This whole section indicates a lawless condition in which open violence, robbery, and murder were common. In Hosea's vigorous language, "blood touched blood," the splashes being so numerous that they met, and the land was red with them. There is no reason to suppose that the picture is ideal or exaggerated. Where in the turbulent annals of Israel it is to be placed must remain uncertain; but that it is a transcript of bitter experience is obvious, and the aspect which it presents should be kept in view as a corrective of the tendency to idealise the moral condition of Israel, which at no time was free from dark stains, and which offered only too many epochs of disorganisation in which the dark picture of the psalm could have been photographed from life. The phrases for the victims in this section are noteworthy: "the innocent"; "the helpless"; "the poor." Of these the first and last are frequent, and the meaning obvious. There is a doubt whether the last should be regarded as the designation of outward condition or of disposition, _i.e._ whether "meek" or "poor" is the idea. There are two cognate words in Hebrew, one of which means one who is bowed down, _i.e._ by outward troubles, and the other one who bows himself down, _i.e._ is meek. The margin of the Hebrew Bible is fond of correcting these words when they occur in the text and substituting the one for the other, but arbitrarily; and it is doubtful whether in actual usage there is any real distinction between them. "Helpless" is a word only found in this psalm (vv. 8, 10, 14), which has received various explanations, but is probably derived from a root meaning _to be black_, and hence comes to mean _miserable_, _hapless_, or the like. All the designations refer to a class--namely, the devout minority, the true Israel within Israel--and hence the plurals in vv. 10, 12, and 17.