PSALMS 52      Other translations  -  previous  -  next  -  meaning  -  Psalms  -  BM Home  -  Full Page

PSALM 52

To him that presides; an instructive Psalm of David, when Doeg, the Edomite came and told Saul, and said to him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech.

1. Why do you glory in wickedness, you mighty man? The mercy of god is continual.
2. Your tongue devises mischief, like a sharp razor, working deceit.
3. You love evil more than good, lying more than speaking justice. Selah.
4. You love all destructive words, O deceitful tongue.
5. Therefore god shall destroy you for ever; he shall seize upon you and pluck you out of the tent, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah.
6. And the just shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying:
7. Behold the man that made not god his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches; who was strong by his mischief.
8. But as for me I am like a green olive tree in the house of god; I trust in the mercy of god for ever and ever.
9. I will praise you because you have done it; and I will hope in your name, for it is good before your saints.

exposition. Verses 2, 3, 4. Your tongue devises mischief like a sharp razor, working deceit, etc. Deceit signifies malice grounded in the will with previous thought or premeditation. Evils are done either from enmity, or from hatred, or from revenge, and either by deceit or without deceit; but evils by deceit are the worst, because deceit is as poison which infects and destroys with infernal venom, for it goes through the whole mind, even to its interiors; the reason is because he who is in deceit, meditates evil, and thereby nourishes his understanding, and delights it, and thus destroys every thing therein which is of man, that is, which is of life derived from the good of faith and charity. They who in the world have ensnared a neighbour by deceit as to worldly and terrestrial things, in the other life ensnare him by deceit as to spiritual and celestial things; and inasmuch as they do this in secret, they are committed to hells behind the back, at a depth according to the malignity and mischievousness of the deceit. AC 9013.

Verse 5. He shall pluck you out of the tent, and root you out of the land of the Living. This was said of Doeg the Edomite; that he was expelled from every good of the church, is signified by his being plucked out of the tent; that he was also expelled from the truths of the church, is signified by his being rooted out of the land of the living; earth is the church and they are said to be living, who are in truths derived from good. AE 799.

Verse 7. I am like a green olive tree in the house of god ; I trust in the mercy of god for ever and ever. It is said, as a green olive tree in the house of god, because by a green olive tree is signified the good of love springing up by the truth of the Word, and by the house of god is signified the church. AE 638.

The Translator's Notes and Observations

Verse 6. He became strong by his mischief. What is here rendered mischief is called wickedness in the received English version of the Psalms, but in the original Hebrew it is expressed by a term which rather means the consequence of wickedness, which consequence is the total ruin and desolation of all the principles of goodness and truth, in which mischief man is here said to become strong, because it appears to him that goodness and truth are weakness, and that he becomes strong in proportion as he cherishes in himself the opposite principles of evil and error.