5 There they were in great fear, where no fear was, For God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, Because God has rejected them.
Among these nations shall you find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, Would it were even! and at even you shall say, Would it were morning! for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see.
At that time, says Yahweh, they shall bring out 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 before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of the sky, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung on the surface of the earth.
The hand of Yahweh was on me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of Yahweh, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 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. He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? I answered, Lord Yahweh, you know. Again he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and tell them, you dry bones, hear the word of Yahweh. Thus says the Lord Yahweh to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am Yahweh. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and, behold, an earthquake; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I saw, and, behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said he to me, Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.
For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the 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 on us. Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their donkeys, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.
this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you. Whom have you defied and blasphemed? and against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? [even] against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants have you defied the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars of it, and the choice fir trees of it; and I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field; I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of Egypt. Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be your to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as a field [of grain] before it is grown up. But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me. Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance is come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came. This shall be the sign to you: you shall eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of it. 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 those who shall escape. The zeal of Yahweh of Hosts will perform this. Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and he shall not come to this city, says Yahweh. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. The angel of Yahweh went forth, and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and lived at Nineveh. It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.
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Commentary on Psalms 53 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
PSALM 53
Ps 53:1-6. Upon Mahalath—(See on Ps 88:1, title). Why this repetition of the fourteenth Psalm is given we do not know.
1-4. with few verbal changes, correspond with Ps 14:1-4.
5. Instead of assurances of God's presence with the pious, and a complaint of the wicked, Ps 14:5, 6 portrays the ruin of the latter, whose "bones" even "are scattered" (compare Ps 141:7), and who are put to shame as contemptuously rejected of God.