They gather themselves together,.... And meet in some one place, to contrive ways and means to do hurt, and then assemble together again to put them in execution; as did the Jews with respect to Christ, Matthew 26:3. Aben Ezra supposes a various reading without any reason; and that, instead of יגורו which Jarchi renders "they lodge", and the Septuagint, and the versions following that, "they sojourn", it should be read יגודו, "they assemble in troops": because they were many: but the sense is, "they stay" x, or continue in some certain place:
they hide themselves; the Targum adds, "in ambush": they lay in wait, and caused others to lie in wait for him, in order to take him; as did Saul and his men, and the servants of the king of Gath;
they mark my steps; they observed where he went, that they might seize him; or they observed his heels, as the old serpent did the Messiah's, that he might bruise them; or they watched for his halting, as Jeremiah's familiars did for his;
when they wait for my soul; to take away his life, to destroy him; see
Psalms 119:95; they wanted not a will to do it, they only waited for an opportunity. The Targum is,
"as they waited, they did to my soul:''
or rather, "after they had hoped for my soul" y: when they had entertained hopes of taking him, this animated them to do the above things.
x "Commorabuntur", Montanus; "simul ipsi morantur", Vatablus; so Gussetius, p. 166. y Vid. Gusset. Ebr. Comment. p. 361.