Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 53:4
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
4. God is the speaker. The first clause may be taken as in A.V., ‘Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?’ Are they so ignorant that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong? Cp. Psa 53:2, and Psa 82:5. But a much better connexion with Psa 53:5 is gained by rendering, Have not the workers of iniquity been made to know? i.e. taught by sharp experience to recognise their error. Then Psa 53:5 follows as an answer to the question, pointing to the plain white with the bones of Jerusalem’s besiegers. For this pregnant sense of know cp. Hos 9:7; Jdg 8:16 ( taught, lit. made to know).
who eat up &c.] The A.V. follows the Ancient Versions in understanding this to mean, ‘they devour my people as naturally as they take their daily food.’ And this they do without regard to God (in Psalms 14, Jehovah). Cp. for the phrase, Num 14:9, “the people of the land are bread for us”; Num 24:8; and for the fact, Isa 1:7; Jer 10:25; Jer 30:16; Hab 3:14; Psa 79:7. The reference to national deliverance in the following verse excludes (at any rate in this recension of the Ps.) the explanation of ‘my people’ as the godly few in Israel (Mic 2:9; Mic 3:3; Mic 3:5, and often in the prophets), and of ‘the workers of iniquity’ as the nobles who impoverished them by unjust extortions (Mic 3:1 ff; Isa 3:14 f; Pro 30:14).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
4, 5. The corruption of mankind exemplified in their treatment of God’s people; and His Providence demonstrated in the deliverance of them.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? – See the notes at Psa 14:4. The only change in this verse is in the omission of the word all. This word, as it occurs in Psa 14:1-7 (all the workers of iniquity), makes the sentence stronger and more emphatic. It is designed to affirm in the most absolute and unqualified manner that none of these workers of iniquity had any true knowledge of God. This has been noticed by critics as the only instance in which the expression in Psa 14:1-7 is stronger than in the revised form of the psalm before us.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. Have the workers of iniquity] For , poaley, workers seventy-two of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS., with several ancient editions, the Chaldee, though not noticed in the Latin translation in the London Polyglot, the Syriac, Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, and the Arabic, with the Anglo-Saxon, add the word col, all, – ALL the workers of iniquity; which is the reading in the parallel place in Ps 14:3-4. It may be necessary to observe, that the Chaldee, in the Antwerp and Paris Polyglots, and in that of Justinianus, has not the word col, ALL.
Have not called upon God] Elohim; but many MSS. have Jehovah, LORD.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?…. In
Ps 14:4, it is, “have all the workers”, c. There are none of them but what have, unless given up to judicial blindness, and hardness of heart, to believe a lie, as antichrist and his followers, 2Th 2:10
[See comments on Ps 14:4];
who eat up my people, [as] they eat bread; and drink their blood, and are drunken with it, Re 17:6;
they have not called upon God; but upon their idols, upon the Virgin Mary, and saints departed. In Ps 14:4, it is, “upon the Lord”.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Here in the first line the word , which, as in Psa 5:6; Psa 6:9, is in its right place, is wanting. In Psa 14:1-7 there then follow, instead of two tristichs, two distichs, which are perhaps each mutilated by the loss of a line. The writer who has retouched the Psalm has restored the tristichic symmetry that had been lost sight of, but he has adopted rather violent means: inasmuch as he has fused down the two distichs into a single tristich, which is as closely as possible adapted to the sound of their letters.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(4) Notice the omission of the expressive all found in Psalms 14
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
God Expresses His Surprise At The Inability Of The Nations To Recognise That Israel/Judah Are His People ( Psa 53:4 )
Psa 53:4
‘Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on God?’
God is perplexed at the folly of men. He cannot believe that they are so lacking in wisdom and common sense. Do they have no knowledge and understanding? Do they not recognise that those who are in covenant with Him are His people? They neither call on God nor treat well those who do truly call on Him.
The fact that they do not call on God, that is on YHWH (Psa 14:5), would appear to point to foreign nations. They ‘eat up My people as they eat bread’. ‘My people’ must refer here to Israel/Judah, but especially to those who truly call on Him, the faithful in Israel (Mic 2:9; Mic 3:5). For while ‘my people’ is used of Israel as a whole it is always with the understanding that they are potentially responding to the covenant. Those who fail to do so in the end cease to be ‘His people’. They are then seen as combined with the enemy (this is made clear in the Book of Ezra). Devouring or eating up His people refers both to depriving them of their possessions, devouring their wealth, and to oppressing them, giving them a hard time and even doing violence to them (compare Mic 3:1-3; Isa 3:14-15; Ezra 4-5). So the world is seen as in deliberate antagonism against God, and against true righteousness as personified in His true people.
‘The workers of iniquity’ are thus those who deliberately continue in the way of sin having refused to become one of His people. They have turned away from the covenant. They are not necessarily great sinners as the world would view it, but they are from God’s viewpoint, because they fail to truly respond to Him.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 53:4 Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
Ver. 4. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? ] Etiam scient in fine, et dolebunt, saith one, Know they shall, to their sorrow, in the end, that they have eaten that on earth which they must digest in hell.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the workers. Some codices, with two early printed editions, Aramaean, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read “all the workers”.
iniquity. Hebrew. ‘avah. App-44.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Have: Here 70 manuscripts, several editions, and the ancient versions add kol, “all,” as in Psa 14:1-7. Psa 94:8, Isa 27:11, Jer 4:22, Mat 23:17-39
who eat: Psa 27:2, Jer 10:25, Rev 17:16
Reciprocal: Lev 13:29 – General Psa 54:3 – they have Psa 79:6 – not called Psa 82:5 – know not Psa 119:139 – because Mic 3:2 – pluck Rom 3:11 – none that understandeth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
53:4 Have the {d} workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
(d) David pronounces God’s vengeance against cruel governors who having charge to defend and preserve God’s people, cruelly devour them.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. Anticipation of judgment 53:4-5
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
David expressed amazement that those who disregard God would take advantage of His chosen people and would not even pray to Him.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The psalmist may have had some specific instance of God’s deliverance in mind, or he may have spoken of His future judgment as having already taken place because of its certainty. God Himself would terrorize and shame His enemies. Evidently David saw God’s people as playing some role in their enemies’ defeat.