“Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, Even whole, as those who go down to the pit.”
Verse 12 continues from the previous verse with more details to the plan laid out by the enticing sinner. In verse 11, the sinner said what they were going to do; lie and wait for blood and ambush the innocent. Here, the sinner describes how they will do the act. The impression left by the plan is one of consumption with imagery of the grave swallowing a body in totality. The sinners compare their intended actions to Sheol, the realm of the dead, swallowing a person alive and whole. So too will the sinners act swallow the innocent.
The sinners do not merely intend to harm their victims. They intend to destroy them completely. The comparison to Sheol suggests that their victims will disappear without a trace, swallowed up as though they had descended into the grave.
This imagery also reveals something about the nature of the enticement introduced in verse 10. The sinners are not concealing the violence of their intentions. Rather, they present their ability to overwhelm and destroy the innocent as something desirable. They invite the child to participate in their destructive power.
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