The word pachim is a genuine crux: it typically means 'snares' or 'traps' (from pach, a bird-trap), but some versions read it as 'coals.' Both F.O.G. versions renders it 'traps' to sustain the bird-flight motif opened in v.1—the snares the wicked set now fall upon themselves, a literary reversal of poetic justice. F.O.G.M. uses 'burning coals' to foreground the Sodom-and-Gomorrah resonance (Gen. 19:24) and the typological weight of God's judgment by fire. Ruach zil'afot is the scorching sirocco wind from the east—a physical, visceral terror. The menat kosam ('the portion of their cup') is a covenant formula: one's 'cup' is one's allotted fate—here a bitter drought, contrasted elsewhere with the cup of salvation (Ps. 116:13).

The word pachim is a genuine crux: it typically means 'snares' or 'traps' (from pach, a bird-trap), but some versions read it as 'coals.' Both F.O.G. versions renders it 'traps' to sustain the bird-flight motif opened in v.1—the snares the wicked set now fall upon themselves, a literary reversal of poetic justice. F.O.G.M. uses 'burning coals' to foreground the Sodom-and-Gomorrah resonance (Gen. 19:24) and the typological weight of God's judgment by fire. Ruach zil'afot is the scorching sirocco wind from the east—a physical, visceral terror. The menat kosam ('the portion of their cup') is a covenant formula: one's 'cup' is one's allotted fate—here a bitter drought, contrasted elsewhere with the cup of salvation (Ps. 116:13).