Psalms 53:5

Therepoints to some signal instance in which panic terror and overwhelming calamity overtook the -workers of iniquity" who came to devour the people of God. They were seized with a supernaturally inspired terror, where there was no natural cause for panic. Cp. 1 Samuel 14:15; 2 Kings 7:6; 2 Kings 19:7; 2 Kings 19:35.

for God hath scattered&c. The bones of Israel's enemies lie bleaching on the plain, where their bodies were left unburied (Ezekiel 6:5). This cannot be an anticipation of some further defeat. It must rather be an allusion to some historic event; and it at once suggests the annihilation of Sennacherib's great army. Probably the text was intentionally altered in this recension in order to introduce a reference to the most famous example in later times of the discomfiture of worldly arrogance venturing to measure its strength with Jehovah.

against thee The people of God are addressed.

thou hast putthem to shame Cp. 2 Kings 19:20 ff.

hath despised them R.V. rejected them, as the word is often rendered elsewhere. But despisedbetter expresses the contempt for the enemies of His people which is meant. Cp. Judges 9:38; Isaiah 33:8. In their folly they said in their heart, -There is no God" (cp. 2 Kings 18:35); and this catastrophe which they are powerless to avert is His answer to their blasphemy. Cp. Psalms 2:4-5. For the widely different reading of Psalms 14:5-6 see notes there.