“Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.”
The prayer that God would make the wicked like water that flows away and arrows that cannot hit their mark articulates the request for the total and irretrievable defeat of the wicked. The image of water flowing away suggests dissolution and dissipation; the wicked will be utterly scattered and unable to gather again. The reference to arrows that cannot hit suggests the complete failure of the wicked's plans and intentions; nothing they undertake will succeed. This verse expresses the hope for total and definitive divine victory over the forces of wickedness.
Church Fathers on Psalms 58:7
1. The words which we have sung must be rather hearkened to by us, than proclaimed. For to all men as it were in an assemblage of mankind, the Truth cries, “If truly indeed justice ye speak, judge right things, you sons of men” Psalm 57:1. For to what unjust man is it not an easy thing to speak justice? Or what man if questioned about justice, when he has not a cause, would not easily answer what is just? Inasmuch as the hand of our Maker in our very hearts has written this…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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