I. (64:1–6) Hide Me from the Secret Plans of the Wicked. The opening of the psalm lays out the danger to the devoted believer with three requests in verses 1–2: “hear my voice,” “preserve my life,” and “hide me.” In these verses the description of the danger moves up the scale from “the enemy” to “the secret plots of the wicked” to “the throng of evildoers.”

Verses 4–6 stress a particular kind of enemies, namely, those who “hold fast to their evil purpose” and “search out injustice” (vv. 5–6). The image here is that of speech (“tongues,” “words”) used as a weapon, such as a sword or arrow. In verse 4 the enemies “shoot from ambush at the blameless,” that is, they surprise the faithful by smearing and denouncing them. Another image for this attack is that of “snare” (v. 5); perhaps the arrow is the pivot between an instrument of war (like a sword) and a tool for hunting prey.

The terms for the kinds of attack are vague enough to range from lies that sow discord or despair to slander that destroys reputations. (This breadth of possibilities is probably intentional, allowing the psalm to be relevant to a variety of situations.) The enemies present a serious danger, as they diligently “search out” ways to accomplish “injustice”; their commitment to injustice and the subtlety of their scheming stem from “deep” within, in their “inward mind and heart” (v. 6).

II. (64:7–10) God Makes an Example of the Wicked. The second stanza assures the faithful that God will overthrow the schemes of the wicked. The chief means for establishing this assurance is via recollecting what God has done in the past, which sets a reliable pattern for what he will do in the future; most of the verbs in verses 7–9 use Hebrew tense forms that usually refer to the past, with the implication that God did this because he always does this (which is why the ESV uses the present tense to translate them).476

Verse 7–8 echo the words of verses 3–4: those who would shoot their bitter words like arrows aimed at the innocent will find that “God shoots his arrow at them” (v. 7); though these enemies shoot “suddenly,” God will ensure that they are “wounded suddenly.” This maintains the imagery of the first section as it refers to God’s bringing such attackers down as they deserve, with “their own tongues turned against them”—also a phrase broad enough to cover a wide range of possible ways in which God might thwart them (because the focus is more on confidence in their failure, whatever their schemes may have been). By their lies the evildoers are “brought to ruin” (of an unnamed sort). Whatever their ruin may be, its effect brings a benefit: “All who see them will wag their heads” (v. 8), which is an expression of astonishment, or perhaps even compassion (e.g., Jer. 18:16; 48:27). In Psalm 64:9 the further results are that “all mankind fears” (fears God, and possibly fears to harm his faithful); “they tell what God has brought about” (God’s deeds are not fully responded to until people talk about them in admiration); and they “ponder what [God] has done” (they take instruction from how God has vindicated his commitment to his people). We can compare Psalm 58:11 for similar benefits to all people, including Gentiles.

The “righteous,” those faithful to the Lord and his covenant, can reflect on this assurance and therefore “rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him” (64:10) rather than being dominated by fear or anxiety.