Fearfulness and trembling - Fear so great as to produce trembling. Compare the notes at Job 4:14. He knew not when these things would end. How far the spirit of rebellion had spread he knew not, and he had no means of ascertaining. It seemed as if he would be wholly overthrown; as if his power was wholly at an end; as if even his life was in the greatest peril.
And horror hath overwhelmed me - Margin, as in Hebrew, "covered me." That is; it had come upon him so as to cover or envelop him entirely. The shades of horror and despair spread all around and above him, and all things were filled with gloom. The word rendered "horror" occurs only in three other places; - Ezekiel 7:18, rendered (as here) "horror;" Job 21:6, rendered "trembling;" and Isaiah 21:4, rendered "fearfulness." It refers to that state when we are deeply agitated with fear.

Fearfulness - How natural is this description! He is in distress; - he mourns; - makes a noise; - sobs and sighs; - his heart is wounded - he expects nothing but death; - this produces fear; - this produces tremor, which terminates in that deep apprehension of approaching and inevitable ruin that overwhelms him with horror. No man ever described a wounded heart like David.

Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath (d) overwhelmed me.
(d) There was no part of him that was not astonished with extreme fear.

Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me,.... Fear and dread of mind, and trembling of body;
and horror hath overwhelmed me; or "covered me"; he was in the utmost consternation and surprise at what he apprehended would be the issue of things; so Christ in the garden is said to be "sore amazed", Mark 14:33; all which terror, fearfulness, trembling, and horror, arose from a sense of sin imputed to him, even of all the sins of his people, the faith of which must be nauseous to him, and the guilt thereof pressing upon him; and from a feeling of the wrath of God, and the curse of the law, which he endured in the room and stead of his people; and this shows the truth of his human nature, and the weakness and insufficiency of that, without his divine nature, to have performed the great work of redemption; also the evil of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of it, and the strictness of divine justice; and likewise the wonderful love of Christ in becoming a surety for his people, and what ease and pleasure they may take; all the pain, the trembling, and horror, were his, and all the joy is theirs.

come upon--or literally, "into."