Psalms 52
Big idea: Written about an informer — Doeg, who told Saul where David was hiding and then killed the priests who had helped him. The psalm addresses him directly and calls him mighty man, which is sarcasm: his weapon is a tongue like a sharp razor, and his strength is money. Against the uprooted man of verse 5 stands one image: I am like a green olive tree in God's house. An olive tree lives for centuries and produces without being replanted. The contrast is not power against weakness but rootedness against transience.
Psalm 52 watches a man trust his riches. Psalm 53 says the whole race has the same problem.
52:1–9 — I am like a green olive tree
Addressed to one man by name in its title — the informer who got a village of priests killed — and the psalm's method is to describe his tongue as a tool. A razor is precise, close, and normally harmless; that is the horror of the comparison. Then the reversal, and it is arboricultural: he is uprooted from the land of the living, and the psalmist is a green olive tree in God's house, which is a slow plant that outlives whoever plants it.
1 For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, “David has come to Ahimelech’s house.” Why do you boast of mischief, mighty man? God’s loving kindness endures continually. 2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. 3 You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking the truth. Selah. 4 You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue. 5 God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah. 6 The righteous also will see it, and fear, and laugh at him, saying, 7 “Behold, this is the man who didn’t make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.” 8 But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever. 9 I will give you thanks forever, because you have done it. I will hope in your name, for it is good, in the presence of your saints.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).