Psalm 52:5
Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
Sermons
A BetrayerW. Forsyth Psalm 52:1-9
A Challenge to the Mighty SinnerBritish WeeklyPsalm 52:1-9
A Social BetrayerHomilistPsalm 52:1-9
A Stern UpbraidingC. Short Psalm 52:1-9
On the Character of DoegG. Goldie.Psalm 52:1-9
The Goodness of God Infinite and EverlastingW. Culverwell.Psalm 52:1-9














The "mighty man" might have been Doeg or some other who had gained notoriety as a betrayer.

I. THE ODIOUSNESS OF HIS CHARACTER. It is marked by deceitfulness. Craft and lying are the tools of the betrayer. He cannot get on without them, and he waxes expert in their use. He may pretend friendship, but malice is in his heart. Even if he speaks truth, it is not in love, but in hate. "Whispering tongues can poison truth," Beat on mischief, he does not think of consequences. If he can injure the man he hates, he cares not though the innocent also should suffer. When he comes by a secret, which may be turned to advantage, he is elated. His paltry soul swells within him, he grows big with the idea of his own importance. Life and death are in the power of his tongue. And when his miserable schemes succeed, he boasts as if he had done a brave thing; as if he were the hero of the hour.

II. THE TERRIBLENESS OF HIS DOOM. There was a time when Doeg seemed to succeed. Then he may have blessed his soul, and the men of Saul's court, no doubt, praised him, while he was doing good, as they thought, to himself, and was able to do good to them. But changes came. His real character was unmasked. The fearful results of his treachery were brought to light, and then he must have become the object of detestation to all right-thinking men. It is thus that reputations built on sand fall in the day of trial. The judgment of yesterday may be reversed to-day. The men who stand high to-day may be covered with scorn and infamy to-morrow. God is long-suffering. He even bears long, and strangely, with the wicked. But their day is coming. The judgment described in the psalm is terrible in its completeness. Image is added to image. The metaphors rise in intensity and force. There is not only defeat, as of a house beaten down, but there is expulsion, as from a home made desolate; and more, there is extinction, as of a family rooted out of the land (ver. 5). The overthrow is complete, and all this is by the hand of God, indicating that all deceit and malice and evil-doing are contrary to the Divine order, and doomed in the end to ruin. There is a conscience in society, and, as it is rightly quickened and enlightened, it says "Amen" to God's righteous judgments.

III. THE MORAL LESSONS OF HIS LIFE. There is much here deserving close study. Learn:

1. The justice of God. He is ever on the side of truth. His judgments are all righteous.

2. The folly of sin. (Ver. 7.)

3. The blessedness of the righteous. This lesson is heightened by contrast. How different the tree overthrown, and torn up by the roots, and the "olive tree" standing beautiful and secure in "the house of God" 1 How markedly and utterly separate, the evil-doer judged and put to shame, and the godly man trusting, praising, waiting, rejoicing in the sunshine of God's love, and the hope of his mercy for ever and ever! - W.F

Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
The prominence given to sins of speech is peculiar. We should have expected high-handed violence rather than these. But the psalmist is tracking the deeds to their source; and it is not so much the tyrant's words as his love of a certain kind of words which is adduced as proof of his wickedness. These words have two characteristics in addition to boastfulness. They are false and destructive. They are, according to the forcible literal meaning in verse 4, "words of swallowing." They are, according to the literal meaning of "destructions" in verse 2, "yawning gulfs." Such words lead to acts which make a tyrant. They flow from perverted preference of evil to good. Thus the deeds of oppression are followed up to their den and birthplace.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

People
Ahimelech, David, Doeg, Mahalath, Psalmist, Saul
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Break, Bring, Destroy, Driving, Dwelling, Dwelling-place, Everlasting, Forever, Likewise, Pluck, Pulleth, Root, Ruin, Selah, Snatch, Taketh, Tear, Tent, Uproot, Uprooted, Uprooting
Outline
1. David, condemning the spitefulness of Doeg, prophesies his destruction
6. The righteous shall rejoice at it
8. David, upon his confidence in God's mercy, gives thanks

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 52:5

     4504   roots
     8666   praise, manner and methods

Psalm 52:2-5

     8776   lies

Psalm 52:5-7

     5973   unreliability

Library
The Life of Mr. James Mitchel.
Mr. James Mitchel[152] was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and was, with some other of his fellow-students, made master of arts anno 1656. Mr. Robert Leighton (afterwards bishop Leighton), being then principal of that college, before the degree was conferred upon them, tendered to them the national and solemn league and covenant; which covenants, upon mature deliberation, he took, finding nothing in them but a short compend of the moral law, binding to our duty towards God and towards
John Howie—Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies)

Vehicles of Revelation; Scripture, the Church, Tradition.
(a) The supreme and unique revelation of God to man is in the Person of the Incarnate Son. But though unique the Incarnation is not solitary. Before it there was the divine institution of the Law and the Prophets, the former a typical anticipation (de Incarn. 40. 2) of the destined reality, and along with the latter (ib. 12. 2 and 5) for all the world a holy school of the knowledge of God and the conduct of the soul.' After it there is the history of the life and teaching of Christ and the writings
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

The Exile.
David's first years at the court of Saul in Gibeah do not appear to have produced any psalms which still survive. "The sweetest songs are those Which tell of saddest thought." It was natural, then, that a period full of novelty and of prosperous activity, very unlike the quiet days at Bethlehem, should rather accumulate materials for future use than be fruitful in actual production. The old life shut to behind him for ever, like some enchanted door in a hill-side, and an unexplored land lay beckoning
Alexander Maclaren—The Life of David

Introduction. Chapter i. --The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
St. Hilary of Poitiers is one of the greatest, yet least studied, of the Fathers of the Western Church. He has suffered thus, partly from a certain obscurity in his style of writing, partly from the difficulty of the thoughts which he attempted to convey. But there are other reasons for the comparative neglect into which he has fallen. He learnt his theology, as we shall see, from Eastern authorities, and was not content to carry on and develop the traditional teaching of the West; and the disciple
St. Hilary of Poitiers—The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers

The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New.
1. Introduction, showing the necessity of proving the similarity of both dispensations in opposition to Servetus and the Anabaptists. 2. This similarity in general. Both covenants truly one, though differently administered. Three things in which they entirely agree. 3. First general similarity, or agreement--viz. that the Old Testament, equally with the New, extended its promises beyond the present life, and held out a sure hope of immortality. Reason for this resemblance. Objection answered. 4.
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Being Made Archbishop of Armagh, He Suffers Many Troubles. Peace Being Made, from Being Archbishop of Armagh He Becomes Bishop of Down.
[Sidenote: 1129] 19. (12). Meanwhile[365] it happened that Archbishop Cellach[366] fell sick: he it was who ordained Malachy deacon, presbyter and bishop: and knowing that he was dying he made a sort of testament[367] to the effect that Malachy ought to succeed him,[368] because none seemed worthier to be bishop of the first see. This he gave in charge to those who were present, this he commanded to the absent, this to the two kings of Munster[369] and to the magnates of the land he specially enjoined
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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