Verse 1

The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,.... The Targum adds, "of whom is revenge"; or there is no God to punish and avenge the wicked; corrupt are they; the Chaldee paraphrase is, "the wicked have corrupted their ways"; as all flesh had done in the old world, Gen 6:12; and have done abominable iniquity; iniquity is the abominable thing that God hates, and makes men abominable in his sight; in Psa 11:1, it is read, "abominable worlds": the Targum paraphrases the words, "they are far from good, for iniquity is found in them"; see Rev 21:8; there is none that doeth good; See Gill on Psa 14:1.

Verse 2

God looked down from heaven upon the children of men,.... In Psa 14:2, it is read, "the Lord" or "Jehovah"; in everything else there is an agreement in this verse; See Gill on Psa 14:2; to see if there were any that did understand; the Targum is, "that were understanding" in the law; it doubtless means understanding in divine and spiritual things; that did seek God; the above paraphrase is, "seeking doctrine from before the Lord".

Verse 3

Every one of them is gone back,.... From God, and the way of his commandments. In Psa 14:3, it is, "they are all gone aside"; See Gill on Psa 14:3; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. What follows in this verse is the same as Psa 14:3.

Verse 4

Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?.... In Psa 14:4, it is, "have all the workers", &c. There are none of them but what have, unless given up to judicial blindness, and hardness of heart, to believe a lie, as antichrist and his followers, Th2 2:10; See Gill on Psa 14:4; who eat up my people, as they eat bread; and drink their blood, and are drunken with it, Rev 17:6; they have not called upon God; but upon their idols, upon the Virgin Mary, and saints departed. In Psa 14:4, it is, "upon the Lord".

Verse 5

There were they in great, fear, where no fear was,.... Before; neither of God nor man, nor any dread of punishment, but the utmost security, Rev 18:7; also See Gill on Psa 14:5; for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee; either against Christ, or against his church and people; who set themselves against the person, office, and grace of Christ, and seek to distress and destroy his interest: "the bones of such God will scatter": that is, he will destroy antichrist and his armies, which are his strength, as the bones are the strength of the human body; and make such a carnage of them, that the fowls of the air shall eat their flesh, and their bones shall be scattered here and there; see Rev 19:17. So the Targum, "for God scatters the strength of the armies of the wicked.'' Kimchi interprets it of the bones of the nations that shall encamp against Jerusalem, in the days of Gog; see Rev 20:8; and Aben Ezra observes, that "thee" respects either God or the Messiah; thou hast put them to shame; this is either an address of the psalmist unto God, declaring what he had done; or rather of God the Father to his Son Christ Jesus; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech say this refers to the Messiah: and it may be expressive of the shame and confusion that antichrist and his followers will be thrown into, when they shall make war with the Lamb, and he shall overcome them, Rev 17:14; because God hath despised them; or rejected them as reprobates; given them up to a reprobate mind; and being ungodly men, has before ordained them to this condemnation. The Targum is, "for the Word of the Lord hath rejected them;'' as filthy, loathsome, and abominable, and cast them alive into the lake of fire, Rev 19:20.

Verse 6

O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!.... Or, "who will give (f) out of Zion the salvation of Israel?" The Targum adds, "except the Lord"; and this is a request to him for it: and, as in Psa 14:7, it may be a wish for the first coming of Christ, to work out salvation for his people; here it may be expressive of the desire of the church for his coming in a spiritual manner, in the latter day, to take to himself his great power, and reign; to destroy antichrist, and deliver his people from bondage and oppression by him; when the Gentiles shall be gathered in, the Jews will be converted, and all Israel saved; see Rom 11:25. It is in the original text, "salvations" (g); denoting the complete salvation of the church; when all her enemies will be destroyed, and all peace and prosperity shall be enjoyed by her; See Gill on Psa 14:6. when God bringeth back the captivity of his people: who have been carried into it by antichrist, Rev 13:10; Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad; for now the kingdoms of this world will become Christ's; the marriage of the Lamb will be come, and the bride made ready, through the calling of the Gentiles, and the conversion of the Jews; which will occasion the twenty four elders, the representatives of the Christian church, to give thanks to the Lord God Almighty, and cause many voices to be heard in heaven, expressing great joy on this occasion, Rev 11:15. (f) "quis dabit", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (g) "salutes", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius; so Ainsworth. Next: Psalms Chapter 54

Verse 1

The well-grounded asyndeton השׁהיתוּ התעיבוּ is here dismissed; and the expression is rendered more bombastic by the use of עול instead of עלילה. עול (the masculine to עולה), pravitas, is the accusative of the object (cf. Eze 16:52) to both verbs, which give it a twofold superlative attributive notion. Moreover, here השׁחיתו is accented with Mugrash in our printed texts instead of Tarcha. One Mugrash after another is contrary to all rule.

