2 The Lord was looking down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who had wisdom, searching after God.
The Lord is looking down from heaven; he sees all the sons of men; From his house he keeps watch on all who are living on the earth;
And God, looking on the earth, saw that it was evil: for the way of all flesh had become evil on the earth.
Not one who has the knowledge of what is right, not one who is a searcher after God;
But still there is some good in you, for you have put away the wood pillars out of the land, and have given your heart to the worship of God.
For the heart of this people has become fat and their ears are slow in hearing and their eyes are shut; for fear that they might see with their eyes and give hearing with their ears and become wise in their hearts and be turned again to me, so that I might make them well.
Till a number are tested and make themselves clean; and the evil-doers will do evil; for not one of the evil-doers will have knowledge; but all will be made clear to those who are wise.
Whoever is simple, let him come in here: and to him who is without sense, she says:
Let your eyes be looking down from heaven, from your holy and beautiful house: where is your deep feeling, the working of your power? do not keep back the moving of your pity and your mercies:
Till the Lord's eye is turned on me, till he sees my trouble from heaven.
O let the heavens be broken open and come down, so that the mountains may be shaking before you, As when fire puts the brushwood in flames, or as when water is boiling from the heat of the fire: to make your name feared by your haters, so that the nations may be shaking before you;
And the Lord came down to see the town and the tower which the children of men were building.
When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.
And when they say to you, Make request for us to those who have control of spirits, and to those wise in secret arts, who make hollow bird-like sounds; is it not right for a people to make request to their gods, to make request for the living to the dead?
Then you will have knowledge of righteousness and right acting, and upright behaviour, even of every good way.
Let the wise give thought to these things, and see the mercies of the Lord.
A man without sense has no knowledge of this; and a foolish man may not take it in.
They have no knowledge or sense; they go about in the dark: all the bases of the earth are moved.
Who, with all his heart, is turned to God the Lord, the God of his fathers, even if he has not been made clean after the rules of the holy place.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 14
Commentary on Psalms 14 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 14
It does not appear upon what occasion this psalm was penned nor whether upon any particular occasion. Some say David penned it when Saul persecuted him; others, when Absalom rebelled against him. But they are mere conjectures, which have not certainty enough to warrant us to expound the psalm by them. The apostle, in quoting part of this psalm (Rom. 3:10, etc.) to prove that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin (v. 9) and that all the world is guilty before God (v. 19), leads us to understand it, in general, as a description of the depravity of human nature, the sinfulness of the sin we are conceived and born in, and the deplorable corruption of a great part of mankind, even of the world that lies in wickedness, 1 Jn. 5:19. But as in those psalms which are designed to discover our remedy in Christ there is commonly an allusion to David himself, yea, and some passages that are to be understood primarily of him (as in Psalm 2, 16, 22, and others), so in this psalm, which is designed to discover our wound by sin, there is an allusion to David's enemies and persecutors, and other oppressors of good men at that time, to whom some passages have an immediate reference. In all the psalms from the 3rd to this (except the 8th) David had been complaining of those that hated and persecuted him, insulted him and abused him; now here he traces all those bitter streams to the fountain, the general corruption of nature, and sees that not his enemies only, but all the children of men, were thus corrupted. Here is,
To the chief musician. A psalm of David.
Psa 14:1-3
If we apply our hearts as Solomon did (Eccl. 7:25) to search out the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness, these verses will assist us in the search and will show us that sin is exceedingly sinful. Sin is the disease of mankind, and it appears here to be malignant and epidemic.
In singing this let us lament the corruption of our own nature, and see what need we have of the grace of God; and, since that which is born of the flesh is flesh, let us not marvel that we are told we must be born again.
Psa 14:4-7
In these verses the psalmist endeavours,