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Passage Research

Psalm 53 — Sermon Preparation

Below is a research summary for Psalm 53, drawn from openly licensed scholarly databases — original-language morphology, classic sermons from the church fathers through the Puritans, and ancient geography data.

7
verses
77 / 58
Hebrew words / lemmas
4
classic sermon excerpts
4
preachers & commentators

Psalm 53 in the Hebrew

Distinctive vocabulary of this chapter, based on original-language morphology.

Hebrew Transliteration Strong's Count Glosses
פַּחַד pachad H6343 2 alarm
טוֹב ṭôwb H2896 2 good
אָכַל ʼâkal H398 2 eat
עַם ʻam H5971 2 people, tribe
אָלַח ʼâlach H444 1 muddle, turn
מַחֲלַת machălath H4257 1 'Machalath'
פָּזַר pâzar H6340 1 scatter

How preachers through history handled this text

4 public-domain excerpts on Psalm 53, from the church fathers to the Puritans.

Gregory the Great 1 Matthew Henry 1 Alexander MacLaren 1 John Wesley 1

“God speaks once, yea, twice, and it were well if man would even then perceive it; God, in this psalm, speaks twice, for this is the same almost verbatim with the fourteenth psalm. The scope of it is to convince us of our sins, to set us a blushing and trembling because of them; and this is what we are with so much difficulty brought to that there is need of line upon line to this purport. The word, as a convincing word, is compared to a hammer, the strokes whereof must be frequently repeated. God, by the psalmist here, I. …”

— Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3 (Job to Song of Solomon), on Psalm 53:1–30 (Public Domain)

Places in the text

Based on ancient-geography data

  • Zion — Ps 53:6

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Greek exegesis, historical background, current scholarship, sermon outlines, illustrations — a complete PDF report on Psalm 53, delivered in 45 minutes.