Verse 2

In both recensions of the Psalm the name of God occurs seven times. In Psa 14:1-7 it reads three times Elohim and four times Jahve; in the Psalm before us it is all seven times Elohim, which in this instance is a proper name of equal dignity with the name Jahve. Since the mingling of the two names in Psa 14:1-7 is perfectly intentional, inasmuch as Elohim in Psa 53:1, Psa 53:2 describes God as a Being most highly exalted and to be reverentially acknowledged, and in Psa 52:5 as the Being who is present among men in the righteous generation and who is mighty in their weakness, it becomes clear that David himself cannot be the author of this levelling change, which is carried out more rigidly than the Elohimic character of the Psalm really demands.

Verse 3

Instead of הכּל, the totality, we have כּלּו, which denotes each individual of the whole, to which the suffix, that has almost vanished (Psa 29:9) from the genius of the language, refers. And instead of סר, the more elegant סג, without any distinction in the meaning.

Verse 4

Here in the first line the word כּל־, which, as in Psa 5:6; Psa 6:9, is in its right place, is wanting. In Psa 14:1-7 there then follow, instead of two tristichs, two distichs, which are perhaps each mutilated by the loss of a line. The writer who has retouched the Psalm has restored the tristichic symmetry that had been lost sight of, but he has adopted rather violent means: inasmuch as he has fused down the two distichs into a single tristich, which is as closely as possible adapted to the sound of their letters.

Verse 5

The last two lines of this tristich are in letters so similar to the two distichs of Psa 14:1-7, that they look like an attempt at the restoration of some faded manuscript. Nevertheless, such a close following of the sound of the letters of the original, and such a changing of the same by means of an interchange of letters, is also to be found elsewhere (more especially in Jeremiah, and e.g., also in the relation of the Second Epistle of Peter to Jude). And the two lines sound so complete in themselves and full of life, that this way of accounting for their origin takes too low an estimate of them. A later poet, perhaps belonging to the time of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah, has here adapted the Davidic Psalm to some terrible catastrophe that has just taken place, and given a special character to the universal announcement of judgment. The addition of לא־היה פּחד (supply אשׁר = אשׁר שׁם, Psa 84:4) is meant to imply that fear of judgment had seized upon the enemies of the people of God, when no fear, i.e., no outward ground for fear, existed; it was therefore חרדּת אלהים (Sa1 14:15), a God-wrought panic. Such as the case with the host of the confederates in the days of Jehoshaphat (Ch2 20:22-24); such also with the army of Sennacherib before Jerusalem (Isa 37:36). כּי gives the proof in support of this fright from the working of the divine power. The words are addressed to the people of God: Elohim hath scattered the bones (so that unburied they lie like dirt upon the plain a prey to wild beasts, Psa 141:7; Eze 6:5) of thy besieger, i.e., of him who had encamped against thee. חנך .eeht tsniaga instead of חנך = חנה עליך. (Note: So it has been explained by Menachem; whereas Dunash wrongly takes the ך of חנך as part of the root, overlooking the fact that with the suffix it ought rather to have been חנך instead of חנך. It is true that within the province of the verb âch does occur as a pausal masculine suffix instead of écha, with the preterite (Deu 6:17; Isa 30:19; Isa 55:5, and even out of pause in Jer 23:37), and with the infinitive (Deu 28:24; Eze 28:15), but only in the passage before us with the participle. Attached to the participle this masculine suffix closely approximates to the Aramaic; with proper substantives there are no examples of it found in Hebrew. Simson ha-Nakdan, in his חבור הקונים (a MS in Leipzig University Library, fol. 29b), correctly observes that forms like שׁמך, עמּך, are not biblical Hebrew, but Aramaic, and are only found in the language of the Talmud, formed by a mingling of the Hebrew and Aramaic.) By the might of his God, who has overthrown them, the enemies of His people, Israel has put them to shame, i.e., brought to nought in a way most shameful to them, the project of those who were so sure of victory, who imagined they could devour Israel as easily and comfortably as bread. It is clear that in this connection even Psa 53:5 receives a reference to the foreign foes of Israel originally alien to the Psalm, so that consequently Mic 3:3 is no longer a parallel passage, but passages like Num 14:9, our bread are they (the inhabitants of Canaan); and Jer 30:16, all they that devour thee shall be devoured.

