4Have the workers of wickedness no knowledge,
Who eat up My people as though they ate bread
And have not called upon God? 5There they were in great fear where no fear had been;
For God scattered the bones of him who encamped against you;
You put them to shame, because God had rejected them. 6Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores His captive people,
Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Have the workers of wickedness no knowledge, Who eat up My people as though they ate bread And have not called upon God?GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Are all those troublemakers, those who devour my people as if they were devouring food, so ignorant that they do not call on God? King James Bible
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God. Douay-Rheims Bible
Shall not all the workers of iniquity know, who eat up my people as they eat bread? Darby Bible Translation
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, eating up my people as they eat bread? they call not upon God. English Revised Version
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon God. Webster's Bible Translation
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread! they have not called upon God. World English Bible
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don't call on God? Young's Literal Translation
Have not workers of iniquity known, Those eating my people have eaten bread, God they have not called.
Psalm 59:2 Deliver me from those who do iniquity And save me from men of bloodshed.
Psalm 79:6 Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not know You, And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your name.
Psalm 79:7 For they have devoured Jacob And laid waste his habitation.
Jeremiah 4:22 "For My people are foolish, They know Me not; They are stupid children And have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, But to do good they do not know."
Micah 3:2 "You who hate good and love evil, Who tear off their skin from them And their flesh from their bones,
Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary PSALM 53 God speaks once, yea, twice, and it were well if man would even then perceive it; God, in this psalm, speaks twice, for this is the same almost verbatim with the fourteenth psalm. The scope of it is to convince us of our sins, to set us a blushing and trembling because of them; and this is what we are with so much difficulty brought to that there is need of line upon line to this purport. The word, as a convincing word, is compared to a hammer, the strokes whereof must be frequently repeated. God, by the psalmist here, I. Shows us how bad we are (v. 1). II. Proves it upon us by his own certain knowledge (v. 2, 3). III. He speaks terror to persecutors, the worst of sinners (v. 4, 5). IV. He speaks encouragement to God's persecuted people (v. 6). Some little variation there is between Ps. 14 and this, but none considerable, only between v. 5, 6, there, and v. 5 here; some expressions there used are here left out, concerning the shame which the wicked put upon God's people, and instead of that, is here foretold the shame which God would put upon the wicked, which alteration, with some others, he made by divine direction when he delivered it the second time to the chief musician. In singing it we ought to lament the corruption of the human nature, and the wretched degeneracy of the world we live in, yet rejoicing in hope of the great salvation. To the chief musician upon Mahalath, Maschil. A psalm of David. Verses 1-6 This psalm was opened before, and therefore we shall here only observe, in short, some things concerning sin, in order to the increasing of our sorrow for it and hatred of it. 1. The fact of sin. Is that proved? Can the charge be made out? Yes, God is a witness to it, an unexceptionable witness: from the place of his holiness he looks on the children of men, and sees how little good there is among them, v. 2. All the sinfulness of their hearts and lives in naked and open before him. 2. The fault of sin. Is there any harm in it? Yes, it is iniquity (v. 1, 4); it is an unrighteous thing; it is that which there is no good in (v. 1, 3); it is an evil thing; it is the worst of evils; it is that which makes this world such an evil world as it is; it is going back from God, v. 3. 3. The fountain of sin. How comes it that men are so bad? Surely it is because there is no fear of God before their eyes: they say in their hearts, "There is no God at all to call us to an account, none that we need to stand in awe of." Men's bad practices flow from their bad principles; if they profess to know God, yet in works, because in thoughts, they deny him. 4. The folly of sin. He is a fool (in the account of God, whose judgment we are sure is right) that harbours such corrupt thoughts. Atheists, whether in opinion or practice, are the greatest fools in the world. Those that do not seek God do not understand; they are like brute-beasts that have no understanding; for man is distinguished from the brutes, not so much by the powers of reason as by a capacity for religion. The workers of iniquity, whatever they pretend to, have no knowledge; those may truly be said to know nothing that do not know God, v. 4. 5. The filthiness of sin. Sinners are corrupt (v. 1); their nature is vitiated and spoiled, and the more noble the nature is the more vile it is when it is depraved, as that of the angels. Corruptio optimi est pessima-The best things, when corrupted, become the worst. Their iniquity is abominable; it is odious to the holy God, and it renders them so; whereas otherwise he hates nothing that he has made. It makes men filthy, altogether filthy. Wilful sinners are offensive in the nostrils of the God of heaven and of the holy angels. What decency soever proud sinners pretend to, it is certain that wickedness is the greatest defilement in the world. 