Before us is the final section of Psalm 58 - King David's prayer regarding the wicked who pervert justice and speak lashon hara. In these verses, he asks that their strength melt away, that their arrows fail to strike, and that retribution strike them suddenly - so that mankind will recognize that there is justice and there is a Judge in the land. We will proceed through the verses in order, drawing upon the commentaries of Rashi, the Radak, the Alshich HaKadosh, and the Malbim.
יִמָּאֲסוּ כְמוֹ מַיִם יִתְהַלְּכוּ לָמוֹ יִדְרֹךְ חִצָּו כְּמוֹ יִתְמֹלָלוּ׃ (ח) - Let them melt away like water that runs off; when he aims his arrows, let them be as if crumbled.
Rashi explains that there are two distinct matters here. First, "let them melt away" [yima'asu] - to themselves, meaning they will become loathsome in their own eyes out of intense anxiety. Second, "they will flow away like water" [kemo mayim yithalchu lamo] - they will be like someone wading through deep water who cannot walk properly; he trudges with great difficulty, and if there is mud as well, his feet sink. This is similar to the verse in Yechezkel, "all knees will flow with water," meaning that from an abundance of tears, the knees wade as if through water. "When He aims His arrows, let them be as if cut off" - the Holy One, blessed be He, will bend His bow and aim His arrows against them, so that they will be cut down and shattered.
The Radak explains differently: yima'asu is not from the root of disgust or rejection (mi'us), but rather like yimasusu (melting), where the letter alef replaces the doubled letter (an alef substituted for the double samech), as in "and the heart of the people melted and became like water." In other words, all their schemes will come to nothing and dissolve like water. "When he aims his arrows" refers to each of the wicked when he draws his bow to shoot. Bending the bow means drawing the bowstring, readying it for action. And these arrows will crumble and break.
And what are these arrows? Their malicious words. The bow is compared to the mouth, from which the arrows fly forth, for evil speech is likened to arrows launched from a person's mouth. This is why the Gemara explains that lashon hara is compared to an arrow in two respects: first, you shoot here and strike there - a person speaks here, and it can harm someone across the world in Australia. Second, once the arrow is released, there is no turning it back. Once you have spoken lashon hara, try convincing people that what was said is untrue - it has already gone out and done its damage. King David therefore pleads: these wicked men draw their arrows against me; You, Hashem, ensure that they become like grass that is cut down, withering and falling away.
Thus, according to Rashi, it is the Holy One, blessed be He, Who draws His arrows against them so that they are shattered, whereas according to the Radak, it is the wicked man who draws his arrows against me - and the arrows themselves crumble and fail.
The Malbim follows the Radak's approach that yima'asu means melting. He adds a magnificent insight into the words "they will flow away like water": when water is concentrated in a mass, it is immensely dangerous - a tsunami inflicts catastrophic destruction. But when it disperses into individual drops, its potential for harm is negligible. If rain were to pour down upon us in a single, massive torrent, who could survive? Instead, the Holy One, blessed be He, sends it down drop by drop. This is David's prayer: let them dissolve like water, but not as a surging torrent arriving all at once; rather, "let them flow away" - like water where each drop disperses on its own.
The same applies to "let them be as if crumbled" [kemo yitmolalu]: molel means plucking off the tip of something and rubbing or crushing it. In this way, the arrowheads will be snapped off and withered, rendering them unable to harm me. But the Malbim adds a precise nuance: why did the verse specifically choose the term yitmolalu rather than yikaretu (cut off) or similar words? Because this term also evokes the root memalel - speech. When the wicked man bends his bow, it will be as though the arrows themselves speak and proclaim, and what do they say? "Like a snail that melts as it crawls" - through the very act of aiming his arrows, he himself will be cut down. Thus this verse seamlessly links to the next: the arrows, as it were, speak out and announce that nothing of him will remain.
כְּמוֹ שַׁבְּלוּל תֶּמֶס יַהֲלֹךְ נֵפֶל אֵשֶׁת בַּל חָזוּ שָׁמֶשׁ׃ (ט) - Like a snail that melts away as it crawls, like a woman's stillborn child that has never seen the sun.
"Snail" [shablul] - Rashi cites those who interpret this as limace in Old French, which is a slug or snail. Others explain it as related to shibolet mayim, a whirlpool or wave of water, connected to the idea of being cut down and worn away. Either way, just as a wave passes by or a snail dissolves and disappears from the world, so will it be with them. "Melts" [temes] - Rashi explains that this is related to names, melting. Indeed, there are shell-less snails known as slugs, and when salt is placed on them, they dissolve; when people wish to keep them out of a cupboard, they place salt there and the slugs dissolve away. So too, the wicked will have no enduring existence.
