Psalm 14:1

The psalm opens with a man who has settled the question of God for himself: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” The Hebrew word for fool, nâbâl, describes a person who is morally senseless and spiritually dull, ignoble and impious, and contemptible in God’s eyes. His folly lies in his character and his choices, whatever his intelligence, and it shows itself in perverse, wicked and often arrogant conduct. The man Nabal in 1 Samuel 25 carries this word as his name and shows in his story the kind of man it describes.

There is irony in the word. People who deny God often count themselves enlightened and wise, and God’s verdict on them is that they are senseless.

The fool says this “in his heart”. The heart, lêb, is in Hebrew the whole inner person, the seat of thought, will, feeling and moral choice. A thing said in the heart is a settled conviction that steers a whole life. The fool may keep the words to himself, but he says them where it counts, and his life follows them.

The word for God here is ʼĕlôhîym, plural in form and, when it names the true God, read as a plural of majesty. For Israel this was the living God who had brought them out of Egypt and given them his law at Sinai, the LORD who had made a covenant with them. To deny him was to throw away the foundation of their life as a people, their moral law and their covenant, and such a denial could only bring injustice and the decay of the whole society.

David moves straight from the fool’s belief to his conduct: “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” The denial and the deeds belong together, and the denial is the root. Where God’s authority and the fear of the LORD are pushed aside, human nature left to itself falls into selfish and destructive ways, as it did in the fall of man in Genesis 3. The fool is one man in the first line, and by the second he has become “they”, a whole company who share his denial.

“Corrupt” translates shâchath, a word meaning to decay or ruin, used here of moral character that has spoiled. “They have done abominable works” joins the verb taʻâb, to do what is detestable and abhorrent, with ʻălîylâh, a word for deeds or works. The language of abomination is used in the Old Testament for things utterly hateful to God, such as idolatry, grave sexual sins and the perverting of justice.

The trouble begins in the heart, and Scripture says so elsewhere too. Before the flood God saw that “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), and Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Verse 2 lifts our eyes from the fool to God: “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.” The name here is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God, printed LORD in the KJV, which Strong’s explains as the self-existent or eternal one. The God who looks is the faithful God of Israel, personally involved with the very people who rebel against him, and the Creator who has every right to weigh them. “From heaven” sets him high above the earth with authority over it, and his look is an intent, searching gaze that comes before judgment or rescue. Proverbs says the same of him: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

“The children of men” (bənê ʼādām) means humanity in general, every person of every background and rank, so God’s search covers the whole human race.

He looks for two things that belong together. The first is anyone who will “understand”. The verb sâkal means to be wise, to have understanding, to consider, and also to prosper. In Israel wisdom (ḥokhmāh) was practical righteousness rooted in the fear of the LORD, and the understanding God looks for is of that kind: insight into his truth and his authority that shows itself in right living. The second is anyone who will “seek God”. Dârash means to seek, to inquire of, or to require, and here its object is God himself, ʼĕlôhîym. It describes a deliberate turning to God for his truth, his guidance and his presence. Understanding comes first in the verse and seeking follows, because a person who truly understands will go after God.

The search shows God’s longing as well as his judgment. He looks for hearts that want him, and he has promised, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Yet what he finds among men is what Isaiah confesses, “And there is none that calleth upon thy name” (Isaiah 64:7), and what the Preacher found: “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). When understanding and seeking God do appear in a person, they are gifts of his grace.

Verse 3 gives the verdict: “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” “Gone aside” is çûwr, to turn off or depart from a path. It pictures people leaving the right road God set before them, a turning away from his standards and his righteousness. “Become filthy” is ʼâlach, which Strong’s gives as to muddle and, figuratively, to turn morally corrupt. The KJV’s “filthy” makes it a vivid picture of moral decay as something spoiled and repulsive, reaching thoughts, desires and actions alike. “Together”, yachad, means jointly or alike, so all of them share in it.

The word “all” comes twice, and the verse ends with the strongest phrase in the passage, “none that doeth good, no, not one.” Verse 1 said it of the fools, and verse 3 says it of all the children of men the LORD looked upon. “Good” is ṭôwb, good in the widest sense, what is beautiful, pleasant and morally upright, and “doeth” is ʻâsâh, the broad word for doing or making. Together they mean deeds that are right and pleasing to God. Verse 2 asked whether there were any, and verse 3 answers that there are none. The Preacher says the same: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

Paul quotes this passage when he sets out the guilt of all mankind: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10–12). He adds more Old Testament verses on human sin, running through verse 18 (Romans 3:10–18), and he draws the conclusion that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

So the psalm’s verdict on the children of men becomes the ground on which the gospel stands. Since none can be made righteous by their own goodness, salvation must come from God, by grace through faith.

Against this verdict stands Jesus Christ, the one man who always did good. He was tempted as we are, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), and he could say of the Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). As the Word made flesh (John 1:14) he perfectly understood the Father’s will and perfectly sought his glory, which is exactly what the LORD looked for among the children of men and found in none of them.

His death and resurrection deal with the corrupt heart and the abominable works of verse 1. God “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 his righteousness is counted to those who believe and their filthiness is washed away. God also gives the new heart he promised through Ezekiel, “A new heart also will I give you” (Ezekiel 36:26), and anyone in Christ “is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Holy Spirit then works real goodness in his people as the fruit of their new nature (Galatians 5:22–23). Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and he alone brings us to the Father (John 14:6). All of it is grace: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). In Christ the children of men become children of God, able at last to understand and to seek him.

Psalm 14 is “A Psalm of David”, given “To the chief Musician”, and it teaches in the manner of the wisdom writings, setting the righteous and the wicked side by side and grieving over the wickedness of the world. It follows a psalm of personal lament (Psalm 13) and comes just before the psalm that describes the one who may dwell in God’s presence (Psalm 15), so the three move from human distress, to the root of sin, to the picture of godly living. After these three verses the psalm goes on to grieve over the wicked who oppress the righteous, and it looks ahead to the day God rescues and restores his people.

Psalm 53 repeats this psalm almost word for word, including its central verdict on human sin. Scripture leaves the reason unstated. Both psalms may draw on one source, the psalm may have been adapted for a different use in worship, or God may have repeated it to press home its truth about the human heart. The occasion is also unnamed. David may have written it after watching moral decline in Israel or among the nations around it, perhaps at a time of threat from outside.

These verses humble us. They take away every claim to goodness of our own, and so they make the gift of Christ’s righteousness all the more precious. Every good thing we do as believers is God’s work in us, and the glory for it is his.

The fool’s error is also a quiet one, and it can live in a believing heart. Whenever we make our choices as though God were absent, we are saying in our hearts what the fool says. The psalm calls us to let the reality of God shape our priorities and conduct, and to seek him day by day in prayer, in his word and in obedience, for the LORD still looks for those who understand and seek him. And because every person stands under the same verdict, we can speak of the gospel with compassion and urgency to anyone, whatever their past.