Psalms 53:3

3. The result of His investigation. Every one of them had gone back (Psa_44:18) from following God (in Psa_14:3 turned aside from the path of right): together had they become tainted, a word which in Arabic means to go bad or turn sour, but in Heb. is used only in a moral sense, here and in Job_15:16. On the interpolation in the P.B.V. of Psalms 14 after Psa_53:3 see note there.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 53:3 Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; [there is] none that doeth good, no, not one.

Ver. 3. Every one of them is gone back] Diogenes in a great assembly going backward of purpose, and seeing every one laughing him to scorn, asked them aloud, if they were not ashamed so to do? since he went backwards but once, they did so all the days of their life.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. (Psa 53:3). All of it has apostatised; together they have putrefied; there is none doing good; there is not even one. See above, on Psa 14:3. For all of it we there have the whole, i.e. the whole human race. The same thing seems to be intended by the more obscure phrase, all of it, in which the pronoun may refer to man, in the collective sense of mankind or the human race. The idea of departure from God, apostasy, is expressed in the parallel places by two verbs almost identical in form, the one of which means properly to turn aside and the other to turn back.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(3) There are two unimportant variations from Psalms 14 here: “every one,” instead of “the whole,” and “gone back” (sag) for “gone aside” (sar).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Every one of them is gone back,.... From God, and the way of his commandments. In Psa 14:3, it is, "they are all gone aside"; See Gill on Psa 14:3;

they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good,

no, not one. What follows in this verse is the same as Psa 14:3.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Every one of them is gone back - See the notes at Psa 14:3. The only variation here in the two psalms is in the substitution of the word - סג sâg, for סור sûr - words almost identical in form and in sense. The only difference in meaning is, that the former word - the word used here - means “to draw back,” or “to go back;” the other, the word used in Psa 14:1-7, means “to go off, to turn aside.” Each of them indicates a departure from God; a departure equally fatal and equally guilty, whether people turn “back” from following him, or turn “aside” to something else. Both of these forms of apostasy occur with lamentable frequency.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 3. Every one of them is gone back. The whole mass of manhood, all of it, is gone back. In the fourteenth Psalm it was said to turn aside, which was bad enough, but here it is described as running in a diametrically opposite direction. The life of unregenerate manhood is in direct defiance of the law of God, not merely apart from it but opposed to it.

They are altogether become filthy. The whole lump is soured with an evil leaven, fouled with an all pervading pollution, made rank with general putrefaction. Thus, in God's sight, our atheistic nature is not the pardoned thing that we think it to be. Errors as to God are not the mild diseases which some account them, they are abominable evils. Fair is the world to blind eyes, but to the all seeing Jehovah it is otherwise.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. How could there be, when the whole mass was leavened with so evil a leaven? This puts an end to the fictions of the innocent savage, the lone patriarch, "the Indian whose untutored mind, "etc. Pope's verse--

"Father of all, in every age;

In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, or by sage,

Jehovah, Jove, or Lord, "

evaporates in smoke. The fallen race of man, left to its own energy, has not produced a single lover of God or doer of holiness, nor will it ever do so. Grace must interpose, or not one specimen of humanity will be found to follow after the good and true. This is God's verdict after looking down upon the race. Who shall gainsay it?

Ver. 3. They are altogether become filthy. wxlag neelachu. They are become sour and rancid; a metaphor taken from milk that has fermented and turned sour, rancid, and worthless. Adam Clarke, 1760-1832.

Ver. 3. (second clause). The word wxlag, rendered they are become filthy, might be read, they have become rotten or putrid. John Morison, 1829.

Ver. 3. (last clause). Evil men are not only guilty of sins of commission, having done abominable iniquity, but they are guilty of many sins of omission. In fact, they have never done one holy act. They may be moral, decent, amiable, they may belong to the church; but there is none that doeth good, no, not one. William S. Plumer.

None.

Psalms 53:4*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. Every one of them—The distributive, each one, denoted by the suffix pronoun instead of the collective, the all, the totality, denoted by the prefix article in Psa_14:3. The two passages, taken together, furnish the most literal declaration of universal, total, depravity, that words can give.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For "they are all gone aside" (rs lKh) in Psalm 14, the present psalm has, "every one of them is gone back" (gs wOKL) a difference which may be due to corruption, and which is, at any rate, of no importance.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Instead of הכּל, the totality, we have כּלּו, which denotes each individual of the whole, to which the suffix, that has almost vanished (Psa 29:9) from the genius of the language, refers. And instead of סר, the more elegant סג, without any distinction in the meaning.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)