Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and [when] they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.
Ver. 8. Neither shall one thrust another] Or straiten another. The Greek word διωκω, to press and persecute, seems to come from this Hebrew word Dakag. The prophet still alludeth to the matter of marshalling armies in such sort, as that neither may the soldiers hinder one another, nor the enemy have any advantage to break in upon them. Exercitus pulchre dispositus, et amicis pulcherrimus videtur, et hostibus inexpugnabilis, saith Xenophon (In Oeconom.); that is, a well ordered army seemeth both beautiful to their friends and invincible to their enemies.
They shall walk every one] Heb. גבר Man, mighty man, q.d. each locust shall walk and stalk, as a strong lusty man in his trodden track, in the path that God hath put him into, and shall hold to it. (Vir validus, Mesillah, Via trita.)
And when they fall upon the sword] Heb. the long sword, or javelin, they shall not be wounded; as if they were unwoundable, or shot free, as the poet fabled of Achilles, and as the Persians, vanquished by the Athenians at the field of Marathon, cried out
Bαλλομεν, ου πιπτουσι τιτρωσκομεν, ου φοβεονται .
“We fell them, yet they fall not;
we them wound,
And think them dead, but they are
safe and sound” (Stobaeus).