But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.
Ver. 23. But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction] Into the deep Gehenna, saith the Chaldee; thou shalt hurl them into hell, from their lofty tops here.
Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days] Heb. shall not half their days; that is, shall be soon cut off, die in the flower of their age, come to an untimely end (Ad generum Cereris, &c.); either the sword in battle or the sword of justice shall cut them off; or some treachery of men, or their own intemperance, or God's immediate hand, shall make an end of them betimes, and before they come to the full age of a man, or before they have effected their evil designs (Luther rendereth it, Non dimidiabunt negotia), or before they are in fit case to die, Tempore non sue, Ecclesiastes 7:17, then when it were better for them to do anything than to die. Our Richard III and Queen Mary reigned the shortest while of any other since the conquest. Charles IX of France, that bloody prince, died young, of a bloody disease, &c. Absalom and Ahithophel came to tragic and unhappy ends; so did all the primitive persecutors, those cruel crafties.
But I will trust in thee] For safety here and for salvation hereafter.