6. The fruit of sin. See to what a degree of barbarity it brings men at last; when men's hearts are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin see their cruelty to their brethren, that are bone of their bone-because they will not run with them to the same excess of riot, they eat them up as they eat bread; as if they had not only become beasts, but beasts of prey. And see their contempt of God at the same time. They have not called upon him, but scorn to be beholden to him. 7. The fear and shame that attend sin (v. 5): There were those in great fear who had made God their enemy; their own guilty consciences frightened them, and filled them with horror, though otherwise there was no apparent cause of fear. The wicked flees when none pursues. See the ground of this fear; it is because God has formerly scattered the bones of those that encamped against his people, not only broken their power and dispersed their forces, but slain them, and reduced their bodies to dry bones, like those scattered at the grave's mouth, Ps. 141:7. Such will be the fate of those that lay siege to the camp of the saints and the beloved city, Rev. 20:9. The apprehensions of this cannot but put those into frights that eat up God's people. This enables the virgin, the daughter of Zion, to put them to shame, and expose them, because God has despised them, to laugh at them, because he that sits in heaven laughs at them. We need not look upon those enemies with fear whom God looks upon with contempt. If he despises them, we may. 8. The faith of the saints, and their hope and power touching the cure of this great evil, v. 6. There will come a Saviour, a great salvation, a salvation from sin. Oh that it might be hastened! for it will bring in glorious and joyful times. There were those in the Old-Testament times that looked and hoped, that prayed and waited, for this redemption. (1.) God will, in due time, save his church from the sinful malice of its enemies, which will bring joy to Jacob and Israel, that have long been in a mournful melancholy state. Such salvations were often wrought, and all typical of the everlasting triumphs of the glorious church. (2.) He will save all believers from their own iniquities, that they may not be led captive by them, which will be everlasting matter of joy to them. From this work the Redeemer had his name-Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, Mt. 1:21. Calvin's Commentary 1. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God: they have become corrupt, they have done abominable works: there is none that doeth good. 2. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. 3. Every one of them has gone back; they have together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? eating my people as they eat bread: [286] they have not called upon God. 5. There 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. 6. Who shall give the salvation of Israel out of Zion? When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, [287] Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall triumph. Footnotes: [286] "C'est, n'en font non plus de conscience, que de manger un morceau de pain." -- Fr. marg. "That is, they have no more scruple in doing this than in eating a morsel of bread." [287] "C'est, son peuple captif." -- Fr. marg. "That is, his captive people." Footnotes: [284] 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 [12]volume 1, p. 199. It is not easy to say whether these variations are owing to transcribers, or whether they were made by some prophetic bard, who, during some afflictive period of Jewish history, adapted the 14th psalm, by a few alterations, to circumstances different from those for which it was originally composed. Theodoret is of this last opinion, and refers it to the alarm created by Sennacherib's invasion under the reign of Hezekiah; others think it was written during the captivity -- a conjecture which is founded on the last verse, "O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" [285] What mhlt, mahalath, signifies, in the title of this and the 88th psalm, must be uncertain, the word not being found elsewhere. It is most probably the name of an instrument on which the psalm was to be sung; and it may fitly be deduced from chll, perforavit, or incidit, either from the hollowness of the instrument, or farther, from the holes cut in it; in which respect chlyl is ordinarily used for fistula, or tibia, a pipe." -- Hammond
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Ate Bread Devour Eat Eating Evil Evildoers Food Iniquity Learn Prayer Understanding Wickedness Work Workers New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org. GOD'S WORD® is a copyrighted work of God's Word to the Nations. Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. All rights reserved. Alphabetical: and as ate bread call called devour do eat evildoers God Have knowledge learn men my never no not of on people the they those though up upon who wickedness Will workers Bible Browser | |
Huss and Jerome
The gospel had been planted in Bohemia as early as the ninth century. The Bible was translated, and public worship was conducted, in the language of the people. But as the power of the pope increased, so the word of God was obscured. Gregory VII, who had taken it upon himself to humble the pride of kings, was no less intent upon enslaving the people, and accordingly a bull was issued forbidding public worship to be conducted in the Bohemian tongue. The pope declared that "it was pleasing to the Omnipotent …
Ellen Gould White—The Great ControversyHow the Rude in Sacred Learning, and those who are Learned but not Humble, are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 25.) Differently to be admonished are those who do not understand aright the words of the sacred Law, and those who understand them indeed aright, but speak them not humbly. For those who understand not aright the words of sacred Law are to be admonished to consider that they turn for themselves a most wholesome drought of wine into a cup of poison, and with a medicinal knife inflict on themselves a mortal wound, when they destroy in themselves what was sound by that whereby they ought, …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament |
