Psalms 63:10

They shall fall by the sword - They shall be poured out by the hand of the sword, Hebrews That is, their life's blood shall be shed either in war, or by the hand of justice.

They shall be a portion for foxes - They shall be left unburied, and the jackals shall feed upon their dead bodies. Or, being all cut off by utter destruction, their Inheritance shall be left for the wild beasts. That which was their portion shall shortly be the portion of the wild beasts of the forest. If he here refers to the destruction of the Babylonians, the prediction has been literally fulfilled. Where ancient Babylon stood, as far as it can be ascertained, is now the hold of dangerous reptiles and ferocious beasts. The jackal, or chokal, is a very ravenous beast, and fond of human flesh. It devours dead bodies, steals infants out of the lap of their mothers, devours alive the sick who are left by the side of the Ganges, and even in the streets of Calcutta has been known to eat persons who were in a state of intoxication. Ward's Customs.

They shall fall by the sword - Margin, They shall make him run out like water by the hands of the sword. The word rendered in the text "they shall fall," and in the margin "they shall make him run out" - נגר nâgar - means properly, to flow, to pour out, as water; and then, to pour out; then, to give up or deliver. The idea here is that of delivering over, as one pours out water from a basin or pitcher: they shall be delivered over to the sword. The original rendered "sword" is, as in the margin, "by the hands of the sword;" that is, the sword is represented as accomplishing its purpose as if it had hands. The sword shall slay them.

They shall be a portion for foxes - The original word - שׁועל shû‛âl - means properly and commonly a fox. But under this general name fox, the Orientals seem to have comprehended other animals also, having some resemblance to a fox, and particularly jackals. Thus jackals seem to be meant in Judges 15:4; since foxes are with great difficulty taken alive; and in this place also it has the same meaning, inasmuch as foxes do not feast on dead bodies, though a favorite repast of the jackal. Gesenius, Lexicon. Compare Bochart Hieroz. T. ii. p. 190, ed. Lips. Jackals are wild, fierce, savage; they howl around dwellings at night - producing most hideous music, beginning "in a sort of solo, a low, long-drawn wail, rising and swelling higher and higher until it quite overtops the wind," (Thomson's "Land and the Book," i. 133) - and ready to gather at any moment when there is prey to be devoured. "These sinister, guilty, wo-begone brutes, when pressed with hunger, gather in gangs among the graves, and yell in rage, and fight like fiends over their midnight orgies; but on the battlefield is their great carnival. Oh! let me never even dream that anyone dear to me has fallen by the sword, and lies there to be torn, and gnawed at, and dragged about by these hideous howlers."

63:10 Foxes - Their carcases shall become a prey to wild and ravenous creatures.