Deliver thyself as a roe - צבי tsebi, the antelope. If thou art got into the snare, get out if thou possibly canst; make every struggle and excertion, as the antelope taken in the net, and the bird taken in the snare would, in order to get free from thy captivity.

Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter,.... As such a creature, which is very swift, when it is got into the hand of the hunter, will strive and struggle to get out; so should a man try all ways and means to get out of his suretyship engagements, especially when he finds himself liable to danger by it; this he should do "immediately" and "out of hand" (g), as the phrase here used sometimes signifies with the Jewish writers;

and as a bird from the hand of the fowler; another metaphor, signifying the same thing.

(g) "statim", De Dieu; "subito", Noldius, p. 859. No. 1630. "ilico, repente", so some in Eliae Tishbi, p. 143.

The naked מיּד is not to be translated "immediately;" for in this sense the word is rabbinical, not biblical. The versions (with exception of Jerome and the Graec. Venet.) translate as if the word were מפּח [out of the snare]. Bertheau prefers this reading, and Bttcher holds חיּד [a hunter] to have fallen out after מיד. It is not a parallelism with reservation; for a bird-catcher is not at the same time a gazelle-hunter. The author, if he has so written, has conceived of מיד, as at 1 Kings 20:42, as absolute, and connected it with הנּצל: tear thyself free like the gazelle from the hand into which thou hast fallen (Hitzig); according to which, the section should be accentuated thus: הנצל כצבי מיד. צבי, Aram. טבי, Arab. zaby, is the gazelle (Arab. ghazâl), so called from its elegance; צפּור, the bird, from its whistling (צפר, Arab. ṣafar, R. צף, cf. Arab. saffârat, the whistling of a bird), Arab. safar, whistler (with prosthesis, 'aṣafwar, warbler, Psalm. p. 794). The bird-catcher is called יקושׁ (from יקשׁ, after the form יכל, cog. קושׁ, Isaiah 29:21, נקשׁ, R. קש), after the form בּגוד (fem. בּגודה), or יקוּשׁ; one would think that the Kametz, after the form kâtwl (vid., under Isaiah 1:17), must here be fixed, but in Jeremiah 5:26 the word is vocalized יקוּשׁים.

Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

6:1-5 If we live as directed by the word of God, we shall find it profitable even in this present world. We are stewards of our worldly substance, and have to answer to the Lord for our disposal of it; to waste it in rash schemes, or such plans as may entangle us in difficulties and temptations, is wrong. A man ought never to be surety for more than he is able and willing to pay, and can afford to pay, without wronging his family; he ought to look upon every sum he is engaged for, as his own debt. If we must take all this care to get our debts to men forgiven, much more to obtain forgiveness with God. Humble thyself to him, make sure of Christ as thy Friend, to plead for thee; pray earnestly that thy sins may be pardoned, and that thou mayest be kept from going down to the pit.