Psalms 73:21

Behold Samson's riddle again unriddled, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness; for we have here an account of the good improvement which the psalmist made of that sore temptation with which he had been assaulted and by which he was almost overcome. He that stumbles and does not fall, by recovering himself takes so much the longer steps forward. It was so with the psalmist here; many good lessons he learned from his temptation, his struggles with it, and his victories over it. Nor would God suffer his people to be tempted if his grace were not sufficient for them, not only to save them from harm, but to make them gainers by it; even this shall work for good.

I. He learned to think very humbly of himself and to abase and accuse himself before God (Psa 73:21, Psa 73:22); he reflects with shame upon the disorder and danger he was in, and the vexation he gave himself by entertaining the temptation and parleying with it: My heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins, as one afflicted with the acute pain of the stone in the region of the kidneys. If evil thoughts at any time enter into the mind of a good man, he does not roll them under his tongue as a sweet morsel, but they are grievous and painful to him; temptation was to Paul as a thorn in the flesh, Co2 12:7. This particular temptation, the working of envy and discontent, is as painful as any; where it constantly rests it is the rottenness of the bones (Pro 14:30); where it does but occasionally come it is the pricking of the reins. Fretfulness is a corruption that is its own correction. Now in the reflection upon it, 1. He owns it was his folly thus to vex himself: "So foolish was I to be my own tormentor." Let peevish people thus reproach themselves for, and shame themselves out of, their discontents. "What a fool am I thus to make myself uneasy without a cause?" 2. He owns it was his ignorance to vex himself at this: "So ignorant was I of that which I might have known, and which, if I had known it aright, would have been sufficient to silence my murmurs. I was as a beast (Behemoth - a great beast) before thee. Beasts mind present things only, and never look before at what is to come; and so did I. If I had not been a great fool, I should never have suffered such a senseless temptation to prevail over me so far. What! to envy wicked men upon account of their prosperity! To be ready to wish myself one of them, and to think of changing conditions with them! So foolish was I." Note, If good men do at any time, through the surprise and strength of temptation, think, or speak, or act amiss, when they see their error they will reflect upon it with sorrow, and shame, and self-abhorrence, will call themselves fools for it. Surely I am more brutish than any man, Pro 30:2; Job 42:5, Job 42:6. Thus David, Sa2 24:10.

II. He took occasion hence to own his dependence on and obligations to the grace of God (Psa 73:23): "Nevertheless, foolish as I am, I am continually with thee and in thy favour; thou hast holden me by my right hand." This may refer either, 1. To the care God had taken of him, and the kindness he had shown him, all along from his beginning hitherto. He had said, in the hour of temptation (Psa 73:14), All the day long have I been plagued; but here he corrects himself for that passionate complaint: "Though God has chastened me, he has not cast me off; notwithstanding all the crosses of my life, I have been continually with thee; I have had thy presence with me, and thou hast been nigh unto me in all that which I have called upon thee for; and therefore, though perplexed, yet not in despair. Though God has sometimes written bitter things against me, yet he has still holden me by my right hand, both to keep me, that I should not desert him or fly off from him, and to prevent my sinking and fainting under my burdens, or losing my way in the wildernesses through which I have walked." If we have been kept in the way with God, kept closely in our duty and upheld in our integrity, we must own ourselves indebted to the free grace of God for our preservation: Having obtained help of God, I continue hitherto. And, if he has thus maintained the spiritual life, the earnest of eternal life, we ought not to complain, whatever calamities of this present time we have met with. Or, 2. To the late experience he had had of the power of divine grace in carrying him through this strong temptation and bringing him off a conqueror: "I was foolish and ignorant, and yet thou hast had compassion on me and taught me (Heb 5:2), and kept me under thy protection;" for the unworthiness of man is no bar to the free grace of God. We must ascribe our safety in temptation, and our victory over it, not to our own wisdom, for we are foolish and ignorant, but to the gracious presence of God with us and the prevalency of Christ's intercession for us, that our faith may not fail: "My feet were almost gone, and they would have quite gone, past recovery, but that thou hast holden me by my right hand and so kept me from falling."

