Psalms Chapter 141 verse 7 Holy Bible
As when one ploweth and cleaveth the earth, Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
read chapter 141 in ASV
Our bones are broken up at the mouth of the underworld, as the earth is broken by the plough.
read chapter 141 in BBE
Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol, as when one cutteth and cleaveth [wood] upon the earth.
read chapter 141 in DARBY
Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.
read chapter 141 in KJV
read chapter 141 in WBT
"As when one plows and breaks up the earth, Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol."
read chapter 141 in WEB
As one tilling and ripping up in the land, Have our bones been scattered at the command of Saul.
read chapter 141 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 7. - Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. The calamity is not confined to the "judges." The bones of the people generally lie scattered at hews mouth - unburied, i.e., but ready to go down to Hades. As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth; rather, as when one cleaves and breaks up the earth. "The bones of God's servants were strewn as thickly ever the ground as stones over a newly ploughed piece of soil, so that the Holy Land looked as if it had become an antechamber of Hades" (Kay).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(7) Our bones.--The literal rendering of this verse is As when one cutteth and cleaveth in the earth our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.The reading "our bones" necessarily makes this an abrupt transition from the fate of the unjust judges in the last verse to that of the afflicted people, but in a correction by a second hand in the Codex Alex. of the LXX. we find the much easier and more satisfactory "their bones"--a reading confirmed by the Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions; as also by the fact that the word here rendered "cleave" is that employed in 2Chronicles 25:12 (see reference above, Psalm 141:6) of the Edomites thrown from the cliff. But the abrupt transition is not unlikely in Hebrew poetry, and the more difficult reading is according to rule to be preserved.The figure is mistaken in the Authorised Version. The reference is not to the ground strewn with the logs left by a woodcutter, but to the clods of earth left by the plough. Keeping the present text, and making the figure refer to the righteous, we should naturally compare Psalm 129:3, where ploughing is used as an image of affliction and torture, as "harrewing" is with us. The verse might be paraphrased: "We have been so harrowed and torn that we are brought to the brink of the grave," the image being, however, heightened by the recollection of some actual massacre.
