6 You frustrate the plan of the poor, Because Yahweh is his refuge.
He spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they are building, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall. Hear, our God; for we are despised: and turn back their reproach on their own head, and give them up for a spoil in a land of captivity;
All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying, "He trusts in Yahweh; Let him deliver him; Let him rescue him, since he delights in him."
Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shall you be delivered?
and saying, "You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!" Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees,{TR omits "the Pharisees"} and the elders, said, "He saved others, but he can't save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
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,