2 Jehovah looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
Jehovah looketh from the heavens; he beholdeth all the sons of men: From the place of his habitation he looketh forth upon all the inhabitants of the earth;
And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth.
there is not the [man] that understands, there is not one that seeks after God.
Nevertheless there are good things found in thee; for thou hast put away the Asherahs out of the land, and hast directed thy heart to seek God.
for the heart of this people has grown fat, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes as asleep, lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and understand with the heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Many shall be purified, and be made white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. And to him that is void of understanding she saith,
Look down from the heavens, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory! Where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy tender mercies? Are they restrained toward me?
till Jehovah look down and behold from the heavens.
Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, -- that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,
And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built.
When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come [and] set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour.
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto the necromancers and unto the soothsayers, who chirp and who mutter, [say,] Shall not a people seek unto their God? [Will they go] for the living unto the dead?
Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity: every good path.
Whoso is wise, let him observe these things, and let them understand the loving-kindnesses of Jehovah.
A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand it.
They know not, neither do they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are moved.
that has directed his heart to seek God, Jehovah the God of his fathers, although not according to the purification of the sanctuary.
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,