5 There were they in great fear, where no fear was; for God scattereth the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou hast put [them] to shame, for God hath despised them.
And I will set my face against you, that ye may be routed before your enemies; they that hate you shall have dominion over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.
and I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol, as when one cutteth and cleaveth [wood] upon the earth.
And there was trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the ravagers, they also trembled, and the earth quaked; for it was a trembling [from] God.
And among these nations shalt thou have no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have a resting-place, and Jehovah shall give thee there a trembling heart, languishing of the eyes, and pining of the soul. And thy life shall hang in suspense before thee; and thou shalt be in terror day and night and shalt be afraid of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would that it were even! and in the evening thou shalt say, Would that it were morning! through the fright of thy heart wherewith thou shalt be in terror, and through the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.
At that time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring forth the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; and they shall spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to all the host of the heavens, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the ground.
The hand of Jehovah was upon me, and Jehovah carried me out in the Spirit, and set me down in the midst of a valley; and it was full of bones. And he caused me to pass by them round about; and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and behold, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, Shall these bones live? And I said, Lord Jehovah, thou knowest. And he said unto me, Prophesy over these bones, and say unto them, Ye dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah unto these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. And I will put sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live: and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah. And I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a rustling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. And he said unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. And I prophesied as he had commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. And he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off!
And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.
For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, a noise of a great host; and they said one to another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. And they rose up and fled in the dusk, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, the camp as it was, and fled for their life.
this is the word which Jehovah hath spoken against him: The virgin-daughter of Zion despiseth thee, laugheth thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem shaketh her head at thee. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted the voice? Against the Holy One of Israel hast thou lifted up thine eyes on high. By thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the recesses of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, the choice of its cypresses; and I will enter into its furthest height, [into] the forest of its fruitful field. I have digged and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the streams of Matsor. Hast thou not heard that long ago I did it, and that from ancient days I formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest lay waste fortified cities [into] ruinous heaps. And their inhabitants were powerless, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were [as] the grass of the field and the green herb, [as] the grass on the housetops, and grain blighted before it be grown up. But I know thine abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy raging against me. Because thy raging against me and thine arrogance is come up into mine ears, I will put my ring in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will make thee go back by the way by which thou camest. And this [shall be] the sign unto thee: there shall be eaten this year such as groweth of itself; and in the second year that which springeth of the same; but in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof. And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of mount Zion they that escape: the zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall do this. Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith Jehovah. And I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. And an angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead bodies. And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and abode at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, O Jehovah. Let them be put to shame and be dismayed for ever, and let them be confounded and perish:
Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be turned backward and confounded that take pleasure in mine adversity;
Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine adversity; let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.
There were they in great fear; for God is in the generation of the righteous.
He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 53
Commentary on Psalms 53 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 53
God speaks once, yea, twice, and it were well if man would even then perceive it; God, in this psalm, speaks twice, for this is the same almost verbatim with the fourteenth psalm. The scope of it is to convince us of our sins, to set us a blushing and trembling because of them; and this is what we are with so much difficulty brought to that there is need of line upon line to this purport. The word, as a convincing word, is compared to a hammer, the strokes whereof must be frequently repeated. God, by the psalmist here,
Some little variation there is between Ps. 14 and this, but none considerable, only between v. 5, 6, there, and v. 5 here; some expressions there used are here left out, concerning the shame which the wicked put upon God's people, and instead of that, is here foretold the shame which God would put upon the wicked, which alteration, with some others, he made by divine direction when he delivered it the second time to the chief musician. In singing it we ought to lament the corruption of the human nature, and the wretched degeneracy of the world we live in, yet rejoicing in hope of the great salvation.
To the chief musician upon Mahalath, Maschil. A psalm of David.
Psa 53:1-6
This psalm was opened before, and therefore we shall here only observe, in short, some things concerning sin, in order to the increasing of our sorrow for it and hatred of it.