"The miscarriage of a woman [nefel eshet]" - Rashi notes that in Old French this refers to a talpa, which the commentators explain as a mole or a blind mole-rat, both of which are blind. This explains the words "that have not seen the sun [bal chazu shamash]" - they do not see the sun because they are blind, and this is how Chazal translate ashuta. On the other hand, Rashi cites an additional interpretation: "nefel eshet" refers to a miscarried fetus from a woman. Radak explains that according to this, "that have not seen the sun" applies to both: neither the mole nor the blind mole-rat has ever seen the light of the sun due to their blindness, and the prematurely miscarried fetus likewise never saw sunlight, having died before it was born. This is similar to the expression in Iyov: "Like infants that never saw light" - infants who died at birth and never beheld the light.
The Malbim explains shablul as a snail, along the lines of Rashi's interpretation, and adds: when it is touched, slime secretes from it, and its method of locomotion relies on this abundant slime, with which it coats the surface, allowing it to slide and advance. This is the meaning of "melts away as it moves [temes yahaloch]" - through the slime that melts from its body, it makes its way; it moves by virtue of what dissolves from within itself. Afterward, they will resemble a "miscarriage of a woman [nefel eshet]," a creature that is blind, falling like it, never having seen the light of the sun.
בְּטֶרֶם יָבִינוּ סִּירֹתֵכֶם אָטָד כְּמוֹ חַי כְּמוֹ חָרוֹן יִשְׂעָרֶנּוּ׃ (י) - Before your pots can feel the bramble, whether raw or heated, He will sweep them away in a whirlwind.
Rashi interprets sirah as a thorn. "Before your thorns understand the bramble [atad]" - even before your tender thorns understand and become mature brambles. Of course, a thorn cannot literally understand anything; this is a figure of speech meaning: before they mature, progressing from sirot (soft thorns) into atadim (large, formidable briars). In other words, even before these wicked men transform from small thorns into large briars - "whether alive or in wrath, He will sweep it away": "alive [chai]" in their vigor and strength, "wrath [charon]" in anger, for the Holy One, blessed be He, will sweep them away and scatter them like a whirlwind.
Radak interprets siroteichem not as thorns, but in the sense of cooking pots or vessels, as written in Shemot 27, "And you shall make its pots [sirotav]," and as the prophet states that the pots in Jerusalem will be holy to Hashem - referring to cauldrons and vessels. By the way, it is interesting that none of the classical commentators explain sirot in the modern Hebrew sense of boats or ships.
Accordingly, Radak explains that the verse is phrased as a parable, teaching that their destruction from the world will be exceedingly swift: even before the pots - meaning the cauldrons and vessels - feel the bramble, the thorns lit beneath the pot to cook the meat within it, already "whether alive or in wrath, He will sweep it away." Just as the meat is still raw [chai] and has not yet cooked, and the pot has not yet even felt the burning thorns beneath it, so will Hashem's wrath suddenly strike them while they are still at ease and untroubled, and a tempestuous wind will scatter them in an instant.
Radak presents a second explanation along the lines of Rashi's approach, which there is no need to repeat here. We need only note that according to Radak, yavinu does not derive from understanding (tevunah) but from flourishing or sprouting (yafrichu), rooted in the Tosefta: "Thyme and hyssop once they flourish [misheyavinu]" - that is, once they blossom. Thus: before your small thorns sprout to become large brambles.
The holy Alshich also wondered: "Is it not considered utterly strange to attribute understanding to a pot?" - what could a pot possibly understand, whether one interprets it as a cooking cauldron or as a thorn? He offers a wonderful and sweet explanation. King David is venting his frustration here at the people who accepted Avner's flimsy excuse. When David displayed the corner of Shaul's robe - "Behold, the corner of Shaul's robe is in my hand" - Avner retorted: No, his cloak was simply torn by a thorn [sirah], and David merely picked it up off the ground and is now inventing stories! Regarding the listeners who bought into this tale, David cries out: Understand how absurd and illogical this claim truly is!
Thus he says to them: "Before they understand [beterem yavinu]" - have you, the listeners, still not matured enough to see how nonsensical Avner's words are? "Could your thorns and bramble cut like a living man [siroteichem atad kemo chai]?" Does a thorn or a bramble tear fabric the way a living man cuts it? When a living person takes a blade and cuts, the edge is clean and straight, whereas a thorn snags and frays raggedly, clearly bearing the marks of a thorn tear. Yet I showed you the corner of the robe cleanly cut and severed!
