Verse 5. - Let them all be confounded; or, "they shall all be confounded," or "put to shame." And turned back. Made to turn their backs upon their foes. That hate Zion. That have shown themselves enemies to Israel. The main verbs are in the future tense, but may be taken as expressive either of a wish or of a confident expectation.

129:5-8 While God's people shall flourish as the loaded palm-tree, or the green and fruitful olive, their enemies shall wither as the grass upon the house-tops, which in eastern countries are flat, and what grows there never ripens; so it is with the designs of God's enemies. No wise man will pray the Lord to bless these mowers or reapers. And when we remember how Jesus arose and reigns; how his people have been supported, like the burning but unconsumed bush, we shall not fear.Let them all be confounded,.... Or "ashamed": as all the enemies of God's people will be sooner or later, either in this world, or however when Christ shall come in the clouds of heaven; or let them be disappointed of their views, aims, and ends, when they will be confounded, as disappointed persons are;

and turned back; from pursuing their designs and accomplishing them; as the Assyrian monarch was, who had a hook put into his nose, and a bridle in his lips, and was turned back by the way he came, Isaiah 37:29;

that hate Zion; the inhabitants of Zion, who are called out of the world, and separated from the men of it, and therefore hated by them; the King of Zion, the Messiah, whom they will not have to reign over them; the doctrines of the Gospel, the word that comes out of Zion, to which they are utter enemies; and the laws and ordinances of Zion, the discipline of God's house, which they cannot bear to be under and submit unto.