The next quartet of verses (vv. 52-55) passes lightly over the wilderness history and the settlement in the land, and hastens on to a renewed narration of repeated rebellion, which occupies the next group (vv. 56-59). These verses cover the period from the entrance on Canaan to the fall of the sanctuary of Shiloh, during which there was a continual tendency to relapse into idolatry. That is the special sin here charged against the Israel of the time of the Judges. The figure of a "deceitful bow," in ver. 57, well describes the people as failing to fulfil the purpose of their choice by God. As such a weapon does not shoot true, and makes the arrow fly wide, however well aimed and strongly drawn, so Israel foiled all Divine attempts, and failed to carry God's message to the world, or to fulfil His will in themselves. Hence the next verses tell, with intense energy and pathos, the sad story of Israel's humiliation under the Philistines. The language is extraordinarily strong in its description of God's loathing and rejection of the nation and sanctuary, and is instinct with sorrow, blended with stern recognition of His righteousness in judgment. What a tragic picture the psalmist draws! Shiloh, the dwelling-place of God, empty for evermore; the "Glory"--that is, the Ark--in the enemy's hands; everywhere stiffening corpses; a pall of silence over the land; no brides and no joyous bridal chaunts; the very priests massacred, unlamented by their widows, who had wept so many tears already that the fountain of them was dried up, and even sorrowing love was dumb with horror and despair!
The two last groups of verses paint God's great mercy in delivering the nation from such misery. The daring figure of His awaking as from sleep and dashing upon Israel's foes, who are also His, with a shout like that of a hero stimulated by wine, is more accordant with Eastern fervour than with our colder imagination; but it wonderfully expresses the sudden transition from a period, during which God seemed passive and careless of His people's wretchedness, to one in which His power flashed forth triumphant for their defence. The prose fact is the long series of victories over the Philistines and other oppressors, which culminated in the restoration of the Ark, the selection of Zion as its abode, which involved the rejection of Shiloh and consequently of Ephraim (in whose territory Shiloh was), and the accession of David. The Davidic kingdom is, in the psalmist's view, the final form of Israel's national existence; and the sanctuary, like the kingdom, is perpetual as the lofty heavens or the firm earth. Nor were his visions vain, for that kingdom subsists and will subsist for ever, and the true sanctuary, the dwelling-place of God among men, is still more closely intertwined with the kingdom and its King than the psalmist knew. The perpetual duration of both is, in truth, the greatest of God's mercies, outshining all earlier deliverances; and they who truly have become the subjects of the Christ, the King of Israel and of the world, and who dwell with God in His house, by dwelling with Jesus, will not rebel against Him any more, nor ever forget His wonders, but faithfully tell them to the generations to come.