What Does Psalm 53:3 Mean?
Each one turns aside; together they go sour. There is none who does good, not even one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.THE KEY
By ending with “not one,” the verse closes the escape route of treating corruption as something that belongs only to other people.
THE MEANING
The verse places you within a shared diagnosis: all have turned aside, together become corrupt, and no one is the one who does good. Its blunt “not one” removes the safe distance from which you might name everybody else as the problem.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that corruption belongs to other people while you remain the untouched exception.
THE ROOT
סָג
sag
GROWS FROM
סוג
To turn aside, withdraw, or recede.
“gone back” in this verse is sag. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of withdrawing or turning aside. Its family also describes a heart that does not turn back and a departure from a way; here that turning is shared.
ALSO GROWS
sag: Turned aside or withdrawn.
סָג
This is the form in the verse: the movement is away from the right way.
nasog: Turned back or receded.
נָסוֹג
In Psalm 44:18, the heart is said not to turn back, showing the same root can describe withdrawal that does not happen.
sog: Turning away or departure.
סוֹג
Isaiah 59:13 uses this form for turning away, extending the root’s image from a turn to a departure.
יַחְדָּו
yachdav
GROWS FROM
יחד
To be together or joined; to unite.
יַחְדָּו (yachdav, together) gathers the turning and corruption into a shared condition, rather than a set of isolated cases. The same root can mean to unite, as in the plea to unite the heart in Psalm 86:11.
ALSO GROWS
yachdav: Together, jointly.
יַחְדָּו
The verse makes the turning aside a collective movement.
yaḥed: Unite or make one.
יַחֵד
Psalm 86:11 uses this form for a heart brought into unity, showing the root’s sense of joining.
yaḥad: Together, in company.
יַחַד
Psalm 133:1 uses this form for people dwelling together, another picture of what is joined.
עֹשֶׂה טוֹב
oseh tov
GROWS FROM
עשׂה
To do, make, or carry out.
“doeth good” in this verse is oseh tov. The phrase speaks of doing good, not simply wearing the label “good.” עֹשֶׂה (oseh, one doing) comes from the ordinary verb for doing or making, so the line names goodness as an enacted reality.
ALSO GROWS
oseh: One doing or making.
עֹשֶׂה
This active form appears in the verse and focuses the claim on what a person does.
asah: Did or made.
עָשָׂה
Genesis 1:31 uses this verb for what God made, showing its broad sense of bringing an act or work about.
ma'aseh: Deed, work, or act.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun from the same root names the work that doing produces.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly removes the claim to a morally untouched exception by naming human wrongdoing as shared.
They all turn aside; together they are soiled. There is none doing good, not even one.For there is no aligned human upon the earth who does good and does not miss the mark.They have all gone out of the way. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good, not even one.THE THREAD
Our heart has not drawn back, and our steps have not bent away from your way.The Hebrew forms סָג (sag, “turned aside”) here and נָסוֹג (nasog, “turned back”) in Psalm 44:18 come from the root סוּג (sug, “turn aside or withdraw”). Psalm 44 gives the inverse image: a heart and steps that do not withdraw from the way, making direction the key connection.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us