Psalms 53 The Fool Denies God

Upon mahalath--(see on ps 88:1, title). Why this repetition of the fourteenth psalm is given we do not know

¹The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. ²God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. ³Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. ⁴Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God. ⁵There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them. ⁶Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Psalms 53:1-6 · KJV

1-4

with few verbal changes, correspond with Ps 14:1-4.

5

Instead of assurances of God's presence with the pious, and a complaint of the wicked, Ps 14:5, 6 portrays the ruin of the latter, whose "bones" even "are scattered" (compare Ps 141:7), and who are put to shame as contemptuously rejected of God.