John Calvin Commentary Psalms 14:4

"Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people [as] they eat bread, And call not upon Jehovah?" — Psalms 14:4 (ASV)

This question is added to give a more amplified illustration of the preceding doctrine. The prophet had said that God observed from heaven the actions of men, and had found all of them gone astray; and now he introduces God exclaiming with astonishment: What madness is this, that those who ought to cherish My people, and diligently perform every kind service for them, are oppressing and attacking them like wild beasts, without any feeling of humanity? He attributes this manner of speaking to God, not because anything can happen that is strange or unexpected to Him, but to express His indignation more forcibly. The Prophet Isaiah, similarly, when addressing almost the same subject, says:

And God saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor (Isaiah 59:16).

God, it is true, does not actually experience such affections within Himself, but He portrays Himself as if He experienced them, so that we may feel the greatest horror and dread for our sins when He declares them to be so monstrous that He is, so to speak, thrown into agitation and disorder by them.

And if we were not harder than stones, our horror at the wickedness that prevails in the world would make our hair stand on end, seeing God Himself shows such a testimony of the detestation with which He regards it.

Moreover, this verse confirms what I said at the beginning: that David does not speak in this psalm of foreign tyrants or the avowed enemies of the church, but of the rulers and princes of his people, who possessed power and honor. This description would not apply to men who were complete strangers to the revealed will of God, for it would not be surprising to see those who do not possess the moral law—the rule of life—devoting themselves to violence and oppression. But the heinousness of the condemned actions is significantly aggravated by this circumstance: it is the shepherds themselves, whose duty it is to feed and take care of the flock, who cruelly devour it and do not spare even the people and heritage of God. There is a similar complaint in Micah 3:1-3:

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, etc.

If those who profess to know and to serve God were to exercise such cruelty towards the Babylonians or Egyptians, it would be an inexcusable piece of injustice; but when they glut themselves with the blood and flesh of the saints, just as they devour bread, this is such monstrous iniquity that it may well strike both angels and men with astonishment.

If such persons had even a particle of sound understanding remaining in them, it would restrain them from such fearfully infatuated conduct. They must, therefore, be completely blinded by the devil and utterly bereft of reason and understanding, since they knowingly and willingly flay and devour the people of God with such inhumanity.

This passage teaches us how displeasing to God and how abominable is the cruelty committed against the godly by those who pretend to be their shepherds. At the end of the verse, where he says that they call not upon the Lord, he again points out the source and cause of this unbridled wickedness: namely, that such persons have no reverence for God.

Religion is the best teacher for instructing us to maintain equity and uprightness towards one another; and where concern for religion is extinguished, all regard for justice perishes with it. With respect to the phrase calling upon God, as it constitutes the principal exercise of godliness, it includes by synecdoche (a figure of rhetoric by which a part is put for the whole), not only here but in many other passages of Scripture, the entire service of God.