III. He encouraged himself to hope that the same God who had delivered him from this evil work would preserve him to his heavenly kingdom, as St. Paul does (Ti2 4:18): "I am now upheld by thee, therefore thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, leading me, as thou hast done hitherto, many a difficult step; and, since I am now continually with thee, thou shalt afterwards receive me to glory" Psa 73:24. This completes the happiness of the saints, so that they have no reason to envy the worldly prosperity of sinners. Note, 1. All those who commit themselves to God shall be guided with his counsel, with the counsel both of his word and of his Spirit, the best counsellors. The psalmist had like to have paid dearly for following his own counsels in this temptation and therefore resolves for the future to take God's advice, which shall never be wanting to those that duly seek it with a resolution to follow it. 2. All those who are guided and led by the counsel of God in this world shall be received to his glory in another world. If we make God's glory in us the end we aim at, he will make our glory with him the end we shall for ever be happy in. Upon this consideration, let us never envy sinners, but rather bless ourselves in our own blessedness. If God direct us in the way of our duty, and prevent our turning aside out of it, he will afterwards, when our state of trial and preparation is over, receive us to his kingdom and glory, the believing hopes and prospects of which will reconcile us to all the dark providences that now puzzle and perplex us, and ease us of the pain we have been put into by some threatening temptations.

IV. He was hereby quickened to cleave the more closely to God, and very much confirmed and comforted in the choice he had made of him, Psa 73:25, Psa 73:26. His thoughts here dwell with delight upon his own happiness in God, as much greater then the happiness of the ungodly that prospered in the world. He saw little reason to envy them what they had in the creature when he found how much more and better, surer and sweeter, comforts he had in the Creator, and what cause he had to congratulate himself on this account. He had complained of his afflictions (Psa 73:14); but this makes them very light and easy, All is well if God be mine. We have here the breathings of a sanctified soul towards God, and its repose in him, as that to a godly man really which the prosperity of a worldly man is to him in conceit and imagination: Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is scarcely a verse in all the psalms more expressive than this of the pious and devout affections of a soul to God; here it soars up towards him, follows hard after him, and yet, at the same time, has an entire satisfaction and complacency in him.

1. It is here supposed that God alone is the felicity and chief good of man. He, and he only, that made the soul, can make it happy; there is none in heaven, none in earth, that can pretend to do it besides.

2. Here are expressed the workings and breathings of a soul towards God accordingly. If God be our felicity,

(1.) Then we must have him (Whom have I but thee?), we must choose him, and make sure to ourselves an interest in him. What will it avail us that he is the felicity of souls if he be not the felicity of our souls, and if we do not by a lively faith make him ours, by joining ourselves to him in an everlasting covenant?

(2.) Then our desire must be towards him and our delight in him (the word signifies both); we must delight in what we have of God and desire what we yet further hope for. Our desires must not only be offered up to God, but they must all terminate in him, desiring nothing more than God, but still more and more of him. This includes all our prayers, Lord, give us thyself; as that includes all the promises, I will be to them a God. The desire of our souls is to thy name.

(3.) We must prefer him in our choice and desire before any other. [1.] "There is none in heaven but thee, none to seek to or trust in, none to court or covet acquaintance with, but thee." God is in himself more glorious than any celestial being (Psa 89:6), and must be, in our eyes, infinitely more desirable. Excellent beings there are in heaven, but God alone can make us happy. His favour is infinitely more to us than the refreshment of the dews of heaven or the benign influence of the stars of heaven, more than the friendship of the saints in heaven or the good offices of the angels there. [2.] I desire none on earth besides thee; not only none in heaven, a place at a distance, which we have but little acquaintance with, but none on earth neither, where we have many friends and where much of our present interest and concern lie. "Earth carries away the desires of most men, and yet I have none on earth, no persons, no things, no possessions, no delights, that I desire besides thee or with thee, in comparison or competition with thee." We must desire nothing besides God but what we desire for him (nil praeter te nisi propter te - nothing besides thee except for thy sake), nothing but what we desire from him, and can be content without so that it be made up in him. We must desire nothing besides God as needful to be a partner with him in making us happy.

(4.) Then we must repose ourselves in God with an entire satisfaction, Psa 73:26. Observe here, [1.] Great distress and trouble supposed: My flesh and my heart fail. Note, Others have experienced and we must expect, the failing both of flesh and heart. The body will fail by sickness, age, and death; and that which touches the bone and the flesh touches us in a tender part, that part of ourselves which we have been but too fond of; when the flesh fails the heart is ready to fail too; the conduct, courage, and comfort fail. [2.] Sovereign relief provided in this distress: But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. Note, Gracious souls, in their greatest distresses, rest upon God as their spiritual strength and their eternal portion. First, "He is the strength of my heart, the rock of my heart, a firm foundation, which will bear my weight and not sink under it. God is the strength of my heart; I have found him so; I do so still, and hope ever to find him so." In the distress supposed, he had put the case of a double failure, both flesh and heart fail; but, in the relief, he fastens on a single support: he leaves out the flesh and the consideration of that, it is enough that God is the strength of his heart. He speaks as one careless of the body (let that fail, there is no remedy), but as one concerned about the soul, to be strengthened in the inner man. Secondly, "He is my portion for ever; he will not only support me while I am here, but make me happy when I go hence." The saints choose God for their portion, they have him for their portion, and it is their happiness that he will be their portion, a portion that will last as long as the immortal soul lasts.

