This purports to be one of David’s psalms, and there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the superscription. Yet we are entirely ignorant of the time and the circumstances of its composition. There is nothing in the psalm that throws any light on this point, and conjecture would be vain. It would seem to have been composed under the influence of an affecting conviction of the depth and extent of human depravity, and in view of prevalent impiety and neglect of God; but such a state of things was not confined to any one period of the life of David, as it is not to any one country or period of the world. Unhappily there has been no country and no age in which, in view of existing facts, such a psalm as this might not have been composed; or in which the entire proof on which the psalmist relies to support his melancholy conclusions, might not have been found.
The psalm embraces the following points:
I. A statement of prevalent depravity, particularly in denying the existence of God, or in expressing the wish that there were no God, Psalms 14:1.
II. The evidence of this, Psalms 14:2-4. This is found in two things:
(a) first, in the representation that the Lord looked down from heaven for the very purpose of ascertaining whether there were any that “understood and sought after God,” and that the result of this investigation was that all had gone aside, and had become defiled with sin, Psalms 14:2-3.
(b) The second proof is a prevailing disposition on the part of the wicked to judge severely of the conduct of God’s people; to magnify their errors and faults; to make use of their imperfections to sustain themselves in their own course of life - represented by their “eating up the sins of God’s people as they eat bread,” Psalms 14:4.
There was all utter want of kindness and charity in regard to the imperfections of others; and a desire to find the people of God so offending that they could, by “their” imperfections and faults, sustain and vindicate their own conduct in neglecting religion. The idea is that, in their apprehension, the religion of such persons was not desirable - that the God whom they professed to serve could not be God.
III. Yet, the psalmist says, they were not wholly calm and satisfied with the conclusion which they were endeavoring to reach, that there was no God. Notwithstanding their expressed wish or desire Psalms 14:1, that there was, or that there might be no God, their minds were not at ease in that conclusion or desire.
They were, says the psalmist, “in great fear,” for there was evidence which they could not deny or resist that God was “in the generation of the righteous,” or that there was a God such as the righteous served, Psalms 14:5. This evidence was found in the manifestation of his favor toward them; in his interposition in their behalf, in the proof which could not be resisted or denied that he was their friend. These facts produced “fear” or apprehension in the minds of the wicked, notwithstanding all their efforts to be calm.
IV. The psalmist says that their course was designed to bring shame upon the counsel or purposes of the “poor” (that is, the people of God, who were mainly among the poor, or the humble and oppressed classes of the community) - because they regarded God as their refuge, Psalms 14:6. As God was their only refuge, as they had no human hope or reliance, as all their hope would fail if their hope in God failed, so the attempt to show that there was no God was adapted and designed to overwhelm them with shame and confusion - still more to aggravate their sufferings by taking away their only hope, and leaving them to die. Their religion was their only consolation and the purpose of those who wished that there were no God was to take even this last comfort away.
V. The psalm closes, in view of these thoughts, with an earnest prayer that God would interpose to deliver his poor and oppressed people, and with the statement that when this should occur, his people would rejoice, Psalms 14:7. Instead of their low and oppressed condition - a condition wherein their enemies triumphed over them, and endeavored still further to aggravate their sorrows by taking away even their faith in God - they would rejoice in him, and in the full proof of his existence and of his favor toward them.
The psalm, therefore, is designed to describe a condition of things in which wickedness abounds, and when it takes this form - an attempt to show that there is no God; that is, when there is a prevalence of atheism, and when the design of this is to aggravate the sufferings and the trials of the professed friends by unsettling their faith in the divine existence.
The title is the same as in Psalms 11:1-7; Psalms 12:1-8. Compare the note at the title to Psalms 4:1-8.