Psalms 34:16

To cut off. — Notice the fear, so intense and recurring to the Semitic mind, of the extinction of race. (Comp. Psalms 21:10; Job 18:17, &c)

This verse, according to the sense, should certainly change places with Psalms 34:15. This would disarrange the acrostic, bringing pe before ayin; but, as in Lamentations 2:3; Lamentations 2:4 the same sequence of letters occurs, we are led to the conclusion that the order of the alphabet was not definitely or invariably fixed in respect of these two letters, a license intelligible enough when we remember that tsadde, which follows pe, was often interchanged with ayin, which precedes it.