Thou lovest all devouring words, O [thou] deceitful tongue.
Ver. 4. Thou lovest all devouring words] Verba devoratoria; the Greek hath it, καταποντισμου, that devour and swallow up, so as the sea doth things cast into it. So elsewhere, their throat is an open sepulchre, which devoureth all bodies, but rendereth none without a miracle. Some render it, Verba voraginis, the words of a whirlpool, which first turns men around, and then sucks them in. Others, Verba absorptionis, in reference to that use of the tongue, which is to sup up dish meats; Sic lingua attrahit homines ita ut absorbeantur, saith Vatablus. The Vulgate hath it, Verba praecipitationis, words that hurl one down headlong, Ex editis aedium vel rupium, as Hilary hath it, from the top of houses, or high rocks.
O thou deceitful tongue] Because, although it were for most part truth that he spake, yet he did it maliciously, and by dissimulation passed over that which might have made for Ahimelech, viz. that he relieved David in the simplicity of his heart, as thinking him to be high in the king's favour, and employed by him. Hegesippus saith of Pilate, that he was Vir nequam, et parvi faciens mendacium, a naughty man, and one that made no bones of a lie: such another was Doeg (De excid. Jerus. l. 2. c. 5).