Psalms 52:5

God shall likewise destroy thee for ever. Fain would the persecutor destroy the church, and therefore God shall destroy him, pull down his house, pluck up his roots, and make an end of him. He shall take thee away. God shall extinguish his coal and sweep him away like the ashes of the hearth; he would have quenched the truth, and God shall quench him. And pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, like a plant torn from the place where it grew, or a captive dragged from his home.

God shall likewise destroy thee for ever. Fain would the persecutor destroy the church, and therefore God shall destroy him, pull down his house, pluck up his roots, and make an end of him. He shall take thee away. God shall extinguish his coal and sweep him away like the ashes of the hearth; he would have quenched the truth, and God shall quench him. And pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, like a plant torn from the place where it grew, or a captive dragged from his home. Ahimelech and his brother priests were cut off from their abode, and so should those be who compassed and contrived their murder. And root thee out of the land of the living. The persecutor shall be eradicated, stubbed up by the root, cut up root and branch. He sought the death of others and death shall fall upon him. He troubled the land of the living, and he shall be banished to that land where the wicked cease from troubling. Those who will not "let live" have no right to "live." God will turn the tables on malicious men, and mete to them a portion with their own measure. "Selah." Pause again, and behold the divine justice proving itself more than a match for human sin.

God shall likewise destroy thee - 1. God shall set himself to destroy thee; יתצך yittotscha, “he will pull down thy building;” he shall unroof it, dilapidate, and dig up thy foundation. 2. He shall bruise or break thee to pieces for ever; thou shalt have neither strength, consistence, nor support. 3. He will mow thee down, and sweep thee away like dust or chaff, or light hay in a whirlwind, so that thou shalt be scattered to all the winds of heaven. Thou shalt have no residence, no tabernacle: that shall be entirely destroyed. Thou shalt be rooted out for ever from the land of the living. The bad fruit which it has borne shall bring God’s curse upon the tree; it shall not merely wither, or die, but it shall be plucked up from the roots, intimating that such a sinner shall die a violent death. Selah. So it shall be, and so it ought to be.

God shall likewise destroy thee for ever - Margin, “beat thee down.” The Hebrew word means to “tear, to break down, to destroy:” Lev 14:45; Jdg 6:30. The reference here is not to the “tongue” alluded to in the previous verses, but to Doeg himself. The language in the verse is intensive and emphatic. The main idea is presented in a variety of forms, all designed to denote utter and absolute destruction - a complete and entire sweeping away, so that nothing should be left. The word “here” used would suggest the idea of “pulling down” - as a house, a fence, a wall; that is, the idea of completely “demolishing” it; and the meaning is, that destruction would come upon the informer and slanderer “like” the destruction which comes upon a house, or wall, or fence, when it is entirely pulled down. He shall take thee away - An expression indicating in another form that he would be certainly destroyed. The verb used here - חתה châthâh - is elsewhere used only in the sense of taking up and carrying fire or coals: Isa 30:14; Pro 6:27; Pro 25:22. The idea here “may” be that he would be seized and carried away with haste, as when one takes up fire or coals, he does it as rapidly as possible, lest he should be burned. And shall pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place - literally, “out of the tent.” The reference is to his abode. The allusion here in the verb that is used - נסח nâsach - is to the act of pulling up plants; and the idea is, that he would be plucked up as a plant is torn from its roots. And root thee out of the land of the living - As a tree is torn up from the roots and thus destroyed. He would be no more among the living. Compare Psa 27:13. All these phrases are intended to denote that such a man would be utterly destroyed.