פירוש על תהילים 10:8

his eyes spy on Your army The eyes of Esau lurk for Israel, who are Your army.

He sitteth in the places of ambush of the villages: – The villages are the open towns which are upon the highways: as "her towns (lit. her daughters) and her villages" (Jos. 15:45); "the villages that Kedar doth inhabit" (Is. 42:11). Similarly we find (Zech. 2:8) "Jerusalem shall dwell as open regions."

on Your army Heb. לחלכה ; (verse 14), “upon You Your army (חלכה) leaves.” Both of them are in the masorah as words spelled with כה instead of ך, like (Exod. 7:29), “upon you (ובכה) and upon your people”; (Prov. 2:11), “discretion shall guard you (תנצרכה) (Exod. 29:35), “I commanded you (אתכה)”; (I Sam. 1: 26), “who was standing with you (עמכה).” We learn from the masorah that חלכה is like חילך, Your army. But Menachem (p.89) interprets לחלכה יצפנו and so יעזב חלכה like (verse 10), “and helpless ones (חלכאים) shall fall into his power,” a word meaning humble and moaning. Accordingly, כה is [part of] the radical.

In the secret places doth he murder the innocent: – for usually the wicked does not do his wicked work openly, but he sits in ambushes and secret places that he may beware of the sons of men so that they may not see him. But he cannot beware of the All-seeing God !

His eyes lie in wait for the hapless: – לחלכה is equivalent to חלך with the addition of he; and its interpretation: "for the poor." He says: that the eyes of the wicked are on the look out for the poor, to take him. And יצפנו (lie in wait for) is an intransitive verb, as if he meant " he sets his eyes in a hidden place (צפון), and from thence looks out over the roads."