Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary < PSALM 53
Ps 53:1-6. Upon Mahalath—(See on [595]Ps 88:1, title). Why this repetition of the fourteenth Psalm is given we do not know. 1-4. with few verbal changes, correspond with Ps 14:1-4. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. 5. Instead of assurances of God's presence with the pious, and a complaint of the wicked, Ps 14:5, 6 portrays the ruin of the latter, whose "bones" even "are scattered" (compare Ps 141:7), and who are put to shame as contemptuously rejected of God.
Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. |
