Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
PSALM 53 This psalm being almost identical with the fourteenth, it has not been considered necessary to subjoin any distinct commentary. Some slight differences will be found, on comparison, between this and the 14th psalm; the chief of which is in the 5th verse. For Calvin’s explanation of this verse, see volume 1, p. 199.
Commenting on Psalm 53:1-6
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? They have no wisdom, certainly, but even so common a thing as knowledge might have restrained them. Can they not see that there is a God? that sin is an evil thing? that persecution recoils upon a man's own head? Are they such utter fools as not to know that they are their own enemies, and are ruining themselves?
Sin springs from a corrupt thought: men say in their hearts there is no God to account for them, and their bad practices flow from this evil fountain. Atheists, whether in opinion or practice, are the greatest fools alive, for they deny the very faculty that distinguishes man from brute beasts, his capacity for religion.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 53:1-6