And should you say that Avner could argue that David picked up the torn scrap and neatly trimmed its edges before presenting it to us, such an excuse is exceedingly flimsy. For if it was cleanly cut, let them inspect the corner of Shaul's robe itself and see whether it was severed with a blade or torn by a bush! From this, you can know with certainty that what I said is true. "Like wrath [kemo charon]" - that is how Shaul's robe would have looked had it been torn in haste or anger, an uneven and jagged rip, rather than the clean cut it actually displays. This is truly magnificent.
The Malbim also follows the Radak's approach: the atad is a thorn and the sirot are the pots and cooking vessels. Do not be surprised that two different meanings appear in one verse, for we find wordplay of this sort elsewhere: "like the sound of the thorns (hasirim) under the pot (hasir)" - like the thorns burning under the pot in which the meat is cooking. One instance of sir means a cooking pot, and the other means a thorn.
And so he explains: when the meat begins to cook, the pot feels that beneath it burns a bramble heating and inflaming it, which is the meaning of yavin - it senses and feels. Yet even before the pot can sense the brambles, meaning before it has adequately heated up and while the meat is still raw and uncooked, nevertheless, "whether raw or scorched, He will sweep it away like a whirlwind" (kemo charon yis'arenu): the pot will, as it were, storm and scatter the meat, hurling it out as if it were charred and burnt. Charon is an expression of fire and burning, similar to "the rivers are dried up" (charvu) and other sources denoting burning heat.
What is this parable meant to teach? The Malbim explains: when retribution arrives in its normal time, it is like slow cooking - gradually simmering until retribution strikes. But here, retribution arrives ahead of its time: "while still raw" (kemo chai), the meat is still raw, the process has not yet run its course, yet in a single instant it is cast away as though burnt. This is the metaphor - that retribution will strike them in a single moment. Before it has even begun to warm up, it is already scorched and cast out of the pot.
יִשְׂמַח צַדִּיק כִּי חָזָה נָקָם פְּעָמָיו יִרְחַץ בְּדַם הָרָשָׁע׃ (יא) - The righteous man will rejoice when he sees vengeance; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. (11)
The Ibn Ezra explains that this verse corresponds to the opening of the psalm: "Do you indeed speak righteousness in silence?" - the righteous man was muted and silenced, but here "the righteous man will rejoice," for he now witnesses vengeance. And when does this occur? The Radak explains: when the wrath of Hashem descends upon the wicked - then the righteous man will rejoice.
The Alshich HaKadosh explains that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is addressing King David here: You, David, had mercy on them and did not ask Hashem to put them to death. What did you ask? "O God, smash their teeth in their mouths" - break their teeth, meaning: they speak lashon hara, so shatter their teeth. But you did not ask for their death. The Divine Spirit, as it were, laments to him: It would have been more fitting had you asked for actual vengeance, that those who do evil should perish. Then "he will wash his feet (pe'amav) in the blood of the wicked" - pe'amav refers to steps, those misguided steps that the righteous person will cleanse through the blood of the wicked. That is, the death of the wicked will lead the righteous person to sanctify himself further and draw closer to the Master of the World upon seeing that evildoers have perished.
According to this: it would have been better for you, David, to pray that Hashem execute vengeance and put the wicked to death, enabling the righteous man to wash his steps - to wash his feet, meaning to sanctify himself and be elevated through the downfall of the wicked. When he sees the blood of the wicked shed, it leads him to recognize the hand of Hashem and His vengeance. As Chazal say regarding "God of vengeance, Hashem, God of vengeance, appear!": when Hashem exacts vengeance upon the wicked, His Name is magnified and sanctified in the world. Similarly, "And I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself in the eyes of many nations" - when will this occur? When Hashem brings retribution upon Gog. It turns out that this vengeance also serves as a cleansing for the righteous person's own steps, for whatever missteps he may have made, drawing him closer to Hashem, Blessed be He.
The Malbim explains, as he often does, that vengeance is depicted here as a kind of personified, living force: the righteous person rejoices when he sees Vengeance going forth to act against the wicked. And after Vengeance exacts punishment from the wicked, "he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked" - which refers back to Vengeance itself: not only will it take retribution, but it will wash its feet in his blood, like a warrior who has vanquished his foe, leaving him wallowing in his blood while the victor's feet are bathed in it. In other words, the victory will be absolute - total destruction.
