i. e., "We will be as all-devouring as Sheol. The destruction of those we attack shall be as sudden as that of those who go down quickly into the pit." Some render the latter clause, and upright men as those that go down to the pit. "Pit" here is a synonym for Sheol, the great cavernous depth, the shadow-world of the dead.

Let us swallow them up alive - Give them as hasty a death as if the earth were suddenly to swallow them up. This seems to refer to the destruction of a whole village. Let us destroy man, woman, and child; and then we may seize on and carry away the whole of their property, and the booty will be great.

Let us swallow them up alive as the (l) grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
(l) As the grave is never satisfied, so the malice of the wicked and their cruelty has no end.

Let us swallow them up alive as the grave,.... The innocent person, and those that are with him, his servants; our gang is so numerous that we can very easily dispatch him and all his attendants, and bury them out of sight at once, as if they were swallowed up alive in a grave, and so no more to be seen or heard of; and consequently we shall be in the utmost safety and security, there being no traces of what is done, nor any left to make a relation of it, or to give any information of us, or to pursue us;
and whole, as those that go down into the pit; who though whole and in perfect health, shall in a moment be destroyed and cast into the pit, being first plundered of all the riches they have about them; for this swallowing them up alive and whole, which is an allusion to a beast of prey swallowing up another creature all at once, not only intends their cruelty in taking away life, but their rapaciousness in seizing upon their substance.

The first clause of this verse Hitzig translates: "as the pit (swallows) that which lives." This is untenable, because כּ with the force of a substantive (as instar, likeness) is regarded as a preposition, but not a conjunction (see at Psalm 38:14.). חיּים (the living) is connected with נבלעם, and is the accus. of the state (hâl, according to the terminology of the Arab. grammarians) in which they will, with impunity, swallow them up like the pit (the insatiable, Proverbs 27:20; Proverbs 30:16), namely, while these their sacrifices are in the state of life's freshness,
(Note: Only in this sense is the existing accentuation of this verse (cf. the Targ.) to be justified.)
"the living," - without doubt, like Psalm 55:16; Psalm 63:10; Psalm 124:3, in fact and in expression an allusion to the fate of the company of Korah, Numbers 16:30, Numbers 16:33. If this is the meaning of חיים, then תּמימים as the parallel word means integros not in an ethical sense, in which it would be a synonym of נקי of Proverbs 1:11 (cf. Proverbs 29:10 with Psalm 19:14), but in a physical sense (Graec. Venet. καὶ τελείους; Parchon as Rashi, בריאים ושלמים, vid., Bttcher, De Inferis, 293). This physical sense is claimed for תּם, Job 21:23, for תּם probably, Psalm 73:4, and why should not תמים, used in the law regarding sacrifices (e.g., Exodus 12:5, "without blemish") of the faultlessness of the victim, also signify such an one אשׁר אין־בּו מתם (Isaiah 1:6)? In the midst of complete external health they will devour them like those that go down to the grave (cf. Psalm 28:1; Psalm 88:5, with Isaiah 14:19), i.e., like those under whose feet the earth is suddenly opened, so that, without leaving any trace behind, they sink into the grave and into Hades. The connection of the finite with the accus. of place, Psalm 55:16, lies at the foundation of the genitive connection יורדי בור (with the tone thrown back): those that go down to the grave.