Psalm 58:2

2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands ¹deal out violence on earth.

Psalm 58:2 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 58:2

Yea, in heart ye work wickedness
So far were they from speaking righteousness, and judging uprightly. The heart of man is wickedness itself; it is desperately wicked, and is the shop in which all wickedness is wrought; for sinful acts are committed there as well as by the tongue and hand, as follows. This phrase also denotes their sinning; not with precipitancy, and through surprise; but with premeditation and deliberation; and their doing it heartily, with good will, and with allowance, and their continuance and constant persisting in it;

ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth;
they were guilty of acts of violence and oppression, which, of all men, judges should not be guilty of; whose business it is to plead the cause of the injured and oppressed, to right their wrongs, and to protect and defend them: these they pretended to weigh in the balance of justice and equity, and committed them under a show of righteousness; they decreed unrighteous decrees, and framed mischief by a law; and this they did openly, and everywhere, throughout the whole land.

Psalm 58:2 In-Context

1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of man uprightly?

2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth.

3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear,

5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.

Cross References

• 1. 58:2 [Ps. 94:20]