Radak, on Ps 21:16

“My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death.”

“My strength is dried up like a potsherd: – My revered father of blessed memory, quoting the words of our Rabbis of blessed memory (Babli, Baba Kamma 3b), wrote to כחי (= my strength), כיחי i.e. “his phlegm (כיחי) and his effort to remove it.” And some have explained it (one of the Geonim, according to the testimony of Ibn Ezra) as a metathesis equivalent to on (= my palate), as though he said, I am not able to speak, just as when he says “and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.” The learned Rabbi Abraham ben Ezra expounds כחי (my strength) literally: “because man's life consists in the moisture implanted at birth which binds the whole together and sustains the body. He calls (this) moisture by the name strength (כח). And see (he says) it is dried up, as happens to an old man advanced in years.” And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws (מדבק מלקוחי): – The servile lamedhis wanting (here). The regular usage would be מדבק מלקוחי for מֻדְבָּק (cleaveth) has kames, and is not in construction with jaws. The jaws are the palates above and below the tongue. The expression is used (here) in the same way as “and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth” (Job 29:10). The jaws (מלקוחים = “takers”) also are so called because they “take” the food during mastication. In the Haggadic interpretation (Shoher Too): “and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws” because my tongue cleaveth to my gullet (throat). Another interpretation: Because I have ceased from the two Laws, the written Law and the oral, 10 as it is said (Prov. 4:2): “For I give you good doctrine (לקח), forsake ye not my Law,” i.e. by reason of the persecution of the exile. And in the dust of death: – meaning, I am as near death as if Thou didst destine me, and I were destined, to be put in the grave, which is the dust of death. Thou settest me: – תשׁפתני is to be understood from (the verse) “set on (שפת) the cauldron” (2 Kings 4:38; Ezek. 24:3). In the Haggadic interpretation (Shoher Tod, with slight verbal alteration): “I am like a stove which is set between two roads on which the travellers do their cooking (שׁופתים)””

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.