V. He was fully convinced of the miserable condition of all wicked people. This he learned in the sanctuary upon this occasion, and he would never forget it (Psa 73:27): "Lo, those that are far from thee, in a state of distance and estrangement, that desire the Almighty to depart from them, shall certainly perish; so shall their doom be; they choose to be far from God, and they shall be far from him for ever. Thou wilt justly destroy all those that go a whoring from thee, that is, all apostates, that in profession have been betrothed to God, but forsake him, their duty to him and their communion with him, to embrace the bosom of a stranger." The doom is sever, no less than perishing and being destroyed. It is universal: "They shall all be destroyed without exception." It is certain: "Thou hast destroyed; it is as sure to be done as if done already; and the destruction of some ungodly men is an earnest of the perdition of all." God himself undertakes to do it, into whose hands it is a fearful thing to fall: "Thou, though infinite in goodness, wilt reckon for thy injured honour and abused patience, and wilt destroy those that go a whoring from thee."

VI. He was greatly encouraged to cleave to God and to confide in him, Psa 73:28. If those that are far from God shall perish, then, 1. Let this constrain us to live in communion with God; "if it fare so ill with those that live at a distance from him, then it is good, very good, the chief good, that good for a man, in this life, which he should most carefully pursue and secure, it is best for me to draw near to God, and to have God draw near to me;" the original may take in both. But for my part (so I would read it) the approach of God is good for me. Our drawing near to God takes rise from his drawing near to us, and it is the happy meeting that makes the bliss. Here is a great truth laid down, That it is good to draw near to God; but the life of it lies in the application, "It is good for me." Those are the wise who know what is good for themselves: "It is good, says he (and every good man agrees with him in it), it is good for me to draw near to God; it is my duty; it is my interest." 2. Let us therefore live in a continual dependence upon him: "I have put my trust in the Lord God, and will never go a whoring from him after any creature confidences." If wicked men, notwithstanding all their prosperity, shall perish and be destroyed, then let us trust in the Lord God, in him, not in them (see Psa 146:3-5), in him, and not in our worldly prosperity; let us trust in God, and neither fret at them nor be afraid of them; let us trust in him for a better portion than theirs is. 3. While we do so, let us not doubt but that we shall have occasion to praise his name. Let us trust in the Lord, that we may declare all his works. Note, Those that with an upright heart put their trust in God shall never want matter for thanksgiving to him.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Psa 73:21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.

Ver. 21. Thus my heart was grieved] Heb. leavened and soured, sc. with the greatness of godly sorrow, et quasi aceto acri perfundebatur, it was steeped, as it were, in vinegar. So Peter wept bitterly; waters of Marah flowed from his eyes.

And I was pricked in my reins] Pricked at heart, as those, Act 2:37, put to as much pain as those that have the stone in the kidneys, exceedingly grieved for my misconstruing and miscensuring of God’s ways and people.

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.

Psa 73:21-22. Thus my heart was grieved — I was disturbed, so as I have expressed, with envy and indignation at the prosperity of the wicked. Hebrew, יתחמצ לבבי, jithchamets lebabi, my heart was in a ferment, or, had wrought itself up into a ferment, namely, with unbelieving thoughts, and reasonings on the above-mentioned subject. And I was pricked in my reins — I was heartily and deeply wounded in my spirit. So foolish was I, and ignorant — Of what I might have known and which, if I had known it aright, would have been perfectly sufficient to have prevented or silenced the disquieting thoughts and perplexing reasonings which have given me so much uneasiness. I was as a beast before thee — A most stupid and sottish creature, as though I had not only been devoid of grace, but of reason too. For reason itself, informed by the Holy Scriptures, sufficiently discovered, that, all things considered, I had no sufficient cause to envy the prosperity of wicked men. I minded only present things, as the brutes do, and did not look forward to and consider things to come, as reasonable creatures ought to do. Before thee — In thy sight, or judgment, and therefore in truth, Rom 2:2, howsoever I seemed to myself, or others, to have some degree of reason and discretion.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

