They shall wander up and down for food, and wait all night if they aren’t satisfied.
Parallel Translations
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They shall wander up and down for food, and wait all night if they aren’t satisfied.
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Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.
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(59-16) They wander up and down to devour, and tarry all night if they have not their fill.
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Psalms 59:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 15:23 He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
- Psalms 109:10 Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins.
- Job 30:1-7 “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief; So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles .
- Lamentations 5:9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
- Deuteronomy 28:48 therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
- Deuteronomy 28:53-58 You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH your God,
- 2 Kings 6:25-29 There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” He said, “If Yahweh doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”
- Isaiah 8:21 They will pass through it, very distressed and hungry. It will happen that when they are hungry, they will worry, and curse by their king and by their God. They will turn their faces upward,
- Isaiah 56:11 Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.
- Lamentations 4:4-5 The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask bread, and no one breaks it for them. Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills.
- Lamentations 4:9-10 Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Micah 3:5 Yahweh says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
- Matthew 24:7-8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (8 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 59:15 Let them wander up and down for…
Psa 59:15 Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.
Ver. 15. Let them wander up and down for meat] Sicut mendici de ostio ad ostium faciunt, as beggars do from door to door, saith Kimchi.
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And grudge if they be not satisfied] Murmur against God and men, howling against heaven, as hungry wolves, Isa 8:21. Others understand it thus, Let them run to and fro for meat, that is, to devour me, as Psa 27:2; but surely they shall not be satisfied, but miss their design, though they tarry all night, watching for me.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Wander up and down for meat, to get a…
Wander up and down for meat, to get a livelihood. And grudge if they be not satisfied: when their bodies are hungry, let their minds be discontented. Or, as others render the words, and lodge, or be forced to lodge, all night, when they are not satisfied. Let them go to their rest with an empty stomach.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But I will sing of thy power,.... In creating…
But I will sing of thy power,.... In creating all things out of nothing; in upholding all things in being; in the redemption of his people; in their conversion and calling; in the preservation of them to eternal happiness; in the performance of his promises to them; in the destruction of their enemies; and in their protection:
yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning; of providential mercies, which are new every morning; and of special mercy in the heart of God, in the covenant of his grace, in redemption, in regeneration, in the pardon of sin, and in eternal life and salvation;
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for thou hast been my defence; See Gill on Psa 59:9;
and refuge in the day of my trouble; whither he fled, and found protection and safety; See Gill on Psa 9:9.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Let them wander up and down for meat -…
Let them wander up and down for meat - Let them be like dogs that wander about for food, and find none. The idea is, that they would not find him, and would be then as dogs that had sought in vain for food.
And grudge if they be not satisfied - Margin, If they be not satisfied, then they will stay all night. The marginal reading is most in accordance with the Hebrew. The sentence is obscure, but the idea seems to be that they would not be satisfied - that is, they would not obtain that which they had sought; and, like hungry and disappointed dogs, they would be compelled to pass the night in this miserable and wretched condition. The word which our translators have rendered “grudge” - from לוּן lûn - means properly to pass the night; then, to abide, to remain, to dwell; and then, in Hiphil, to show oneself obstinate and stubborn - from the idea of remaining or persisting in a bad cause; and hence, the word sometimes means to complain: Num 14:29; Exo 17:3. It has not, however, the signification of grudging, though it might mean here to murmur or complain because they were disappointed. But the most natural meaning is that which the word properly bears - that of passing the night, as referring to their wandering about, disappointed in their object, and yet still hoping that they might possibly obtain it. The anticipated feeling in the mind of the psalmist is that which he would have in the consciousness of his own safety, and in the pleasure of knowing that they must sooner or later find out that their victim had escaped.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain grudge if, &c.--literally, "they shall stay all night," that…
grudge if, &c.--literally, "they shall stay all night," that is, obtain nothing.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 15. Let them wander—Or, they shall wander. The metaphor…
15. Let them wander—Or, they shall wander. The metaphor of hungry dogs prowling about the city for some offal to alleviate their hunger, but finding nothing, is here carried out to illustrate that God would punish these conspirators through their own bloodthirsty passions, by withholding the object of their desire and defeating their deadly schemes. Thus sin becomes an instrument of its own punishment.
Grudge—The Hebrew word should here take its more usual sense of to tarry, lodge, continue. The sense is: “If these hungry dogs, prowling for food, be not satisfied, they will continue all night, even to exhaustion, in their fruitless search.” This completes the metaphor, and finishes the picture of their wretchedness.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (15) Let them wander.—This verse is variously understood. The…
(15) Let them wander.—This verse is variously understood. The margin gives the rendering of most modern scholars; but what does it mean by “They will pass the night”? To say they will not go away unsatisfied seems poor. Ewald’s conjecture, “They will satisfy themselves forsooth, and remain,” i.e., die, seems strained. The slightest change in the vowel-points gives the interpretation adopted by the LXX., Vulg., Jerome, Luther, &c: “If not satisfied they will growl,” which admirably suits the context.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Let them wander up and down for meat; rather,…
Let them wander up and down for meat; rather, they wander up and down for meat. David himself was the prey which they desired. They kept guard around his house, wandering, no doubt, up and down. And grudge if they be not satisfied; rather, as in the margin and in the Revised Version, and if they be not satisfied, they will stay all night. This they appear to have done from 1Sa_19:11-15.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.