So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall flee away.

So they shall be made to stumble, their own tongue being against them: All that see them shall wag the head.

and their tongues against them are made weak. All that saw them were troubled;

By their own tongue they are made to fall over one another: all that see them shall flee away.

And they cause him to stumble, Against them is their own tongue, Every looker on them fleeth away.

The evil of their tongues is the cause of their fall; all those who see them are shaking their heads at them.

But God doth shoot at them with an arrow suddenly; thence are their wounds.

And they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves Pursuing the same subject, he remarks, that the poison concocted in their secret counsels, and which they revealed with their tongues, would prove to have a deadly effect upon themselves. The sentiment is the same with that expressed elsewhere by another figure, when they are said to be caught in their own snares, and to fall into the pit which they have digged themselves, (Psalm 57:6.) It is just that Heaven should make the mischiefs which they had devised against innocent and upright men to recoil upon their own heads. The judgment is one which we see repeatedly and daily exemplified before our eyes, and yet we find much difficulty in believing that it can take place. We should feel ourselves bound the more to impress the truth upon our hearts, that God is ever watching, as it were, his opportunity of converting the stratagems of the wicked into means just as completely effective of their destruction, as if they had intentionally employed them for that end. In the close of the verse, to point out the striking severity of their punishment, it is said that all who saw them should flee away The judgments of God are lifted above out of the sight of an ignorant world, and ere it can be roused to fear and dismay, these must be such as to bear signal marks indeed of a divine hand.

So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves - In Psalm 64:3, their tongue is represented as a sword; and here, keeping up the figure, the tongue, as a sword, is represented as falling on them, or as inflicting the wound on themselves which they had intended to inflict on others. This might be rendered, "And they have cast him down; upon them is their own tongue;" or, "Upon them their own tongue has come." That is, someone would cast them down, and they would fall as if smitten by their own tongue like a sword. It is not said who would do this, but the most natural interpretation is that it would be done by God. The idea is, that the instrument which they had employed to injure others would be the means of their own ruin.
All that see them shall flee away - Compare Psalm 31:11. That is, they shall flee in consternation from those who are so fearfully overthrown. They shall see that God is just, and that He will punish the wicked; and they will desire to escape from a ruin so dreadful as that which comes upon the ungodly. The idea is, that when God punishes sinners, the effect on others is, and should be, to lead them to wish not to be associated with such people, but to escape from a doom so fearful.

Their own tongue to fall upon them-selves - All the plottings, counsels, and curses, they have formed against me, shall come upon themselves.

So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves: all that see them shall (h) flee away.
(h) To see God's heavy judgments against them, and how he has caught them in their own snares.

So shall they make their own tongue to fall upon themselves,.... The evil things they have wished for, threatened unto, and imprecated on others, shall come upon themselves; the curses they have cursed others with shall come upon themselves; the pit they have dug for others, they fall into. So Haman, to whom some apply the psalm, was hanged on the gallows he made for Mordecai; and the accusers of Daniel, to whom others apply it, were cast into the same den of lions they procured for him; and Babylon, who has been drunk with the blood of the saints, shall have blood given her to drink.
all that see them shall flee away; not being able to help them, nor to bear the horrible sight, and fearing the same judgments should fall on themselves; see Numbers 16:34. Or, "they shall move themselves" (d); shake their heads in a way of derision, as Jarchi interprets it; or skip for joy, as the word is rendered in Jeremiah 48:27; and then it must be understood of the righteous; who, seeing the vengeance on the wicked, rejoice, as in Psalm 52:6; though, as they are afterwards particularly mentioned, others seem to be designed. The word is used for lamenting and bemoaning one's self, in Jeremiah 31:18; and so may be applied to the friends of the wicked lamenting and bemoaning their ruin, and their being bereaved of them, Revelation 18:9.
(d) "amovebunt se", Montanus; "commovebuntur", Vatablus.

their . . . tongue to fall, &c.--that is, the consequences of their slanders, &c. (compare Psalm 10:2; Psalm 31:16).
all that see . . . away--Their partners in evil shall be terrified.

Flee - Through fear of being involved in their destruction.