Psalm 58:2

2 (57-3) For in your heart you work iniquity: your hands forge injustice in the 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 (57-1) <Unto the end, destroy not, for David, for an inscription of a title.> (57-2) If in very deed ye speak justice: judge right things, ye sons of men.

2 (57-3) For in your heart you work iniquity: your hands forge injustice in the earth.

3 (57-4) The wicked are alienated from the womb; they have gone astray from the womb: they have spoken false things.

4 (57-5) Their madness is according to the likeness of a serpent: like the deaf asp that stoppeth her ears:

5 (57-6) Which will not hear the voice of the charmers; nor of the wizard that charmeth wisely.