May they be like snails that dissolve into slime, like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.
Parallel translations
- WEB Let them be like a snail which melts and passes away, like the stillborn child, who has not seen the sun.
- KJV As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
- BSB Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.
- NKJV Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes, Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
- NASB May they be like a snail which goes along in slime, Like the miscarriage of a woman that never sees the sun.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David likens the wicked to a snail dissolving away and a stillborn child who never sees daylight. He prays their influence pass without lasting trace.
Overview
With stark images of dissolution, David asks that the wicked come to nothing, their lives leaving no enduring mark. The pictures are jarring, yet they express longing for evil to be undone rather than personal cruelty. Scripture consistently holds that the wicked's prosperity is temporary, while the righteous are established forever in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Job 3:16or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
- Eccl 6:3If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he:
- Ps 37:35–36I have seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil.
- Jas 1:10and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.
- Matt 24:35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 58:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.