John Calvin Commentary Psalms 14:2

"Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there were any that did understand, That did seek after God." — Psalms 14:2 (ASV)

Jehovah looked down from heaven. God Himself is here introduced as speaking on the subject of human depravity, and this renders David's discourse more emphatic than if he had pronounced the sentence in his own person. When God is presented to us as sitting on His throne to take cognizance of the conduct of men, unless we are stupefied to an extraordinary degree, His majesty must strike us with terror.

The effect of the habit of sinning is that men grow hardened in their sins and discern nothing, as if they were enveloped in thick darkness. David, therefore, to teach them that they gain nothing by flattering and deceiving themselves as they do when wickedness reigns in the world with impunity, testifies that God looks down from heaven and casts His eyes on all sides, for the purpose of knowing what is done among men.

God, it is true, has no need to make inquiry or search; but when He compares Himself to an earthly judge, it is in adaptation to our limited capacity, and to enable us to gradually form some apprehension of His secret providence, which our reason cannot comprehend all at once.

Oh, that this manner of speaking would teach us to summon ourselves before His tribunal! And while the world flatters itself, and the reprobate try to bury their sins in forgetfulness through their thoughtlessness, hypocrisy, or shamelessness—blinded in their obstinacy as if intoxicated—may we be led to shake off all indifference and stupidity by reflecting on this truth: God, nonetheless, looks down from His high throne in heaven and beholds what is going on here below!

To see if there were any that did understand. As the whole order of a good and righteous life depends upon our being governed and directed by the light of understanding, David has justly taught us in the beginning of the psalm that folly is the root of all wickedness. In this clause, he also very justly declares that the commencement of integrity and uprightness of life consists in an enlightened and sound mind.

But as most people misapply their intellectual powers to deceitful purposes, David immediately afterward defines, in one word, what true understanding is: namely, that it consists in seeking after God; by this he means that unless men devote themselves wholly to God, their life cannot be well ordered.

Some understand the word משכיל, maskil, which we translated, that did understand, in too restricted a sense, whereas David declares that the reprobate are utterly destitute of all reason and judgment.

Every one of them has gone aside. Some translate the word סר, sar, which is used here, to stink—as if the reading were, Every one of them emits an offensive odor, so that it may correspond in meaning with the verb in the next clause, which in Hebrew signifies to become putrid or rotten. But there is no necessity for explaining the two words in the same way, as if the same thing were repeated twice.

The interpretation is more appropriate which supposes that men are here condemned as guilty of a detestable revolt, since they are estranged from God, or have departed far from Him. Afterward, the disgusting corruption or putrescence of their whole life is pointed out, as if nothing could proceed from apostates but what smells rank of rottenness and infection.

The Hebrew word סר, sar, is almost universally taken in this sense. In Psalm 53, the word סג, sag, is used, which signifies the same thing. In short, David declares that all men are so carried away by their capricious lusts that nothing of purity or integrity is to be found in their whole life.

This, therefore, is defection so complete that it extinguishes all godliness. Besides, David here not only censures a portion of the people but pronounces them all to be equally involved in the same condemnation. This was, indeed, a prodigy well fitted to excite abhorrence: that all the children of Abraham, whom God had chosen to be His peculiar people, were so corrupt, from the least to the greatest.

But it might be asked, how David makes no exception, how he declares that not a righteous person remains, not even one, when, nevertheless, he informs us a little later that the poor and afflicted put their trust in God? Again, it might be asked, if all were wicked, who was that Israel whose future redemption he celebrates in the end of the psalm?

Nay, as he himself was one of the body of that people, why does he not at least except himself? I answer: It is against the carnal and degenerate body of the Israelite nation that he here inveighs, and the small number constituting the seed which God had set apart for Himself is not included among them.

This is the reason why Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans 3:10, extends this sentence to all mankind. David, it is true, deplores the disordered and desolate state of affairs under the reign of Saul. At the same time, however, he doubtless makes a comparison between the children of God and all who have not been regenerated by the Spirit but are carried away according to the inclinations of their flesh.

Some offer a different explanation, maintaining that Paul, by quoting David's testimony, did not understand him as meaning that men are naturally depraved and corrupt. They argue that the truth David intended to teach is that the rulers and the more distinguished of the people were wicked, and therefore, it was not surprising to see unrighteousness and wickedness prevailing so generally in the world.

This answer is far from satisfactory. The subject Paul reasons upon there is not the character of most men, but the character of all who are led and governed by their own corrupt nature.

It is, therefore, to be observed that when David places himself and the small remnant of the godly on one side, and the body of the people in general on the other, this implies a manifest difference between the children of God, who are created anew by His Spirit, and all the posterity of Adam, in whom corruption and depravity exercise dominion.

From this it follows that all of us, when we are born, bring with us from our mother’s womb this folly and filthiness manifested in the whole life, which David here describes. We continue as such until God makes us new creatures by His mysterious grace.