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Psalm 53:4
Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God?
2God looks down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there are any who understood, who seek after God.
3Every one of them has gone back. They have become filthy together. There is no one who does good, no, not one.
4Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God?
5There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them.
6Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When God brings back his people from captivity, then Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
Notice
Bread makes the violence in this verse unsettling: harming people has become as routine as eating, while those responsible do not call on God.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What does comparing harm to eating bread reveal about how cruelty can become routine?
Write on thisHow does the phrase “don’t call on God” shape your understanding of the violence described?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Jeremiah 4:22“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know …Both passages connect a lack of understanding with doing evil and failing to know or call on God.
Jeremiah 10:25Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured …Both describe people who devour God's people and do not call on him; Jeremiah adds a plea for wrath.
Psalm 54:3For strangers have risen up against me. Violent men have sought after my soul. They haven’t set God before them. Selah.Both passages describe attackers whose violence accompanies a disregard for God.
Psalm 82:5They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.Both passages name a lack of knowledge and understanding amid scenes of harm and disorder.
Micah 3:2You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;Both use bodily violence to describe evil: eating people like bread in the psalm, tearing skin and flesh in Micah.
Psalm 27:2When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.Both portray evildoers as consuming people; Psalm 27 adds that the attackers stumbled and fell.
Psalm 79:6Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, on the kingdoms that don’t call on your name,Both identify people who do not call on God; Psalm 79 asks him to pour out wrath.
Isaiah 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who …Both describe people lacking understanding in relation to God; Isaiah states that their Maker will show them no favor.
Leviticus 13:29“When a man or woman has a plague on the head or on the beard,The supplied Leviticus verse concerns a bodily plague and offers no clear connection to the psalm's cruelty or disregard for God.
Matthew 23:17–39You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold?Both challenge failures of understanding concerning God, though Matthew's supplied verse addresses the gold and the temple rather than violence.
Revelation 17:16The ten horns which you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her flesh, and will burn her …Both use the language of eating human flesh or people to portray destruction, though the targets and settings differ.
Romans 3:11There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.Both link a failure to understand with a failure to turn toward God.
Where this verse fits
Injustice and anger. church hurt.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
The cruelty described here receives no excuse. In a psalm where God looks down and sees, harm done to his people does not escape his notice.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).