There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.
There - in the very place of their sin, their punishment overtakes them. He points to them as though present.
Were they in great fear - the prophetical past for the future: implying the certainty of the coming event-literally, 'they feared a fear.' Psalms 53:5 adds, "where no fear was." In the midst of their prosperity, when nothing shall be further from their thoughts than calamity, overwhelming fear shall surprise them.
For God is in the generation of the righteous. The "for" expresses that God's favour toward 'the righteous generation in' which 'He dwells,' is the ground of the terrible destruction wherewith He shall overwhelm their oppressors. This verse and Psalms 53:5 do not refer to the groundless alarms to which the guilty are given through conscience, as many explain, quoting Leviticus 26:17; Leviticus 26:36; and Proverbs 28:1; but to the real terrors of judgment which shall suddenly overtake them (Job 15:21; and 1 Thessalonians 5:3). Psalms 53:5 proves this by substituting for "God is in the generation of the righteous," "God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee."