Psalms 52:3

3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth. [Selah]

Psalms 52:3 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 52:3

Thou lovest evil more than good
Indeed not good at all; such comparatives being strong negatives; see ( Psalms 118:8 Psalms 118:9 ) ; a wicked man loves evil, and nothing else; his carnal mind being enmity to all that is good

[and] lying rather than to speak righteousness;
as appears by his affirming that Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for David, when he did not, ( 1 Samuel 22:10 1 Samuel 22:15 ) ; and by suffering some things to pass for truths which were falsehoods, when it lay in his power to have disproved them: and such a lover of lies is antichrist; see ( 1 Timothy 4:2 ) ( 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ) .

Selah; on this word, (See Gill on Psalms 3:2). The Targum renders the word "Selah" here "for ever", as in ( Psalms 52:5 ) .

Psalms 52:3 In-Context

1 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, "David has come to the house of Ahimelech." Why do you boast, O mighty man, of mischief done against the godly? All the day
2 you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery.
3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth. [Selah]
4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.
5 But God will break you down for ever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. [Selah]
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.