The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:
All Commentaries on Psalms 52:6 Go To Psalms 52
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
8. "Wherefore God shall destroy thee at the end" (ver. 6): though now thou seemest to flourish like grass in the field before the heat of the sun. For, "All flesh is grass, and the brightness of man as the bloom of grass: the grass hath withered, and the bloom hath fallen down: but the word of the Lord abideth for everlasting." Behold that to which thou mayest bind thyself, to what "abideth for everlasting." For if to grass, and to the bloom of grass, thou shalt have bound thyself, since the grass shall wither, and the bloom shall fall down, "God shall destroy thee at the end:" and if not now, certainly at the end He shall destroy, when that winnowing shall have come, and the heap of chaff from the solid grain shall have been separated. Is not the solid grain for the barns, and the chaff for the fire? Shall not the whole of that Doeg stand at the left hand, when the Lord is to say, "Go ye into fire everlasting, which hath been prepared for the devil and his angels"? Therefore "God shall destroy at the end: shall pluck thee out, and shall remove thee from thy dwelling." Now then this Doeg the Edomite is in a dwelling: "But a servant abideth not in the house for ever." Even he worketh something of good, even if not with his doings, at least with the words of God, so that in the Church, when he "seeketh his own," he would say, at least, those things which are of Christ.
"But He shall remove thee from thy dwelling." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, they have received their reward." "And thy root from the land of the living." Therefore in the land of the living we ought to have root. Be our root there. Out of sight is the root: fruits may be seen, root cannot be seen. Our root is our love, our fruits are our works: it is needful that thy works proceed from love, then is thy root in the land of the living. Then shall be rooted up that Doeg,nor any wise shall he be able there to abide, because neither more deeply there hath he fixed a root: but it shall be with him in like manner as it is with those seeds on the rock, which even if a root they throw out, yet, because moisture they have not, with the risen sun forthwith do wither. But, on the other hand, they that fix a root more deeply, hear from the Apostle what? "I bow my knees for you to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye may be in love rooted and grounded." And because there now is root, "That ye may be able," he saith, "to comprehend what is the height, and breadth, and length, and depth: to know also the super-eminent knowledge of the love of Christ, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God." Of such fruits so great a root is worthy, being so single, so budding, for buddings so deeply grounded. But truly this man's root shall be rooted up from the land of the living.
