For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David.

1 The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

2 God looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.

4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on God.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    where there was nothing to dread.
God scattered the bones of those who attacked you;
    you put them to shame, for God despised them.

6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When God restores his people,
    let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

I think it is in one of Dostoyevsky’s novels that a character exclaims, ‘If God is dead, then everything is permissible.’ The ultimate in sin is to live without reference to God. It is to disbelieve in Him (or say you don’t believe) and then act accordingly. Bad believing leads to bad living. This point is underlined in Psalm 53. Bad theology has practical consequences. Wrong believing does not produce the fruit of right living.

Psalm 53 paints a picture of practical atheists who think they can live as they like and get away with it. They believe they are accountable to no-one, and so they persecute and oppress the people of God. David shows how wrongheaded they are.

Here is Eugene Peterson’s vividly fresh rendering of this psalm:

Bilious and bloated, they gas,
    “God is gone.”
It’s poison gas—
    they foul themselves, they poison
Rivers and skies;
    thistles are their cash crop.
God sticks his head out of heaven.
    He looks around.
He’s looking for someone not stupid—
    one man, even, God-expectant,
    just one God-ready woman.

3 He comes up empty. A string
    of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
    to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
    follow the one.

4 Don’t they know anything,
    all these predators?
Don’t they know
    they can’t get away with this,
Treating people like a fast-food meal
    over which they’re too busy to pray?

5 Night is coming for them, and nightmare—
    a nightmare they’ll never wake up from.
God will make hash of these squatters,
    send them packing for good.

6 Is there anyone around to save Israel?
    God turns life around.
Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
    turned-around Israel sings laughter.