Psalm 58 is quite a sombre psalm, with a considerable number of accusations running throughout most of it. It's about the hypocrisy of those who seem to speak righteously but, in their hearts, they work wickedness. It's only when we get to verse 10 of 11 that the mood changes slightly to the rejoicing of those who are righteous over the vengeance carried out on the wicked, leading to a sense of assured reward for the righteous. It is not a happy psalm at all.
One reason for this is that this psalm is one in a group of five (Psalms 56-60 and Psalm 16) which are headed as being a Michtam of David. All of them are confessional, and unburdening of sinfulness, and it is thought that they are psalms of atonement or the need for reconciliation through admissions of wrong.
This helps us understand the mood of the psalm and the spiritual meaning of the words and images used in it. It is about our need to practise repentance, to see our human nature and our proprium (selfness) and the evils they will design. Having seen them we are to turn from them emphatically and shun them as sins against God. (See New Jerusalem 163) and (Doctrine of Life 21 22). The psalm then is being addressed to ourselves.
This helps to explain the last two verses about the rejoicing of the righteous when vengeance is brought about and that there is a reward for being righteous. The language here is strong; it talks about the righteous man washing his feet in the blood of the wicked. But spiritually it is talking about the assurance of our will to serve the Lord in finding strength, knowing that the Lord is then in control of our proprium’s violence and subtle manoeuverings. (Arcana Caelestia 210)
Verse 2 says that the wicked ‘weigh out the violence of their hands’. Spiritually, weighing out is to act calculatedly and in proportion to the amount of harm that is desired. (Arcana Caelestia 7984.3)
The following verses (3 to 5) point out that our human state is geared towards evil from our birth and our first state (before regeneration) is not aligned towards good, heaven or the Lord. This initial state is certainly not damning, because it is not a chosen state but rather an inherited one in which we are unaware of higher motives. (Heaven and Hell 296 and Arcana Caelestia 8552)
The charmers spoken of here in verse 5 are not the typical evil devious charmers; they stand for those who wish to introduce the person to the way of the Lord and the life of truth and its joys. (See Apocalypse Revealed 462).
The deaf cobra represents the will within our unregenerate mind to resist hearing about this new life.
The intensity continues with breaking their teeth and their fangs, shooting broken arrows, being as snails which melt as they go, and finally like the still born child of a woman which will not see the sun. These extreme images convey the fervent wish in us that any evil states that exist within our hearts be utterly destroyed and made powerless and dead. (Heaven and Hell 506)
The psalm closes by first saying that the Lord will take away our evils from us if we seek them to be taken. Then the final outcome is described in graphic language which needs to be understood spiritually, that ‘the righteous shall wash their feet in the blood of the wicked’. Spiritually this means that those who serve the Lord will be purified from all evils by the Lord’s redemption, and this is the reward mentioned in the last verse. (Arcana Caelestia 8214 end)
