Psalms 58:3

The wicked are estranged from the womb,.... Which original corruption of nature accounts for all the wickedness done by men: they are conceived in sin, shapen in iniquity, and are transgressors from

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. The wicked are estranged from the womb. From his own personal enemies David passes to the innate corruption of the wicked in general.

Estranged, to wit, from God, , and from all goodness. From the womb; either, 1. Hyperbolically; even from their tender years. Or, 2. Strictly and properly. So the sense is, No wonder they act so unrighteously, for their very natures and principles are corrupt, even from their birth; they are the wicked offspring of sinful parents. And this hereditary and native corruption, though too common to all men, he particularly ascribes to these men; either because their immediate parents were such as did not only convey a corrupt nature to them, but greatly improved it by wicked counsel and example; or because they themselves had improved that stock of original corruption, and instead of mortifying it, had made it their great design and constant business to gratify and obey it. They go astray, by actual sins, the fruit of their original sin, as soon as they be born; from their childhood, as soon as ever they were capable of the exercise of reason, and the practice of sinning.

Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.Ver. 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb] q.d. These enemies of mine are old sinners; hardened and habituated in wickedness from the very womb; it hath also grown up with them, and quite turned away their hearts from God and goodness, whereunto they stand utterly across, and have an innate antipathy; they are not only averse thereto, but adverse also; yea, to their sinews of iron they have added brows of brass, Isaiah 48:4. Sinful, indeed, we are all by nature, and a birth blot we bring into the world with us, making us strangers to and strayers from God. But some God sanctifieth even from the womb, as he did Jeremiah; and some by the light of nature, not altogether extinct, and by God’ s restraining grace, are reined in from notorious outrage in sin. Whereas others, cast off by God, and suffered to walk after their own heart’ s lusts, in pesus indies proficiunt, wax every day worse and worse, as the apostle speaketh, till their iniquity be full, and so wrath come upon them to the utmost. But as young nettles sting straight, and young crab fish go backward, and young urchins are rough; so naughty nature soon appeareth in little ones. Valezatha, the youngest of Haman’ s sons, is by the Hebrews said to be the most malicious; and hath therefore one letter å in his name bigger than the rest. They go astray as soon as they be born] Heb. from the belly; Partus sequitur ventrem, no sooner could they do anything but they were doing evil, lisping out lies and slanders very early.

(3) The Wicked.—The poet passes from his indignant challenge to the unjust judges to speak of the wicked generally. He finds that such maturity of vice points to very early depravity. Such hardened sinners must have been cradled in wickedness.

Verse 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb] "This," says Dr. Kennicott, "and the next two verses, I take to be the answer of Jehovah to the question in the two first verses, as the 6th, 7th, and 8th, are the answer of the psalmist, and the remainder contains the decree of Jehovah." He calls these wicked men, men who had been always wicked, originally and naturally bad, and brought up in falsehood, flattery, and lying. The part they acted now was quite in character.

3–5. A description of the class to which these wicked judges belong; the deliberately wicked, who are deaf to remonstrance and incapable of reformation.

The wicked are estranged from the womb - The allusion here undoubtedly is to the persons principally referred to in the psalm - the enemies of David.

3. Estranged from the womb—Alienated from God and his righteousness from birth. The same doctrine of original or birth sinfulness is taught in the next member.