Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 73:4

"For there are no pangs in their death; But their strength is firm." — Psalms 73:4 (ASV)

For there are no bands in their death. —This is quite unintelligible, and does not accurately render the Hebrew, which gives, For there are no bands to their death. And by analogy of the derivation of tormenta from tor queo, we might give the Hebrew word bands the sense of pangs, rendering, “they have a painless death,” if such a statement about the wicked were not quite out of keeping with the psalm. The ancient versions give us no help. Some emendation of the text is absolutely necessary.

In the only other place it occurs (Isaiah 58:6) the word means specially the bands of a yoke; hence a most ingenious conjecture, which, by only a change of one letter, gives there are no bands to their yoke, i.e., they are “chartered libertines,” men of libido effrenata et indomita, a description admirably in keeping with that of the animal grossness in the next clause, “fat is their belly.” (Compare to the image of an animal restive from over-feeding, Deuteronomy 32:15; Burgess, Notes on the Hebrew Psalms.)

Strength. —The word is curious, but explained by Arabic cognates to mean belly, possibly from its roundness (“a fair round belly with good capon lined”); from root meaning roll.