Psalm 52
"Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man?"
Beginning of Psalm 52 in Claricia's Psalter
Other name	Psalm 51 "Quid gloriatur in malitia"
Text	Attributed to King David
Language	Hebrew (original)

Psalm 52 is the 52nd psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man?". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 51. In Latin, it is known as "Quid gloriatur in malitia",^[1] It is described as a maskil,^[2] attributed to David, and is said to have been written "when Doeg the Edomite went and told Saul, and said to him, "David has gone to the house of Ahimelech".^[3] In this psalm, David criticises those who use their talents for evil.^[4]

The psalm forms a regular part of Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant liturgies.

Text

Hebrew Bible version

The following is the Hebrew text of Psalm 52:^[5]

King James Version

1. Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.
2. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
3. Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.
4. Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.
5. God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.
6. The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:
7. Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
8. But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
9. I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

Context

The psalm's sub-heading refers to the occasion reported in 1 Samuel 21–22 when Doeg, the chief herdsman of Saul, the first king of Israel, informed Saul that David had been received by Ahimelech at Nob, a priestly town in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and assisted with the means for his flight. Alexander Kirkpatrick observes that "the character denounced in the Psalm is in some respects such as we may suppose Doeg to have been. He was a man of wealth and importance as the chief of Saul’s herdmen (or, according to the LXX, the keeper of his mules). His tongue was "a deceitful tongue", because although the facts he reported were true, he helped to confirm Saul in a false and cruel suspicion.^[6]

However, Kirkpatrick notes that

the entire absence of any reference to the cold-blooded and sacrilegious murder of the priests at Nob, in which Doeg acted as Saul’s agent, when all his other officers shrank from executing his brutal order, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to suppose that the Psalm was really written by David on that occasion, unless we could assume that it was composed after Doeg’s information was given but before the massacre was perpetrated, which is wholly improbable.^[6]

Instead, he argues that

Just sufficient appropriateness may be traced to account for the title having been prefixed by the compiler of this division of the Psalter, or for the Psalm having been connected with the story of Doeg in some historical work from which the compiler took it.^[6]

Latin divisions

This psalm opens the second section of the three traditional divisions of the Latin psalter, and for this reason the first words (Quid gloriatur in malitia qui potens est iniquitate...), and above all the initial "Q", were often greatly enlarged in illuminated manuscript psalters, following the pattern of the Beatus initials at the start of Psalm 1, and the "D" of Psalm 102.^[7]

Psalm form

According to Hermann Gunkel's system of classification, Psalm 52 was conditionally classified as an Individual Psalm of Trust, one that demonstrates an expression of trust or confidence in YHWH's assistant to the petitioner.^[8]

Book of Common Prayer

In the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, this psalm is appointed to be read on the morning of the tenth day of the month.^[9]

Musical settings

Heinrich Schütz wrote a setting of a paraphrase of Psalm 52 in German, "Was trotzst denn du, Tyrann, so hoch", SWV 149, for the Becker Psalter, published first in 1628.