One event, told twice
The Fool Hath Said (Psalm 14 and 53)
Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 are almost the same psalm, preserved twice within the Psalter itself. Both begin, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God, and both mourn a world gone astray.
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”Psalm 14:1
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.”Psalm 53:1
The two accounts
The two accounts. Both psalms open with the same searching verdict on humanity apart from God: the fool says in his heart there is no God, people are corrupt, and none does good. God looks down from heaven to see if any understand and seek Him, and finds all gone aside, together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Both lament the workers of iniquity who devour God's people and who do not call upon the LORD, yet both also declare that God is with the generation of the righteous and is the refuge of the poor. And both end with the same longing cry, that salvation would come out of Zion, that God would restore His people, so that Jacob would rejoice and Israel be glad. Psalm 14 stands in the first book of the Psalter; Psalm 53 stands in the second. They are, in substance, the same song of grief over human sinfulness and hope for God's deliverance, deliberately preserved twice, so that the Psalter itself repeats this sober meditation on the human heart and its need for God to save.
Read side by side: what differs, and why
Read side by side: what differs, and why. The two psalms are so close that they are plainly one song kept in two forms, and their broad message is identical. Three honest differences stand out. First, the divine name. Psalm 14 uses the LORD (Yahweh), the covenant name, several times, while Psalm 53 consistently uses God (Elohim), the more general name for the deity. This fits a known feature of the Psalter: Psalm 53 belongs to a stretch of psalms (the Elohistic collection) that favors the name Elohim throughout, and an editor evidently placed this version there, adjusting the divine name to suit the collection. Second, one verse differs in wording. Where Psalm 14:5-6 speaks of the workers of iniquity being in great fear and shaming the counsel of the poor, Psalm 53:5 has a somewhat different line about God scattering the bones of those who encamp against His people, and the wicked being put to shame because God has despised them. This may reflect the psalm's use in a different setting, perhaps applied to a specific deliverance from besieging enemies. Third, there are minor variations in phrasing throughout. None of these alter the psalm's meaning: humanity apart from God is corrupt, God alone can save, and salvation comes out of Zion. The presence of the same psalm twice, with these small differences, shows that the Psalter was a living book of worship in which songs could be adapted, renamed by their divine title, and re-set for new occasions. This is not error or careless duplication but the ordinary life of hymns among a worshiping people, and it teaches that the truth about the human heart bore repeating.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. The apostle Paul reaches for this very psalm to prove that all have sinned. In Romans 3:10-12 he quotes its words, there is none righteous, no, not one, none that seeketh after God, to indict the whole human race, Jew and Gentile alike, and to shut every mouth before God. The doubled psalm thus becomes a cornerstone of the gospel's diagnosis: the fool who says there is no God is not merely the atheist but the human heart that lives as though God were absent, and that heart is universal. But both psalms end crying, Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. That cry is answered in Jesus, who came out of Zion to save, who is the righteous One where there was none, and who bore our corruption to make us the righteousness of God. The psalm's grief prepares us to receive the only remedy, the salvation from Zion that came in Christ.
Questions people ask
Why are Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 almost the same?
It is one song deliberately preserved twice within the Psalter, in different books of the collection. The Psalter was a living book of worship in which songs could be re-set for new occasions and settings, and this sober meditation on the human heart bore repeating.
Why does Psalm 53 use God where Psalm 14 uses the LORD?
Psalm 53 belongs to a stretch of psalms that consistently favors the name Elohim (God) rather than Yahweh (the LORD). An editor placed this version in that collection and adjusted the divine name to match, a known feature of how the Psalter was arranged.
How does the New Testament use this psalm?
Paul quotes it in Romans 3:10-12, there is none righteous, no, not one, to show that all people are under sin and every mouth is stopped before God. The doubled psalm becomes a cornerstone of the gospel's diagnosis of the universal human need for salvation in Christ.