Trodden down. — Better, thou despisest. So LXX. and Vulg. Aquila, “Thou hast impaled.” Symmachus, “Thou hast convicted.” Literally the word seems to mean to weigh or value, but, from the habit of the buyer beating down the price by depreciating, comes to have a sense of this kind. Mr. Burgess aptly quotes Proverbs 20:14. We may compare the English word cheapen, which originally only meant to buy.
For their deceit is falsehood. — Rather, as the parallelism indicates, for their tricks are in vain; or perhaps, to bring out the full intention of the Hebrew, we must paraphrase: “for their wiles are as fruitless as they are deceitful.” So Symmachus: “all their craft is vain.”