"To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror,
where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad."
Psalm 53
This Psalm is virtually a repetition of Psalm 14, apart from a variation of some words, and a change in 5 (see Psalm14:5, 6). For an exposition of the earlier Psalm the Notes for Psalm 14 should be consulted. One of the lessons we may learn from this Psalm occurring twice in the Psalter is to show us how what is expressed in 14:5, 6 becomes a reality in a particular situation. Scholars suggest that the reference in Psalm 53 is to the time when Sennacherib's armies were encamped against Jerusalem (Isaiah 37:6,
7). If so, it is an indication of how the word of God should be used to apply to our own particular burdens and crises. What God did once, He can do again. This is the message of hope and encouragement that the Psalm teaches. The change in 5 (from the earlier Psalm, 14:5, 6) may be taken as part of the prophetic vision of the Psalmist, representing the reaction of the ungodly at the intervention of the Spirit of God. It describes some sudden, causeless panic among the enemy, with God moving in power against them. The Psalmist can then say to the righteous 'thou hast put them to shame, for God has despised them'. Then, in 6, we have the longing and prayer that what God had given him in vision might become fact and reality. This then is the great message of the Psalm: God does look down to intervene; He has
intervened in the past in answer to the cries of His people - 5 tells us what happened in the history of Israel; and God will intervene today. We may look for Him to do so and expect Him to do so.