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)

506. All who have lived a good life in the world and have acted from conscience, who are such as have acknowledged the Divine and have loved Divine truths, especially such as have applied those truths to life, seem to themselves, when let into the state of their interiors, like those aroused from sleep into full wakefulness, or like people passing from darkness into light. They then think from the light of heaven, thus from an interior wisdom, and they act from good, thus from an interior affection. Heaven even flows into their thoughts and affections with an interior blessedness and delight of which they had previously had no knowledge; for they have communication with the angels of heaven. They then acknowledge the Lord and worship Him from their very life, for, being in the state of their interiors, they are in their own life (as has been said just above, 505); and as freedom pertains to interior affection they then acknowledge and worship the Lord from freedom. Thus, too, they withdraw from external sanctity and come into that internal sanctity in which worship itself truly consists. Such is the state of those who have lived a Christian life in accordance with the commandments in the Word.

[2] But the state of those who have lived an evil life in the world and who have had no conscience, and have in consequence denied the Divine, is the direct opposite of this. For all who live an evil life, inwardly in themselves deny the Divine, however much they may suppose when in external thought that they acknowledge the Lord and do not deny Him; for acknowledging the Divine and living an evil life are opposites. When such in the other life come into the state of their interiors, and are heard speaking and seen acting, they appear foolish; for from their evil lusts they burst forth into all sorts of abominations, into contempt of others, ridicule and blasphemy, hatred and revenge; they plot intrigues, some with a cunning and malice that can scarcely be believed to be possible in any man. For they are then in a state of freedom to act in harmony with the thoughts of their will, since they are separated from the exterior things that restrained and checked them in the world. In a word, they are deprived of their rationality, because while they were in the world, what is rational did not have its seat in their interiors, but in their exteriors; and yet they seemed to themselves to be wiser than others.

[3] This being their character, while in the second state they are let down for short intervals into the state of their exteriors, and into a recollection of their actions when they were in the state of their interiors. Some of them then feel ashamed, and acknowledge that they have been insane; some do not feel ashamed; and some are angry because they are not permitted to remain permanently in the state of their exteriors. But these are shown what they would be if they were to continue in that state, namely, that they would attempt to accomplish in secret ways the same evil ends, and by semblances of goodness, honesty, and justice, would mislead the simple in heart and faith, and would utterly destroy themselves; for their exteriors would at length burn with the same fire as their interiors, and this would consume their whole life.