Psalm 141 · a question people ask
"Their judges are thrown down" (141:6), and "our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol" (141:7). Who are they?
The psalm doesn't say. Here is what the text shows. Their in 141:6 has no name beside it: the nearest people named are "the righteous" in 141:5 and "men who work iniquity" in 141:4. Brown-Driver-Briggs gives the verb in this form as "their judges have been thrown down"; the WEB has thrown down. The WEB prints 141:7 inside quotation marks, and the psalm doesn't say who says it. "Our bones" (141:7) is the only our in the psalm; everywhere else the psalmist says I and my. Psalm 53 has the same Hebrew verb and noun: "God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you" (Psalm 53:5) (tap scattered). There it is the bones of the one who encamps; here it is "our bones" (Psalm 141:7). These notes don't say who "their judges" are, who speaks 141:7, or whose bones they are.
The verses
“Don’t incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who work iniquity. Don’t let me eat of their delicacies. Let the righteous strike me, it is kindness; let him reprove me, it is like oil on the head; don’t let my head refuse it; Yet my prayer is always against evil deeds. Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock. They will hear my words, for they are well spoken. “As when one plows and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.””
“There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them.”