Psalms 21:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Therefore shalt thou make them turn their back That is, flee away at the first sight of thee. Or, thou shalt set them as a butt to shoot at, as the like phrase is used Job 7:20; Job 16:12. When thou shalt make ready thine arrows, &c., against the face of them Or, against them, the word face being often redundant. “The judgments of God are called his arrows, being sharp, swift, sure, and deadly. What a dreadful situation, to be set as a mark and butt, at which these arrows are directed! View Jerusalem compassed by the Roman armies without, and torn to pieces by the animosity of desperate and bloody factions within. No further commentary is requisite upon this verse. Tremble and repent, is the inference to be drawn by every Christian community under heaven, in which appear the symptoms of degeneracy and apostacy.” Horne.