Where no fear was. — This — the most interesting variation from Psalms 14 — appears plainly to have been inserted to bring the Psalm into harmony with some circumstance belonging to the time for which it was adapted, but to which we have no clue. As to the choice among the various explanations that have been given of it, we must remark that the one which takes “fear” in a good sense (“Then were they in great fright where there was no fear of God”) is excluded by the fact that the same word is employed in both clauses; and, as elsewhere pâchad is used of a “cause of terror,” we may render, There were they in great fear, where there was no cause for fear.
Apparently, from the immediate context, this statement is made not of the enemies of Israel, but of Israel itself, and was so constantly applicable to a people supposed to be living under the immediate protection of God, and yet liable to sudden panics, that we need not try to recover the precise event referred to.
Of him that encampeth against thee. — Literally, of thy besiegers. The bones of the beleaguering host lie bleaching on the sand. But the text seems to have suffered. The LXX. and Vulg. have “the bones of them that please men,” and a comparison with Psalms 14:5-6 shows such a similarity of letters, with difference of meaning, that both texts look like different attempts to restore some faded MS. Many attempts have been made to restore the original, but none eminently satisfactory.