Let them melt away as waters [which] run continually: [when] he bendeth [his bow to shoot] his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
Ver. 7. Let them melt away as waters] As snowwaters before the sunbeams, quickly melted, and soon drunk in by the dry earth, Job 24:19. In Peru, they say, there is a river called the diurnal river, or the day river, because it flows with a mighty current in the day, but in the night is dry, because it is not fed by a spring, but caused merely by the melting of the snow, which lieth on the mountains thereabouts.
When he bendeth his bow] i.e. Let him be utterly frustrated, let all his mischievous designs and endeavours be blasted, and come to nothing. In that famous battle between Theodosius and Maximus, Milites nobis qui aderant retulerunt, saith Augustine (De Cit. Dei, l. 5, c. 26), extorta sibi esse de manibus quaecunque iculabantur; cum a Theodosii partibus in adversarios vehemens ventus iret; et non solum quaecunque in cos iaciebantur concitatissime raperet, verum etiam ipsorum tela in eorum corpora retorqueret: the soldiers told us that their darts thrown against the Christians were, by a violent wind, brought back upon themselves. Accordingly some render this hemistich thus: When he bendeth, &c., let him be as they that cut off themselves, Iethmalalu reciprocam habet significationem. Et hoc Saulo contigit.