Psalms 140:10

In this verse too there is a grammatical difficulty, which the margin, “Let there fall on them,” instead of “Let them bring upon them,” does not remove, since the subject of the next verb is third person singular. The first verb is usually taken impersonally, as by the LXX., which version is actually to be followed in rendering coals of fire (literally, coals accompanied with fire, or, coals as fire), and we get the somewhat awkward, but intelligible —

“Let them bring upon them coals of fire;
Let him cast them into pits that they rise not again.’

But a very slight change gives a plain grammatical sentence with the subject carried on from the last verse:

“Let it (mischief) bring even upon themselves coals of fire;
Let it cast them into pits, so that they rise no more.”

(Burgess.)

The word “pits” is peculiar to the passage. Gesenius, deriving from a root meaning “to boil up,” renders, “whirlpools,” which, as in Psalms 66:12, combines “water” with “fire,” as joint emblems of perils that cannot be escaped. But Symmachus, Theodotion, and Jerome render “ditches,” which is supported by a Rabbinical quotation, given by Delitzsch: “first of all they burned them in pits; when the flesh was consumed they collected the bones, and burned them in coffins.”