makes a "path", from whence it has its name

שבלול, in the Hebrew language; and so the Targum here,

"as the snail moistens its way;''

which moistness it gradually exhausts, and melts away, and dies: so the psalmist prays that everyone of his enemies might die in like manner. Some think reference is had to the snail's putting out its horns to no purpose when in danger, and apply it to the vain threatenings of the wicked; a strange difference this, between a roaring young lion,

Psalms 58:6, and a melting snail. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, render it, "as wax [which] melteth": see

Psalms 68:2;

[like] the untimely birth of a woman, [that] they may not see the sun; see Job 3:16. The Targum is,

"as an abortive and a mole, which are blind and see not the sun.''

So Jarchi renders it a "mole", agreeably to the Talmud g. Or, "let them not see the sun" h; let them die, and never see the sun in the firmament any more; Christ, the sun of righteousness; nor enjoy the favour of God, and the light of his countenance; nor have the light of life, or eternal glory and happiness; see Psalms 49:19.

g T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 6. 2. h בל חזו שמש "ne videant solem", Pagninus, Montanus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away - Or rather, As the snail which melteth as it goes; that is, which leaves a slimy trail as it moves along, and thus melts away the more as it advances, until at length it dies. Gesenius, Lexicon. The allusion is to what seems to occur to the snail; it seems to melt or to be dissolved as it moves along; or seems to leave a part of itself in the slime which flows from it.

Like the untimely birth of a woman - The Hebrew word means literally “that which falls from a woman;” and hence, the word is used to denote an abortion. The prayer is, that they might utterly pass away; that they might become like those who never had real life; that their power might wholly disappear.

That they may not see the sun - May not be among the living. Compare the notes at Job 3:16.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 58:8. As a snail which melteth — The Chaldee reads the verse thus: "They shall melt away in their sins as water flows off; as the creeping snail that smears its track; as the untimely birth and the blind mole, which do not see the sun."

The original word שבלול shablul, a snail, is either from שביל shebil, a path, because it leaves a shining path after it by emitting a portion of slime, and thus glaring the ground; and therefore might be emphatically called the pathmaker; or from ישב yashab to dwell, ב be, in, לול lul, a winding or spiral shell, which is well known to be its house, and which it always inhabits; for when it is not coiled up within this shell, it carries it with it wheresoever it goes. See Bochart. These figures need no farther explanation.