Verse 6

The two texts now again coincide. Instead of ישׁוּעת, we here have ישׁעות; the expression is strengthened, the plural signifies entire, full, and final salvation.

Verse 1

This psalm was opened before, and therefore we shall here only observe, in short, some things concerning sin, in order to the increasing of our sorrow for it and hatred of it. 1. The fact of sin. Is that proved? Can the charge be made out? Yes, God is a witness to it, an unexceptionable witness: from the place of his holiness he looks on the children of men, and sees how little good there is among them, Psa 53:2. All the sinfulness of their hearts and lives in naked and open before him. 2. The fault of sin. Is there any harm in it? Yes, it is iniquity (Psa 53:1, Psa 53:4); it is an unrighteous thing; it is that which there is no good in (Psa 53:1, Psa 53:3); it is an evil thing; it is the worst of evils; it is that which makes this world such an evil world as it is; it is going back from God, Psa 53:3. 3. The fountain of sin. How comes it that men are so bad? Surely it is because there is no fear of God before their eyes: they say in their hearts, "There is no God at all to call us to an account, none that we need to stand in awe of." Men's bad practices flow from their bad principles; if they profess to know God, yet in works, because in thoughts, they deny him. 4. The folly of sin. He is a fool (in the account of God, whose judgment we are sure is right) that harbours such corrupt thoughts. Atheists, whether in opinion or practice, are the greatest fools in the world. Those that do not seek God do not understand; they are like brute-beasts that have no understanding; for man is distinguished from the brutes, not so much by the powers of reason as by a capacity for religion. The workers of iniquity, whatever they pretend to, have no knowledge; those may truly be said to know nothing that do not know God, Psa 53:4. 5. The filthiness of sin. Sinners are corrupt (Psa 53:1); their nature is vitiated and spoiled, and the more noble the nature is the more vile it is when it is depraved, as that of the angels. Corruptio optimi est pessima - The best things, when corrupted, become the worst. Their iniquity is abominable; it is odious to the holy God, and it renders them so; whereas otherwise he hates nothing that he has made. It makes men filthy, altogether filthy. Wilful sinners are offensive in the nostrils of the God of heaven and of the holy angels. What decency soever proud sinners pretend to, it is certain that wickedness is the greatest defilement in the world. 6. The fruit of sin. See to what a degree of barbarity it brings men at last; when men's hearts are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin see their cruelty to their brethren, that are bone of their bone - because they will not run with them to the same excess of riot, they eat them up as they eat bread; as if they had not only become beasts, but beasts of prey. And see their contempt of God at the same time. They have not called upon him, but scorn to be beholden to him. 7. The fear and shame that attend sin (Psa 53:5): There were those in great fear who had made God their enemy; their own guilty consciences frightened them, and filled them with horror, though otherwise there was no apparent cause of fear. The wicked flees when none pursues. See the ground of this fear; it is because God has formerly scattered the bones of those that encamped against his people, not only broken their power and dispersed their forces, but slain them, and reduced their bodies to dry bones, like those scattered at the grave's mouth, Psa 141:7. Such will be the fate of those that lay siege to the camp of the saints and the beloved city, Rev 20:9. The apprehensions of this cannot but put those into frights that eat up God's people. This enables the virgin, the daughter of Zion, to put them to shame, and expose them, because God has despised them, to laugh at them, because he that sits in heaven laughs at them. We need not look upon those enemies with fear whom God looks upon with contempt. If he despises them, we may. 8. The faith of the saints, and their hope and power touching the cure of this great evil, Psa 53:6. There will come a Saviour, a great salvation, a salvation from sin. Oh that it might be hastened! for it will bring in glorious and joyful times. There were those in the Old Testament times that looked and hoped, that prayed and waited, for this redemption. (1.) God will, in due time, save his church from the sinful malice of its enemies, which will bring joy to Jacob and Israel, that have long been in a mournful melancholy state. Such salvations were often wrought, and all typical of the everlasting triumphs of the glorious church. (2.) He will save all believers from their own iniquities, that they may not be led captive by them, which will be everlasting matter of joy to them. From this work the Redeemer had his name - Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, Mat 1:21.

Verse 1

Ps 53 This psalm parallels Ps 14, differing only in verse 5.

53:1-3 Paul uses the Greek translation of this passage in his description of the depravity of all people (Rom 3:10-12).

Verse 5

53:5 scatter the bones: Israel’s enemies would suffer shameful defeat and lack the peaceful rest of a decent burial (cp. 141:7; 2 Kgs 9:10; Jer 8:1-2; Ezek 6:5).