Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Psalms 52:6-9
A Description Of How The Righteous See The Deceitful Man's Fate And The Personal Vindication Of Each Of The Righteous Concerning Themselves (Psalms 52:6).
‘The righteous also will see, and fear,
And will laugh at him, (saying),
The righteous will see what happens to such a man and will be filled with awe. And ‘they will laugh at him' in incredulity. Being themselves filled with awe at the thought of the holiness of God they will be amazed that he could be so foolish. The laugh is not vindictive. Rather they are laughing at his folly. They cannot believe that he could be so foolish. The aim is to bring out the extreme foolishness of his ways as will now be described. Compare Proverbs 1:26. To laugh vindictively at what befalls an evil man is forbidden in Proverbs 24:17 with the warning that God will not be pleased..
‘See, this is the man who did not make God his strength,
But trusted in the abundance of his riches,
And strengthened himself in his wickedness.'
They will say to one another, ‘This is the man who did not make God his strength, but rather trusted in the abundance of his riches, and thus strengthened himself in his wickedness'. Like all men he had had a choice. He could have found his strength in God. He could have looked to Him for strength. But he rather trusted in his riches. He saw being wealthy as more important than pleasing God, for he was convinced that in riches he would find security and happiness. They would be his stay. But they would be of little use when disaster struck, and his wealth was taken from him, or when he became ill and died.
And because his trust had been in the abundance of his riches, striving to obtain more and more by any means, he became convinced that nothing else mattered. He felt that nothing could harm him, and this bolstered him up in the wrongdoing that he perpetrated. After all, it was through wrongdoing that his riches had been gained. And wrongdoing would make him richer.
Doeg had become wealthy. He was chief of all Saul's herdsmen, which in those days, in a land where agriculture was its mainstay, was a very important position. And it was this that had persuaded him to act as he did in the hope of gaining favour and obtaining more wealth. His mind was fixed on ‘getting on'. He thus disregarded truth, whilst his wealth, and his desire for more, strengthened him in his wrongdoing. Jesus warned men of the deceitfulness of riches (Mark 4:19), and Paul pointed out that a desire for wealth was at the root of all evil and had brought on men many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10). It is one thing to prosper. It is quite another to make it your goal in life.
‘But as for me, I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God,
I trust in the covenant love of God for ever and ever.'
These may well be a continuation of the words of the righteous, individualised to each one. Or else they may be the words of the Psalmist himself, as representing the righteous. The change to the individual may well be intended so as to cause each singer to make his own personal dedication to God as he sings the Psalm in the Temple area.
In contrast with the man who will be rooted up is the one who, rather than being rooted up, is firmly established like a green olive tree in the house of God. A green olive tree was so because its roots went deep and were well watered (compare Psalms 1:3). And being established as such in the house of God indicated his loyalty to God and to the covenant. It was this that made him fruitful. The covenant was the covenant established at Sinai (Exodus 20:1 onwards), as partly reproduced and expanded on in Deuteronomy. It was the covenant of those who had been redeemed responding to their Redeemer. It was a covenant that constantly revealed God's covenant love for his obedient people (Deuteronomy 7:8; Hosea 11:1; Malachi 1:2), a love that could be wholly relied on by those who walked with Him. It was a love in which they could trust for ever.
‘The green olive tree' is said elsewhere to be God's designation of Israel (Jeremiah 11:16). Paul would later use it a picture of the remnant of Israel who received the Messiah, where it incorporated Gentiles who believed in the Messiah (Romans 11:17). These were the true Israel as opposed to the false who were broken off.
(We should note the clear indication in this and many Psalms that ‘not all Israel, were Israel' (Romans 9:6). The covenant only benefited those who were obedient to it. The remainder would be rooted out and cast off. This was continually so throughout Israel's history).
‘I will give you thanks for ever, because you have done it,
And I will hope in your name, for it is good, in the presence of your saints.'
The Psalmist ends with thanksgiving and praise. He gives thanks for what God has done, rooting out the unrighteous, and establishing the righteous. And this causes him to have continual hope in YHWH's Name, the Name which is ‘good', revealing the love and holiness of God. He is confident that God will continue to cause the righteous to flourish, and the unrighteous to be rooted out. And he does it in the presence of God's ‘beloved ones', that is, beloved within the covenant, those who are true to Him, an indication that this Psalm has been made suitable for public worship.
This Psalm is mainly a repetition of Psalms 14 but here using ‘God' all the way through. The other main change occurs in Psalms 52:5, a change which suggests that this Psalm is an adaptation of Psalms 14 written in order to celebrate the defeat of a particular enemy. But the adaptation is a careful one for the consonants used (in the Hebrew text) are very similar as though the writer wanted to keep as near to the original text as possible. It is a clever piece of adaptation.