What does Psalm 55:15 mean?

After expressing his fear of impending death (Psalm 55:1–8) and mourning betrayal of a former ally (Psalm 55:12–14), David prays for divine retribution. He not only prays that God would defeat his enemies, but that they would be taken directly to the land of death. His justification for seeking such dire consequences is the absolute evil which his foes exemplify.

The punishment David describes calls to mind how God destroyed Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Those men rebelled against Moses. Numbers 16:31–32 relates that an earthquake swallowed them. Verse 33 says, "So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly." At the end of the tribulation, when Jesus returns to earth in a blaze of glory, He will judge the wicked. Revelation 19:20 says, "And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet…These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur."