Biblion Bible Commentary
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There Is No One Who Does Good
Psalms 53:1-6
1 For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Mahalath.” A contemplation by David. The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity. There is no one who does good. · WEB
The fourteenth psalm reappears with one verse rewritten, and the change is the reason it is here twice.
The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" Psalms 53:1.
This is the fourteenth psalm again, with small variations. The most obvious is the divine name: that version uses Yahweh throughout, this one uses God exclusively — a feature of the whole second book of the Psalter, which prefers the general name.
That two nearly identical psalms both stand in the collection is worth stating plainly. An editor tidying the book would have removed one. Whoever assembled the Psalter was preserving what circulated rather than producing a clean text, and the duplication is evidence of the collection's honesty about its own materials.
The verdict is unchanged and total. Every one of them has gone back. They have become filthy together. There is no one who does good, no, not one Psalms 53:3. Paul quotes the line as the summary of the human condition Romans 3:12, and it makes no exceptions for the person reading it.
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don't call on God? Psalms 53:4.
As in the earlier version, the practical atheism is measured by what it does to other people. Consuming the vulnerable is described as an ordinary meal — done without thought, as often as hunger arises.
There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you Psalms 53:5.
This is the verse that differs, and it differs completely. Where the fourteenth psalm said only that they were in great fear because God is in the generation of the righteous Psalms 14:5, this one adds two things: the fear was groundless — where no fear was — and an army has been destroyed, its bones scattered and unburied, which in that world was the final humiliation.
The rewriting suggests a specific occasion. Somewhere between the two versions a siege collapsed without a battle, and the psalm was adapted to fit. The most likely candidate is the night the Assyrian army outside Jerusalem was destroyed 2 Kings 19:35, where the same features appear: a besieging force, corpses in the morning, and no fighting.
Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! Psalms 53:6.
The closing wish is identical in both, and it is the right ending for a psalm that has just found nobody good. Whatever salvation is coming has to come from outside the survey.
held with reason What this mark means