Psalm 52:3

Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

52:1-5 Those that glory in sin, glory in their shame. The patience and forbearance of God are abused by sinners, to the hardening of their hearts in their wicked ways. But the enemies in vain boast in their mischief, while we have God's mercy to trust in. It will not save us from the guilt of lying, to be able to say, there was some truth in what we said, if we make it appear otherwise than it was. The more there is of craft and contrivance in any wickedness, the more there is of Satan in it. When good men die, they are transplanted from the land of the living on earth, to heaven, the garden of the Lord, where they shall take root for ever; but when wicked men die, they are rooted out, to perish for ever. The believer sees that God will destroy those who make not him their strength.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou lovest evil more than good - Thou dost prefer to do injury to others, rather than to do them good. In the case referred to, instead of aiding the innocent, the persecuted, and the wronged, he had attempted to reveal the place where he might be found, and where an enraged enemy might have an opportunity of wreaking his vengeance upon him.

And lying rather than to speak righteousness - He preferred a lie to the truth; and, when he supposed that his own interest would be subserved by it, he preferred a falsehood that would promote that interest, rather than a simple statement of the truth. The "lying" in this case was that which was "implied" in his being desirous of giving up David, or betraying him to Saul - as if David was a bad man, and as if the suspicions of Saul were wellfounded. He preferred to give his countenance to a falsehood in regard to him, rather than to state the exact truth in reference to his character. His conduct in this was strongly in contrast with that of Ahimelech, who, when arraigned before Saul, declared his belief that David was innocent; his firm conviction that David was true and loyal. "For" that fidelity he lost his life, 1 Samuel 22:14. Doeg was willing to lend countenance to the suspicions of Saul, and practically to represent David as a traitor to the king. The word "Selah" here is doubtless a mere musical pause. See the notes at Psalm 3:2. It determines nothing in regard to the sense of the passage.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. tongue—for self.

mischiefs—evil to others (Ps 5:9; 38:12).

working deceitfully—(Ps 10:7), as a keen, smoothly moving razor, cutting quietly, but deeply.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Evil and

good may be here taken, either,

1. Morally; Thou lovest wickedness and not goodness; for so comparative passages are oft meant, as Psalm 118:8, It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man, i.e. It is good to trust God, but it is not good to trust man; for this is absolutely forbidden, Psalm 146:3 Jeremiah 17:5. Or,

2. Physically. Thou lovest to speak or act to the hurt and ruin of others, rather than to their benefit. Thou mightest, without any danger to thyself, have been silent concerning Ahimelech’s fact, or have put a favourable construction upon it; but thou hast chosen rather to misrepresent and aggravate it. He saith,

thou lovest, to imply that he did this not by any constraint or necessity, but by choice, and with complacency, and out of a love to mischief.

Lying, whereof Doeg was guilty, partly in reporting that he (i.e. Ahimelech) inquired of the Lord for him, (David,) 1 Samuel 22:10, which he did not, 1 Samuel 21, where all that history is recorded; and partly in putting a false interpretation upon what he did, in giving him victuals and a sword, as if he had done it knowingly, and in conspiracy with David, and against Saul, as appears by comparing Doeg’s answer with Saul’s inquiry, 1 Samuel 22:7,8.

Righteousness, i.e. the whole and naked truth, without any such lying or malicious comment upon it, which was but an act of justice due from thee to any man, and much more on the behalf of so innocent and sacred a person.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou lovest evil more than good,.... Indeed not good at all; such comparatives being strong negatives; see Psalm 118:8; a wicked man loves evil, and nothing else; his carnal mind being enmity to all that is good

and lying rather than to speak righteousness; as appears by his affirming that Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for David, when he did not, 1 Samuel 22:10; and by suffering some things to pass for truths which were falsehoods, when it lay in his power to have disproved them: and such a lover of lies is antichrist; see 1 Timothy 4:2.

Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psalm 3:2. The Targum renders the word "Selah" here "for ever", as in Psalm 52:5.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. evil more than good] Evil rather than good, evil and not good. The meaning is not merely that he has a preference for evil, but that he chooses evil instead of good, like the nobles censured in Micah 3:2, “who hate the good and love the evil.”

righteousness] Not merely truth, but truth regarded as promoting and securing justice. The aim and result of his falsehoods was injustice.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - Thou lovest evil more than good. To "love evil" is to have reached the lowest depth of depravity. It is to say, with Milton's Satan, "Evil, be thou my good!" And lying rather than to speak righteousness (see the comment on ver. 2). Doeg's crimes seem to have arisen out of a mere love of evil. Psalm 52:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

It is bad enough to behave wickedly, but bad in the extreme to boast of it at the same time as an heroic act. Doeg, who causes a massacre, not, however, by the strength of his hand, but by the cunning of his tongue, does this. Hence he is sarcastically called גּבּור (cf. Isaiah 5:22). David's cause, however, is not therefore lost; for it is the cause of God, whose loving-kindness endures continually, without allowing itself to be affected, like the favour of men, by calumny. Concerning הוּות vid., on Psalm 5:10. לשׁון is as usual treated as fem; עשׂה רמיּה (according to the Masora with Tsere) is consequently addressed to a person. In Psalm 52:5 רע after אהבתּ has the Dagesh that is usual also in other instances according to the rule of the אתי מרחיק, especially in connection with the letters כפתבגד (with which Resh is associated in the Book of Jezira, Michlol 96b, cf. 63b).

(Note: אתי מרחיק is the name by which the national grammarians designate a group of two words, of which the first, ending with Kametz or Segol, has the accent on the penult., and of which the second is a monosyllable, or likewise is accented on the penult. The initial consonant of the second word in this case receives a Dagesh, in order that it may not, in consequence of the first ictus of the group of words "coming out of the distance," i.e., being far removed, be too feebly and indistinctly uttered. This dageshing, however, only takes place when the first word is already of itself Milel, or at least, as e.g., מצאה בּית, had a half-accented penult., and not when it is from the very first Milra and is only become Milel by means of the retreating of the accent, as עשׂה פלא, Psalm 78:12, cf. Deuteronomy 24:1. The penultima-accent has a greater lengthening force in the former case than in the latter; the following syllables are therefore uttered more rapidly in the first case, and the Dagesh is intended to guard against the third syllable being too hastily combined with the second. Concerning the rule, vid., Baer's Thorath Emeth, p. 29f.)

The מן or מטּוב and מדּבּר is not meant to affirm that he loves good, etc., less than evil, etc., but that he does not love it at all (cf. Psalm 118:8., Habakkuk 2:16). The music which comes in after Psalm 52:5 has to continue the accusations con amarezza without words. Then in Psalm 52:6 the singing again takes them up, by addressing the adversary with the words "thou tongue of deceit" (cf. Psalm 120:3), and by reproaching him with loving only such utterances as swallow up, i.e., destroy without leaving a trace behind (בּלע, pausal form of בלע, like בּצע in Psalm 119:36, cf. the verb in Psalm 35:25, 2 Samuel 17:16; 2 Samuel 20:19.), his neighbour's life and honour and goods. Hupfeld takes Psalm 52:6 as a second object; but the figurative and weaker expression would then follow the unfigurative and stronger one, and "to love a deceitful tongue" might be said with reference to this character of tongue as belonging to another person, not with reference to his own.