Psalm 53: Only Fools Live In A World Of Certainty
And when you question God, God questions back
Minor differences in translations can result in massive differences in worldviews.
The psalmist writes “The fool says in his heart, ein elohim” (verse 2). Two possible translations are “there is no God” and with some poetic license, “where is God?”
In the former reading, a fool is someone who looks at the evil in the world, and comes to a conclusion with certainty. With a similar level of conviction, the phrase ends “ein oseh tov” which translates to “[there is] no one [who] does good”.
The psalmist continues in verses 3-4 with God looking towards mankind, “Everyone is morally corrupt together.” The word “ein” again appears twice, first with a repetition of the “ein oseh tov” (“[there is] no one [who] does good”) of 53:2, and then finding “ein gam ehad” “not even one [person]”.
This is reminiscent of Genesis 18, in which Abraham bargains with God about saving the city of Sodom, where Abraham uses a series of graduated psychological ‘anchors’ to plead on behalf of the city. “Would you destroy the city if there were 50 righteous people there?” “No,” God responds. “What if there were 45 righteous people, would you destroy the city because of 5 evil people?” They ultimately arrive at an agreement that God wouldn’t destroy the city if 10 righteous people would be found.
The moral of the story wasn’t that God destroys cities filled with bad people, but rather, like the lesson Mister Rogers learned from his mother, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Actively seek out the people who are doing good, instead of painting humanity negatively with broad strokes.
Antanaclasis is a rhetorical device where the same word is repeated twice in a phrase but with two meanings. If we assume that in each of the two verses, the psalmist wanted to use the two different meanings, we can read a completely different story.
“He who says ‘where is God?’ Because he sees the world around him, and is surrounded by corruption, malice and evil; people who do no good.” But not to despair. Because God remembers the lesson of Abraham in 53:3, and searches for the good. To which God continues “It seems like there is no one doing good, but where is there even one person? Let me find them. Let me not assume everyone is beyond repair.”
The psalmist, not God, continues, not having learned the lesson. The psalmist conflates the one who doesn’t pray like him with the evil ones. The psalmist prays for evil on his enemies, and for God to reject them.
When you live in a world of certainty, and “ein” only means “there isn’t”, the fool says “there is no God” and God says “there are no good people”.
When you live in a world of questioning and “ein” means “where is?”, even though others may call you a fool, you question, “where is God?” And God questions “where can I find the good people?”