Psalm 53:2

The Hebrew word for fool, nâbâl, describes a person’s moral and spiritual character, whatever his intelligence. The nâbâl lacks reverence for God, lives as though he answers to nobody above him, and so acts wickedly and senselessly. His folly is a choice he has made about God, and it shapes everything he does. Proverbs puts the opposite at the root of all true knowledge: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7).

He says this “in his heart”. The verb ʼâmar is the ordinary word for saying, and it can also mean to think, so to say something in the heart is to tell it to yourself. The heart, lêb, is in Hebrew thought the seat of the mind, the will and the feelings together, which puts this denial at the centre of the man. What he tells himself is “There is no God”. The word for God, ʼĕlôhîym, is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is read as a plural of majesty and usually takes a singular verb.

In Scripture this denial is rarely a reasoned philosophy. It is practical atheism, a life lived as if God were absent or as if his commands were irrelevant to daily life. A person can grant that God exists and still live this way, putting his own will and wishes in the place that belongs to God. That is why the verse searches believers as well. Our priorities and choices show whether we live before God or as though he were far away.

“God looked down from heaven upon the children of men.” The verb shâqaph means to look down from a height, and its root sense is to lean out, the posture of someone who looks on purpose. He looks from heaven, shâmayim, his dwelling, and Scripture speaks of him in human terms so that we can grasp how closely he attends to us. The same scene stands in Psalm 14:2. Scripture shows God inspecting mankind in this way before he acts. At Babel “the LORD came down to see the city and the tower” (Genesis 11:5), and before the flood he saw that the wickedness of man was great, and it grieved him at his heart (Genesis 6:5–6). Proverbs says it of every place and every day: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

“The children of men” is literally the sons, bên, of man, ʼâdâm. It means the whole human race, every nation and every person, Israel included.

The verdict in verse 3 covers “every one of them”, the whole human race, the fools of verse 1 among them. “Gone back” is çûwg, to flinch or go back, literally to retreat. Used of a person’s walk with God it means to slide back or go astray, a gradual loss of loyalty toward him.

“They are altogether become filthy.” yachad means together, both or alike, so all of them alike have gone bad. The word for filthy, ʼâlach, means to become corrupt, like something that has spoiled. It describes the person himself gone bad, and his deeds come from that. Jeremiah says the same of the heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The verse ends by repeating the close of verse 1 and sealing it: “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” The word for one, ʼechâd, shuts out every exception, and saying both “none” and “not one” makes the point twice.

The good meant here, ṭôwb, is goodness in God’s sight: what is right and pleasing to him because it comes from a heart that loves and honours him. Kindness, generosity and honesty are still found among people who reject God, and the psalm leaves those standing. What it denies is that anyone, by his own efforts, reaches the righteousness that God’s holy standard requires. Sin taints even our best deeds with self-interest and pride, which is why Isaiah confesses, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), and Paul writes, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Psalm 53 and Psalm 14 say almost the same thing in almost the same words, and the opening verse of each is nearly identical to the other (Psalm 14:1–3 beside these three verses). The two differ in small details of wording, mostly in their later verses, so they are two related psalms, each with its own place in the Psalter. Scripture leaves the reason for the repetition unstated. Both may come from one earlier saying, shaped for different settings in Israel’s worship. Whatever the history, the repetition presses home how lasting and how universal this diagnosis is.

The heading of Psalm 53 gives its use in worship. “To the chief Musician”, nâtsach, hands it to the leader of the singing. “Upon Mahalath”, machălath, probably names the tune or the instrument. “Maschil”, maskîyl, marks it as a psalm of instruction, meant to make its hearers wise, and the psalm is “of David”, Dâvid. That fits its subject, because it sets the wisdom that begins with God against the folly that leaves him out.

Paul builds his case that all are under sin on words like these. In Romans 3:10–12 he quotes the Old Testament, with phrases close to the opening of Psalm 53, to make one charge: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” He carries the charge on through Romans 3:10–18, and the chapter as a whole moves from that verdict to God’s grace. The psalm’s bleak verdict is the ground on which the gospel stands, because salvation has to come from outside us.

God looked for a man who understood and sought him, and in Jesus Christ there is one. Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). From his earliest days he was about his Father’s business (Luke 2:49), and he did good to the end. Where mankind was blind to God, Christ is the light of the world (John 8:12) and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and he has made the Father known (John 1:18).

He came into this corrupt world to redeem it. As the Lamb of God he takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and his death deals with the “abominable iniquity” of verse 1 and the filthiness of verse 3. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). His righteousness is counted to everyone who believes, and his Spirit gives new hearts that come to know God (John 17:3) and seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Those who were once fools in their hearts become new creations, created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Ephesians 2:10), a people zealous of good works (Titus 2:14). In him the “none that doeth good” of this psalm meets its answer.

These verses take away every claim we might make to goodness of our own, and that is a kindness, because it is the empty-handed who receive the righteousness God gives in Christ. Any good that we do in his sight is his work in us, and it leads to gratitude.

The same God still looks down on the children of men, and he still looks for those who understand and seek him. The fool’s thought, “There is no God”, can hide even in a believing heart when we live our days as if he were away. The answer is to keep seeking him, and he has promised to be found by those who search for him with all their heart.