Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it [is] for his life.
Ver. 23. Till a dart strike through his liver,] i.e, Filthy lust, that fiery dart of the devil, pointed and poisoned (as the Scythian darts are said to be) with the gall of asps and vipers. Philosophers a place lust in the liver. Mathematicians subject the liver to Venus; the poets b complain of cupid's wounding them in that part.
“ Cor sapit, et pulmo loquitur, fel commovit iras:
Splen ridere facit, cogit amare iecor."
Or, as some sense it, Till the adulterer be, by the whore's husband or friends, or by the hand of justice, deprived of life; perhaps in the very act, as Zimri and Cozbi were by Phinehas in the very flagrancy of their lust.
a Plato in hepate το επιθυμητικον ponit.
b Horat., Ode v. lib. iv., and Ode xxv. lib. v. Ovid. Trist.