In the early days of their marriage, a dear friend’s husband went off to a two-day conference to another city without telling his wife. He had been a bachelor for so long that he simply forgot he was married. It was only at the airport, when my friend called him wondering if he was working late, that he realised that he had behaved as if his wife did not exist. While the incident makes for a funny, even endearing story (he is devoted to her), our psalm deals with an attitude that is not just forgetfulness but a deliberate choice to live as if God did not exist. But what happens when someone excludes God from their life?

Stark choices

For those who do not want the moral accountability, the absence of God may feel like relief and freedom, at least initially. The psalm, however, describes the choice that fools make and its dire consequences in black-and-white terms, a typical feature of wisdom literature (a genre that teaches about wise living).[1] While such language packs a punch by being so extreme, it can also make it more difficult for us to recognise our own lives in it, so it is worth keeping in mind that real life may look to us much less clear-cut with shades of grey, but the psalm focuses on the ultimate spiritual reality.

Moral chaos

The fool then makes a deliberate and considered decision (the heart is the centre of the mind and will in the OT) to live without reference to God and His will (Ps 53:1). This is not a theoretical denial of God’s existence, but a practical atheism. Such people may still talk about God but arrange their lives as if God were absent. The result is not only that these people are corrupt themselves, but that they corrupt (ruin, spoil, and destroy) what is around them (the sense of the Hebrew; the same word is used in Gen 6:11-12). They commit abominations,[2] a word that often describes immoral sexual practices and idolatry (Lev 18:1-30 esp. vv.29-30; Deut 7:25-26). Such a life leads to moral chaos individually (no one does good; Ps 53:3), as well as collectively (‘together’, v.3) as a society.

Lack of discernment

Ironically, the God, who is seemingly absent, looks down from heaven and sees (Ps 53:2), and His assessment is that there is no one who understands (v.2) or who has knowledge (Ps 53:4). What is missing is not some theoretical or intellectual knowing, but practical discernment that comes from seeking God (v.2) and from living in His presence. When people turn aside from God (v.3), they become spiritually insensitive and, as Paul puts it, their understanding is darkened (Rom 1:21-25). In fact, such people are so unaware of the realities that they consume God’s own people and do it as unthinkingly and habitually as one eats bread (Ps 53:4). In other words, they use and take advantage of others for their own benefit and destroy them in the process. Such action is as foolish as entering the lion’s den and stealing his cubs for dinner all the while thinking that the lion won’t know or care! When God intervenes on behalf of His own, then great dread comes on such people unexpectedly (where no fear had been – Ps 53:5). The language suddenly turns military with the adversary encamping around God’s people, which ends in the enemy’s shameful death without burial.[3] Those who call on God for deliverance will find that He is indeed present in the world (Ps 53:6).

Orientating our lives towards God

It is not hard to see in this psalm people who vocally oppose God and despise Christians, or secular societies of the West more generally. Nevertheless, it is a temptation we all face to live our lives without reference to God even when we talk about Him. The language may seem extreme to us (does really no one do good?) but unless we orientate our lives towards God, even our best acts will be tainted by selfish motivations (c.f. Isa 64:6) and we won’t even realise it. Despite appearances, God is present, and He sees. What seems an attractive choice of leaving God behind will end in rejection and destruction and what seems like futile hope for help from God will not disappoint. May our hope and the centre of our life be God Himself who saves.

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[1] Wisdom literature is a scholarly term that describes certain books of the Bible and some psalms and there are comparable examples of this genre in other ancient Near Eastern countries. This type of literature uses pithy sayings to sum up the ways of wise and foolish living (Proverbs), reflects on the meaning of life (Ecclesiastes) or asks questions like why we suffer (Job). It typically uses examples from the natural world (e.g. ‘go to the ant, you sluggard’, Prov 6:6), from observation and experience, rather than by appealing explicitly to Israel’s covenant relationship with God and His revelation through His Word. It also divides the myriad options in life into two ways, the path of wisdom and of foolishness or that of the righteous and the wicked.

[2] The NASB supplies ‘injustice’ in v.1, but this is not in the Hebrew. Presumably the translators made that association because of the reference to consuming God’s people in Ps 53:4.

[3] Some see in this military imagery an allusion to the attack on Jerusalem by Sennacherib who boasted against God (2 Kings 19:20-28, 35-37). That event is certainly a good example of such haughty unconcern for Israel’s God, but the psalm is general enough to allow for a number of different examples.

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For Interest – Psalms 14 & 53

Did you know that Psalm 14:1-7 is essentially the same as Psalm 53? This duplication is because the Psalter, much like our various hymnbooks today, originally consisted of smaller collections that were compiled into the Book of Psalms. We all know praise songs that exist in more than one version today and something similar is going on here. Nevertheless, it is significant that the editor of the book did not drop one version but kept both. It emphasises the importance of these psalms’ message.

Most of the changes are minor variations in these two psalms with two exceptions. Psalm 14 uses LORD (Yahweh) in a number of places, whereas Psalm 53 has the more generic God (Elohim) throughout. Scholars argue that Psalm 53 was part of a collection that preferred the name Elohim (the Elohistic Psalter from Pss 42-83). More importantly, though, Yahweh was the special name revealed to Israel, so its use in Psalm 14 suggests that the fools who negate the presence of God are of God’s people.  

The second significant change is in Psalm 14:5-6, which diverges from Ps 53:5 (see below).

Ps 14:5-6	Ps 53:5
There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation. 6 You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge.	There they were in great fear [lit. dread] where no fear [dread] had been; For God scattered the bones of him who encamped against you; You put them to shame, because God had rejected them.

Psalm 14 gives the impression that it talks about two groups within Israel. The wicked who do not call upon Yahweh (NASB forgot to capitalise LORD, but the Hebrew is Yahweh; Ps 14:4) and the righteous (Ps 14:5) who are being afflicted by them. By contrast, Psalm 53 with its generic Elohim throughout and the image of a besieging army suggests an outside force, i.e. a non-Israelite enemy. Additionally, Psalm 14 has a stronger focus on hope for those in trouble who find refuge in Him, whereas Psalm 53 stresses the ultimate end of those who live without God.

Interestingly, Paul quotes from these psalms in Rom 3:9-11 and affirms that both Jews and Gentiles (the sense of ‘Greek’ here) are all under sin. If the above argument that one psalm focuses on people within Israel and the other on outsiders is correct, then Paul’s use of the quotation to stress the sinfulness of both Jews and Gentiles makes good sense.

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