John Calvin Commentary Psalms 59:6

"They return at evening, they howl like a dog, And go round about the city." — Psalms 59:6 (ASV)

They will return at evening. He compares his enemies to famished and furious dogs, which hunger drives to roam endlessly in every direction. Through this metaphor, he denounces their insatiable fierceness. This fierceness is shown in the ceaseless activity to which they were driven by their desire to cause harm. He says that they return in the evening to suggest that they did not rest at other times but were tireless in pursuing their evil ways. If they made no progress during the day, the night would still find them at their work. The barking of dogs aptly represented, as a metaphor, the formidable nature of their assaults.

In the following verse, he describes their fierceness. The expression prating, or “belching out with their mouth,” indicates that they proclaimed their infamous plans openly and without attempting to hide them. The Hebrew word נבע (nabang) metaphorically means to speak; however, its proper meaning is to gush out, and here it signifies more than simply speaking.

He informs us that, not content with secretly plotting the destruction of the innocent among themselves, they published their intentions widely and boasted of them. Accordingly, when he adds that swords were in their lips, he means that they breathed out slaughter, and that every word they spoke was a sword to slay the oppressed.

He identifies the cause of their rushing to such an excess of wickedness as their having no reason to fear disgrace. It is quite probable that David, here as in many other places, alludes to the gross stupidity of the wicked. These individuals, to banish fear from their minds, imagine God as if He were asleep in heaven. However, I believe he instead attributes the confidence with which they pursued their plans and openly proclaimed them to the fact that they had long before now possessed the uncontrolled power to inflict harm.

They had succeeded so completely in deceiving the people and making David hateful through their slanders, that no one had the courage to say a word in his defense. Indeed, the more atrociously anyone chose to persecute this distressed victim—for no other reason than to secure the king's favor—the more that person rose in esteem as a true friend to the public good.