“As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.”
The petition that the wicked would be like a snail that melts away articulates the request for the gradual dissolution and destruction of the wicked through natural causes. The image of a snail dissolving suggests weakness and inevitable failure; the wicked will simply dissolve under the pressure of existence. The reference to aborting offspring that do not see the sun suggests barrenness and failure at the most basic level of continuation: the wicked's line will be cut off. This verse continues the petition for total devastation: the wicked will not merely lose battles but will cease to exist as a functioning force.
Church Fathers on Psalms 58:8
1. The words which we have sung must be rather hearkened to by us, than proclaimed. For to all men as it were in an assemblage of mankind, the Truth cries, “If truly indeed justice ye speak, judge right things, you sons of men” Psalm 57:1. For to what unjust man is it not an easy thing to speak justice? Or what man if questioned about justice, when he has not a cause, would not easily answer what is just? Inasmuch as the hand of our Maker in our very hearts has written this…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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