Ps. 50.19-20 (Cain and Abel)

“You have surrendered / you mouth / to evil – and your tongue / designed deceitfulness – you continue / to speak / against your brother – you slander / your own mother’s son.” In the previous verse we noted how the mere sight of a thief aroused delight in the wicked. Such a nearly instantaneous response signals the incredible infiltration of wickedness; it needs but the mere sight to be awakened. Here, that understanding is pushed even further. Not only are the wicked ‘primed’ for evil, but they actively surrender their mouths to it. No longer is it a response but, in a sense, a willing sacrifice, a handing over of their mouths into the service of deceitfulness. Whereas the righteous ‘surrender’ their animals in sacrifice, the wicked surrender their mouths to evil. In addition, while this first description highlights the active movement on the part of the wicked, the second emphasizes the creative aspect of this surrender. Once their mouths have been handed over, they are then used to ‘design deceitfulness’. This marks somewhat of a transition—until this point the wicked have ‘seen’ and ‘cast their lot with’ and ‘surrendered’. There has been no explicit mention of their actual commission of a wicked act (although it has been implied). Here, however, that reality is asserted: the wicked actually perpetuate evil, they “design” it. No longer are they merely observers; they are actual performers. From this point on everything will now focus on that performance, and God will be very specific about the type of evil designed: “speak against your brother…slander your mother’s son”. From the communal breakdown of the ‘thief’, to the familial breakdown of the ‘adulterers’, we now descend into the most intimate realm between brothers. The more active the evil becomes the more it strikes at the very roots of human connection. We find here the perpetuation of Cain and Abel, that original fratricide. It is, in addition, the explicit breaking of the command in the Decalogue to not bear false witness.  Lastly, the word “continue” is important; it signals the fact that this is a constant disposition of the wicked person’s being. It is a habitual form of wickedness. This long-standing mode of evil will find its counterbalance in the next verse when God’s apparent silence is suddenly broken.