divide their tongues
55:9 divide their tongues. “Divide” here is the Hebrew palag, used elsewhere in Scripture only in Job 38:25 (“God hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters”) and in Genesis 10:25 (with I Chronicles 1:19), which records that “in his days the earth was divided.” The patriarch Peleg was named after this division at Babel, when the primeval nations were divided by tongues. David was praying for an analogous division of tongues in the counseling of those who were advising Absalom in his rebellion against his father. This is exactly what happened (II Samuel 16:20; 17:7,14,23).