The Malbim adds a precise nuance: Why does the verse say chazah nakam ("envisioned vengeance") rather than ra'ah nakam ("saw vengeance")? This aligns with the distinction he establishes elsewhere: ra'ah always denotes physical sight, whereas chazah refers to inner spiritual vision. "Which Yeshayahu son of Amotz envisioned" - did he see it with his physical eyes? It was a vision, a vision of the heart. So too, "in a vision" (bamachazeh), when Hashem appeared to Avraham in a vision - a spiritual perception rather than a physical reality. The root ch-z-h always conveys a spiritual perception. Here, since Vengeance is not a physical figure but an abstract, spiritual force that goes forth to exact retribution, the verse uses chazah rather than ra'ah.
וְיֹאמַר אָדָם אַךְ פְּרִי לַצַּדִּיק אַךְ יֵשׁ אֱלֹהִים שֹׁפְטִים בָּאָרֶץ׃ (יב) - And mankind will say, "Truly there is fruit for the righteous; truly there is a God Who judges on earth."
Rashi explains that people will then say: Certainly there is fruit, there is payment of reward for the righteous - behold, Hashem has taken vengeance upon the wicked. And as we explained, when the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts retribution from the wicked, His Name is magnified; for as long as the wicked man does as he pleases and no one stops him, people ask questions: Where is the Master of the Universe? Why does He not punish him? But when retribution is exacted from the wicked, everyone will say, "Truly there is fruit for the righteous" - behold, Hashem pays the reward of the righteous. Therefore it says, "there is a God [Elohim] Who judges on earth": "Elohim" here carries the sense of a judge, as in "the word of both of them shall come before the judges [Elohim]." And "judges on earth" - that He does not execute judgment only after a person's hundred and twenty years, but the Holy One, blessed be He, executes judgment on earth as well.
The holy Alshich continues along the line he began with the previous verse, that this verse is spoken as Ruach HaKodesh's grievance toward David: you should have prayed to witness vengeance and for the evildoer to die, and not merely for Hashem to shatter their teeth. According to this, "and he shall say" refers back to the vengeance - that entity which was personified: vengeance will say to the righteous man and to the people standing there. "Man" [adam] - as the Malbim notes, is a form of direct address, where vengeance turns and says: You, man, see that "truly there is fruit for the righteous," see that there is a good reward for the righteous. Thus will vengeance speak after exacting retribution from the wicked: Observe and see, "there is a God Who judges on earth," for behold, those who did evil - I was sent to destroy them. And through seeing the punishment of the wicked, you will understand how the Holy One, blessed be He, champions the cause of the righteous and exacts retribution from the wicked for his evil deeds, and through this they will understand that there is One Who oversees here in this world to take retribution from the wicked.
In conclusion, we will mention a brief insight from Rav Mazuz. "Ach Pri LaTzaddik" forms the acronym AP"L (apple). This alludes to what the Ben Ish Chai wrote, that all fruits have their spiritual root in Malchut - meaning their source of vitality and sustenance derives from Malchut, the nukva (feminine aspect); only the apple originates from the dechura (masculine aspect), which corresponds to Tiferet, Ze'eir Anpin. And "tzaddik" corresponds to Yesod, which is also of the masculine aspect. This is the meaning of "ach pri latzaddik" - for the righteous (tzaddik), representing Yesod and the masculine realm, there is only one fruit ("ach pri"), and what is it? AP"L, the apple, the only fruit rooted in the dechura, while all other fruits stem from the nukva.
He further adds regarding the continuation of the verse, "truly there is a God Who judges on earth" - this hints to when this apple is eaten. It is eaten on Rosh Hashanah, which is the day on which Hashem goes forth to judge the earth, as in "there is a God Who judges on earth." He writes that this novel insight occurred to him on the night of Rosh Hashanah 5758.
In this part of the psalm, David prays that the strength of the wicked will melt away like water dispersing into drops, and that their arrows will be blunted and fail to strike, until they are cut down like a snail that melts as it crawls and like a stillborn child that never saw the sun. Calamity will overtake them with complete suddenness - like a pot that casts out its meat even before feeling the thorns burning beneath it. And then the righteous will rejoice when seeing vengeance going forth to execute decisive judgment, and people will declare: "Truly there is fruit for the righteous; truly there is a God Who judges on earth" - there is reward for the righteous, and there is One Who oversees and exacts retribution from the wicked already here in this world.