The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"fool," Hebrew nabal (נָבָל), not one dull in intellect but morally perverse, one who is senseless toward God. The fool of Scripture is not the man of low intelligence but the man of perverse heart. This is practical atheism, the atheism of the will, and it is far more common than the philosophical kind.

"in his heart," belibbo (בְּלִבּוֹ). And notice where his atheism lives: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." It is not first a conclusion of the head but a wish of the heart. He does not necessarily argue that God does not exist; he lives as though God were not there, because he does not want God to be there. The Hebrew is even starker: literally "no God," a bare denial, the heart shoving God out of view.

"corrupt," hishchitu (הִשְׁחִיתוּ), grown rotten, ruined. And David immediately draws the moral consequence: "They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." Cut the fear of God out of the heart and corruption follows.

"abominable," hit'ivu (הִתְעִיבוּ). Where God is not reckoned with, man rots morally, his works becoming "abominable." The denial of God in the heart is not a harmless private opinion; it is the seedbed of every abomination. The fool's problem is not intellectual but moral, and it ends not in clever unbelief but in rottenness of life.

Explanation

This is the one psalm the Holy Ghost saw fit to print twice: Psalm 14 appears again, almost word for word, as Psalm 53. The diagnosis of the human heart is repeated, as though once were not emphatic enough. And watch how the single figure of verse 1 quietly becomes a crowd. It opens with "the fool", one man, saying in his heart there is no God; but by the end of the verse it is "they", "they are corrupt... there is none that doeth good." The one fool was a specimen, not an exception. His private, heart-level denial of God, the kind that never has to be spoken aloud, is simply the clearest case of a disease the whole race carries. That is why David can move without a seam from one fool to "none... no, not one": the fool is every man with the mask off.

Gospel Focus

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God", the remedy for the fool's God-denying heart is the new heart God gives in Jesus Christ. The problem is not merely that man reasons wrongly but that his heart is set against God; and no argument can cure a heart. What man needs is regeneration, "a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). Jesus Christ came to give exactly this: to those who receive Him He gives power to become the sons of God (John 1:12), writing His law upon the heart. The One who is Himself the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) turns the fool into the wise, for "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10), and He is the LORD whom we now know in the face of Jesus Christ. Where the fool said in his heart "There is no God," the believer, given a new heart, says with Thomas before the risen Christ, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). The cure for practical atheism is not better argument but the new birth, and that new birth is found in Jesus, in whom God has drawn near to be known, loved, and confessed.

Word Study

"gone aside," Hebrew sar (סָר), turned away, departed from the way. The sweep of this verse is total. In verse 2 the LORD looks down from heaven "to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God", the searching gaze of the Judge upon the whole race. And the finding is universal ruin: "They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

"altogether," yachdav (יַחְדָּו), all as one. Every word intensifies the verdict, "all," "all together," "none," "no, not one." There are no exceptions, no pockets of untouched goodness in the natural human heart.

"become filthy," ne'elachu (נֶאֱלָחוּ), grown sour, tainted, corrupt. This is the doctrine of universal depravity stated in its sharpest form: the race has not merely wandered off the road but gone sour, tainted through and through.

"no, not one," ein gam-echad (אֵין גַּם־אֶחָד). The Apostle Paul quotes these very words in Romans 3:10-12 to establish that "there is none righteous, no, not one," that both Jew and Gentile "are all under sin." The purpose of this crushing verdict is not despair but preparation: the law shuts every mouth and proves all the world guilty before God (Romans 3:19), so that no one may seek to be justified by his own goodness, and all may flee to the mercy of God in Christ. Man will not seek God; God must seek man.

Explanation

The verdict of verse 3 is not a snap judgment; it is the result of a search. Verse 2 pictures God conducting an investigation: "The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God." He looks from a height, scanning the whole race, hunting for even one who understands with the head and seeks with the will, the very two things the fool lacked. And the finding comes back empty: "they are all gone aside... there is none that doeth good, no, not one." This matters, because it means the sweeping verdict is evidence, not prejudice. God did not decide against man in advance; He looked, carefully and personally, for a single exception, and there was none to be found. That is why Paul can build his whole case for universal guilt on it: the census of heaven has already been taken.

