Psalm 53:1

The Folly of the Godless and Salvation for Israel

For the [music] director, according to Mahalath. A maskil of David.

1 [The] fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt and they have done abominable iniquity. There is none who does good.

Psalm 53:1 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 53:1

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, ( Genesis 6:12 ) ;

and have done abominable iniquity;
iniquity is the abominable thing that God hates, and makes men abominable in his sight; in ( Psalms 11:1 ) , it is read, "abominable worlds": the Targum paraphrases the words, "they are far from good, for iniquity is found in them"; see ( Revelation 21:8 Revelation 21:27 ) ;

[there is] none that doeth good; (See Gill on Psalms 14:1).

Psalm 53:1 In-Context

1 [The] fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt and they have done abominable iniquity. There is none who does good.

2 God looks down from heaven upon the children of humankind to see whether there is one who has insight, one who seeks God.

3 {All of them} have turned back. They are altogether corrupt. There is none who does good; there is not even one.

4 Do not evildoers know, [they] who eat my people [as though] they were eating bread? They do not call on God.

5 There {they are very fearful} [where] no fear had been, because God has scattered the bones of him who encamps [against] you. You have put [them] to shame, because God has rejected them.

Footnotes

• [a] The Hebrew Bible counts the superscription as the first verse of the psalm; the English verse number is reduced by one