David describeth the corruption of a natural man: he convinceth the wicked by the light of their conscience: he glorieth in the salvation of God.
To the chief musician. A Psalm of David.
Title.— לדוד למנצח lamnatseach ledavid. This Psalm is thought to have been composed by David upon the almost total defection of his people to Absalom. The 5th verse seems strongly to mark this circumstance. See 2 Samuel 17:8; 2 Samuel 17:29. Mr. Mudge however observes, that it appears from the last verse, that this Psalm was composed during the captivity, and from the 4th and 5th verses, that it arose from a particular incident, where the heathens, in the midst of their carousing, without any sense of God, or acknowledgment of his goodness, were somehow put into a great fright (where there were no human grounds for fear, as the 52nd Psalm adds). This seems to point out the feast of Belshazzar; where the utmost loose was given to impiety; the sacred vessels, purely in defiance, being employed to promote their debauchery; and where they were frightened indeed in a manner wholly supernatural.
Psalms 14:1. The fool— By the fool is here meant the pagan: It is thus that Job 30:8 calls the heathenish Cutheans, children of fools; that is, of Gentile extraction. In eminent calamity it was in the early ages a pagan practice, not only to call in question the existence of their deities, but likewise to prosecute them with the most dreadful curses and imprecations. The Jews, fond of imbibing the customs of their pagan neighbours, seem to have enfranchised this among others. In the simplicity of early ages, when men were at their ease, that general opinion, so congenial to the human mind, of a God and his moral government, was so strong as never to be brought into question. It was when they found themselves in distress and misery, whether in public or private life, that they began to complain, to question the justice, or deny the existence of Providence. Thus far Bishop Warburton. Others however imagine, that by the word fool, both here and in Psalms 53 libertines, and profane persons in general, are denoted, whose minds were depraved by the viciousness of their hearts. Thus the Platonists styled all wicked men fools, though they seemed to themselves to be very wise. It appears from the 5th verse, in which the Psalmist intimates concerning these fools that they did not call upon God, that their crime was not direct atheism, but an irreligious disposition, proceeding from a fond imagination that God exerted no moral government upon earth.