Gospel Focus

"There is none that doeth good, no, not one", into this universal verdict of "not one" steps the one exception, Jesus Christ, the only man who ever did good, who did no sin (1 Peter 2:22). Psalm 14 pronounces the whole race guilty, and Paul wields it to close every mouth and leave all the world guilty before God (Romans 3:19). But the very passage that condemns us prepares the way for grace, for immediately Paul goes on: "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested... even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (Romans 3:21-22). The One of whom it could never be said "gone aside," who alone did the good that no fallen man could do, came and stood among the guilty, and bore their guilt: "he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). So the "no, not one" that condemns us drives us to the One who is our righteousness. We do not answer the charge by pleading our goodness, for we have none; we answer it by hiding in Christ, the good and sinless Saviour, in whom God counts the ungodly righteous. The verdict is true, and its truth is the beginning of the gospel.

Word Study

"Oh that," Hebrew mi yitten (מִי יִתֵּן), literally "who will give?", a cry of longing. After the dark portrait of a ruined race, the psalm ends not in despair but in longing hope: "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" The Hebrew mi yitten is the deep sigh of the soul that sees the ruin and cries out for a deliverance that must come from God. The longing "who will give salvation?" is the cry of the whole Old Testament, the ache of a fallen world for a Redeemer, and it is a cry God Himself put in the mouth of His people so that they would be looking for the salvation He purposed to send.

"salvation," yeshu'ah (יְשׁוּעָה), deliverance, the root of the name Jesus. What the psalm longs for is not reform but rescue, and the word it uses, yeshu'ah, is the very root of the name Jesus. The deliverance sighed after here is the deliverance that name would one day carry into the world.

"out of Zion," mitziyyon (מִצִּיּוֹן). It must come from Zion, the place of His dwelling and His mercy. Man cannot save himself, "there is none that doeth good", so salvation must come down from God's holy hill.

"bringeth back the captivity," beshuv... shevut (בְּשׁוּב שְׁבוּת), restores the fortunes, turns again the captivity. And with that salvation comes joy: "Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad." The psalm that began with the fool's denial of God ends with the redeemed people's gladness in God.

Explanation

Look at what the psalm does not do at its end. Having proved that "there is none that doeth good, no, not one," it does not turn around and urge the ruined race to try harder, to reform, to climb back up to God. It cannot; that was the whole point. Instead it cries for rescue to come from the other direction: "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!" Salvation must travel downward and outward from God's dwelling, not upward from man's effort. This is the only honest response to universal guilt, and it is exactly the response the gospel requires: not a resolve to do better, but a longing for a Saviour to be sent. The psalm that begins with man saying in his heart "there is no God" ends with man crying out for God to come and save, which is the first sane word a ruined heart can speak.

Gospel Focus

"Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!", this longing cry is answered in Jesus Christ, the salvation of God come forth to save. The very word for salvation, yeshu'ah, is the root of the name Jesus, "the LORD is salvation"; so the psalm literally cries, "Oh that Jesus were come out of Zion!" And He came, "there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Romans 11:26). The salvation that no fallen man could work, God wrought Himself, coming in flesh as the Deliverer to turn away our ungodliness and bring back the captivity of His people. In Christ the aching mi yitten of the Old Testament is answered: God has given His salvation, and it is a Person, the LORD our Saviour manifest in flesh. And where He brings salvation, He brings joy: "Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad," fulfilled in the gladness of all who are redeemed by Him. So the psalm that exposes the ruin of man does not leave us there; it lifts our eyes to Zion and teaches us to long for the Saviour, and then to rejoice, for the salvation we longed for has a name, and His name is Jesus.