Psalms 58:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

Yea, in heart ye work wickedness Or, with your heart, that is, with free choice and consent; with premeditation and design, and with a strong inclination to it, and resolution in it, and not merely by constraint, and out of compliance with Saul, or through surprise and inadvertence. The more there is of the heart in any act of wickedness, the worse it is. Ye weigh the violence of your hands Or, you weigh violence, or injustice, with your hands. The phrase of weighing hath respect to their office, which was to administer justice, which is usually expressed by a pair of balances. So he intimates that they did great wrong under the pretence and with the formalities of justice; and while they seemed exactly to weigh the true proportion between men's actions and the recompenses allotted to them, they turned the scale, and pronounced an unjust sentence. In the earth Or, in this land, where God is present, and where you have righteous laws to govern you, and you profess better things.

Psalms 58:2

2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.