21. Thus my heart was grieved—Heart and reins are herein parallel terms, denoting the inmost nature,—the mind and soul, the intellective and sensitive being. The psalmist’s “heart” was “grieved,” and his “reins” were “pierced.” His mental sufferings were intense at being tempted to doubt the justice of God’s ways. The Hebrew particle translated “thus,” (Psa_73:21,) connects with Psa_73:16, and resumes the description of himself before he “went into the sanctuary of God,”—a condition which his now enlightened and awakened mind is shocked to contemplate.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 73:21. For my heart is soured, and (in or as to) my reins I am pierced. The Hebrew verbs used here are of the future form, although really relating to past time, which the psalmist's memory recalls as a state of things then likely to continue. See above on Psa 73:3; Psa 73:5. The verbs are also properly reflexives, my heart exacerbates itself, I pierce myself, and are perhaps intended to describe his sufferings as the fruit of his own sin and folly.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

73:21-22 The psalmist’s feelings about the prosperity of the wicked had given him a bitter spirit.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 21. Thus may heart was grieved] The different views which I got of this subject quite confounded me; I was equally astonished at their sudden overthrow and my own ignorance. I felt as if I were a beast in stupidity. I permitted my mind to be wholly occupied with sensible things, like the beasts that perish, and did not look into a future state; nor did I consider, nor submit to, the wise designs of an unerring Providence.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

21. For my heart was in a ferment. The Psalmist again returns to the confession which he had previously made, acknowledging that whilst he felt his heart pierced with perverse envy and emulation, he had complained against God, in a peevish or fretful manner. He compares his anger to leaven. Some translate, My heart was steeped in vinegar. But it is more suitable to explain the verb thus, My heart was soured or swollen, as dough is swollen by leaven. Thus Plautus, when speaking of a woman inflamed with anger, says that she is all in a ferment. Some read the last clause of the verse, My reins were pierced; and they think that א, aleph, in the beginning of the word, אשתונן, eshtonan, the verb for pierced, is put instead of ה, he; but this makes little difference as to the sense. We know that the word כליות, kelayoth, by which the Hebrews denote the reins, comes from the verb כלא, kalah, which signifies to desire, to covet earnestly, this word being put for the reins, because it is said that the desires of man have their seat in that part of the body. David therefore declares that these perplexing and troublesome thoughts had been, as it were, thorns which pierced him. We have already stated how he came to be affected with this pungent and burning vexation of spirit. We will find many worldly men who, although they deny that the world is governed by the Providence of God, yet do not greatly disquiet themselves, but only laugh at the freaks of Fortune. On the other hand, true believers, the more firmly they are persuaded that God is the judge of the world, are the more afflicted when his procedure does not correspond to their wishes.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(21) Grieved.—Literally, grew sour; or, as we say, “was soured.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

21. Thus] R.V. For. If this rendering is adopted, the connexion is with the general sense of the preceding verses:—‘I failed to perceive the truth until my eyes were opened in the sanctuary, for’ &c. But it is better to render:

When my heart grew sour,

And I was pricked in my reins,

I was brutish and Ignorant,

I became a mere beast with thee.

He confesses the folly of his former impatience. He had lowered himself to the level of a beast (Psa_49:10), for what distinguishes man from the lower animals is his power of communion with God. Behçmôth, rendered beast, might be taken, as in Job_40:15, to mean ‘the hippopotamus,’ as an emblem for ‘a monster of stupidity,’ but the more general rendering is preferable. The reins (renes, the kidneys) were regarded as the seat of the emotions. Cp. Psa_7:9.

21, 22. The Psalmist’s confession of his error.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thus my heart was grieved,.... Not with his own sins, nor with the sins of the wicked, but at their prosperity; for this is an account of himself, while under the temptation, and before he went into the sanctuary of the Lord; or when he was "leavened" (r), with the old leaven of wickedness, and envy, and indignation; he was in a ferment, so Plautus (s) uses the phrase for being in anger and wrath; he swelled, as what is leavened does, against God and his providence: or was "soured" (t); he was out of humour and angry with God, or was exasperated and provoked at the favours bestowed upon the wicked. Some render it "inflamed" (u), made hot; not with the love of God, and meditation upon it, but with wrath and indignation:

and I was pricked in my reins; disturbed and distracted in his thoughts, felt a great deal of pain in his mind, while he was considering the prosperity of the wicked; which was as a sword in his bones, and as an arrow shot into his reins; see Lam 3:13.

(r) "effervesceret fermenti instar", Tigurine version; "in fermento esset", Cocceius; so Ainsworth. (s) Casina, Act. 2. Sc. 5. v. 17. (t) Acescet Montanus; "quasi aceto acri perfundebatur", Vatablus. (u) "Inflammatum est", V. L.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Thus my heart was grieved - literally, and more expressively, “was soured.” The meaning is, that his heart was grieved, pained, dissatisfied. His mind was embittered, and he was rendered unhappy, by the views which he cherished about God, as doubting the wisdom and justice of his dealings with people - and about people, as being envious at their prosperity.

