Psalms 14:1 and 53:1 – How Should the word “Fool” be Understood?
Psalm 14:1: The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. Last time , I wrote about the inappropriate weaponization of the phrase “The fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God.’” This phrase can be found in Psalm 14:1 and again in Psalm 53:1. Too many Christians use the word “fool” as a pejorative consistent with the current dictionary definition which defines “fool” as being “stupid” or “silly,” and apparently non-believers understand it in that context as well. While the Hebrew words translated as “fool” or “foolish” do not mean “silly” or “stupid,” they are not complimentary. In Old Testament times as today, being foolish is not something to be embraced. That, however, is not the way that the Bible uses the word “fool” in these two Psalms. In this post, I will focus on the broad usage of the term, and in the next I will focus on the Biblical word translated “fool” in both Psalms. Foolishness as the ant