Psalms 14:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

There were they in great fear In the place, or upon the spot where they practised these insolences: or, then, that is, in the height of their tyranny and prosperous impiety, when they seemed to have no cause for it, God struck them with a panic fear. Hebrew, פחדו פחד, pachadu pachad, they feared with fear, that is, vehemently, namely, from their own guilty consciences and the just expectation of divine vengeance. Or, they shall be greatly afraid, the past tense being put for the future prophetically. Thus Bishop Patrick understands it, whose paraphrase on the words is, “What a terror will it be to them to see the divine vengeance seize on them when they think themselves most secure!” For God is in the generation of the righteous He, who is the righteous Judge, will not desert those that are faithful to him, but will graciously deliver them. Or, God is for the generation, &c., as the Hebrew particle ב, here used, often signifies: that is, God is on their side, and therefore their enemies have great cause to tremble.