And I was pricked in my reins - The reins are often in the Scriptures represented as the seat of the thoughts or affections. See the notes at Psa 7:9. The word rendered “pricked” means to sharpen, as a sword; and then, to pierce and penetrate as a sword does. The idea is, that these thoughts, so distressing and painful, seemed to be like a sharp sword penetrating to the seat of life.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thus; so as I have above expressed; for this particle so taken, doth not belong to what he had now wisely and piously said in the next foregoing verses, but to what he had unadvisedly spoken in the former verses, as is evident from the following verse. Or, nevertheless, as this particle is oft used. Although I knew very. well that the prosperity of sinners would have a sudden and dismal end, yet I was so foolish as to be grieved at it.

I was pricked in my reins; was heartily and deeply wounded with disquieting thoughts, and tormenting passions, envy, and sorrow, and anger.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 21. The holy poet here reviews his inward struggle and awards himself censure for his folly. His pain had been intense; he says,

Thus my heart was grieved. It was a deep seated sorrow, and one which penetrated his inmost being. Alexander reads it, "My heart is soured." His spirit had become embittered; he had judged in a harsh, crabbed, surly manner. He had become atrabilious, full of black bile, melancholy, and choleric; he had poisoned his own life at the fountain head, and made all its streams to be bitter as gall.

And I was pricked in my reins. He was as full of pain as a man afflicted with renal disease; he had pierced himself through with many sorrows; his hard thoughts were like so many calculi in his kidneys; he was utterly wretched and woebegone, and all through his own reflections. O miserable philosophy, which stretches the mind on the rack, and breaks it on the wheel! O blessed faith, which drives away the inquisitors, and sets the captives free!

Ver. 21. Thus my heart was grieved, etc. Two similitudes are used, by which his grief and indignation or zeal are described. First, he says his heart boiled over like yeast. The passion which was stirred up in his thoughts he compares to the yeast which inflates the whole mass, and causes it to swell or boil over... The other simile is taken from the internal pains which calculi produce; I was pricked in my reins. They who have felt them are aware of the torture, and there is no need for a long description. It signifies that his great pain was mingled with indignation, and that this came fresh upon him as often as he looked upon the prosperity of the ungodly. Mollerus.

Ver. 21. Reins. Before all the other intestines there are the kidneys (twylb, nefroi), placed on both sides of the lumbar vertebrae on the hinder wall of the abdomen, of which the Scripture makes such frequent mention, and in the most psychically significant manner. It brings the most tender and the most inward experience of a manifold kind into association with them. When man is suffering most deeply within, he is pricked in his kidneys ("reins"). When fretting affliction overcomes him, his kidneys are cloven asunder (Job 16:13; compare La 3:13); when he rejoices profoundly, they exult (Pr 23:16); when he feels himself very penetratingly warned, they chasten him (Ps 16:7); when he very earnestly longs, they are consumed away with his body (Job 19:27). As the omniscient and all penetrating knower of the most secret hidden things of man, God is frequently called (from Ps 7:10 to the Apocalypse) the Trier of the hearts and reins; and of the ungodly it is said, that God is far from their reins (Jer 12:2), that is, that he, being withdrawn back into himself, allows not himself to be perceived by them. Franz Delitzsch.

None.

Psalms 73:22*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thus my heart was grieved; literally, for my heart was grieved, or "was soured." The "for" refers to a suppressed phrase of self-condemnation, "But at the time I did not see all this the solution did not present itself to me." I was too full of grief and bitterness to consider the matter calmly and dispassionately. And I was pricked in my reins; i.e. "a pang of passionate discontent had pierced my inmost being" (Cheyne).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pricked - I was deeply wounded with disquieting thoughts.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

my heart was grieved

The word "heart" represents the person emphasizing their thoughts and feelings. AT: "I was very sad" (See: Synecdoche)

I was deeply wounded

The psalmist speaks of emotional pain as if it were physical pain by being pierced with a knife or arrow. AT: "I felt like someone had wounded me" (See: Metaphor)

ignorant and lacked insight

These two phrases mean basically the same thing and emphasize how little he knew. AT: "very ignorant" (See: Doublet)

lacked insight

"understood nothing"

you

This "you" refers to God.

translationWords

heart

like

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

For my heart was in ferment Before I saw this downfall with the holy spirit, my heart was in ferment because the way of the wicked prospered, and my mind was on edge (אשתונן), an expression of a sharpened sword (שנון). When it is reflexive, the “tav” is placed in the middle of the radical, as is the case of every word whose radical commences with “shin.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.