Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 14:4
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
4. Jehovah Himself speaks. The first clause may be taken as in A.V., ‘Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?’ Are they so ignorant that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong? Cp. Psa 14:2 and Psa 82:5. But a much better connexion with Psa 14:5 is gained by rendering, Were not all the workers of iniquity made to know? (or, following the ancient versions in a change of the vocalisation, shall not be made to know?) i.e. taught by sharp experience to know their error. Then Psa 14:5 follows as the answer to the question. ‘Yes, indeed! there &c.’ For this pregnant sense of know, cp. Hos 9:7; Jdg 8:16 ( taught, lit. made to know).
who eat up &c.] Lit. eating my people they eat bread. The A.V. follows the ancient versions in understanding this to mean, ‘they devour my people as naturally as they take their daily food.’ But the words seem rather to mean, ‘they live by devouring my people.’ Cp. Mic 3:1-3; Isa 3:14 f. And this they do without regard to Jehovah.
But who are meant by my people and the workers of iniquity? Possibly the godly few who alone deserve the name of Jehovah’s people (Mic 2:9; Mic 3:3; Mic 3:5; and often in the prophets), and the nobles who oppress them. But it is more natural to explain ‘my people’ of the nation of Israel; and in this case ‘the workers of iniquity’ must be foreign oppressors, or, if we assume a reference to past history as in Psa 14:1-3, the Egyptians. In favour of this view it should be noted that Israel is constantly called ‘my people’ in Exodus 3-10; and the last clause of the verse is illustrated by Exo 5:2. Cp. also Jer 2:3.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
4 6. The corruption of men exemplified in their oppression of Jehovah’s people. Its condign punishment.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? – literally, Do they not know, all the workers of iniquity, eating my people, they eat bread; Jehovah they call not. The several statements in this verse in confirmation of the fact of their depravity are:
(a) that they have no knowledge of God;
(b) that they find pleasure in the errors and imperfections of the people of God – sustaining themselves in their own wickedness by the fact that the professed friends of God are inconsistent in their lives; and
(c) that they do not call on the name of the Lord, or that they offer no worship to him.
The whole verse might have been, and should have been put in the form of a question. The first statement implied in the question is, that they have no knowledge. This can be regarded as a proof of guilt only
(1) as they have opportunities of obtaining knowledge;
(2) as they neglect to improve those opportunities, and remain in voluntary ignorance; and
(3) as they do this from a design to practice wickedness.
See this argument stated at length by the apostle Paul in Rom 1:19-28. Compare the note at that passage. This proof of human depravity is everywhere manifested still in the world – in the fact that men have the opportunities of gaining the knowledge of God if they chose to do it; in the fact that they voluntarily neglect those opportunities; and in the fact that the reason of this is that they love iniquity.
Who eat up my people as they eat bread – They sustain themselves in their own course of life by the imperfections of the people of God. That is, they make use of their inconsistencies to confirm themselves in the belief that there is no God. They argue that a religion which produces no better fruits than what is seen in the lives of its professed friends can be of no value, or cannot be genuine; that if a professed belief in God produces no happier results than are found in their lives, it could be of no advantage to worship God; that they are themselves as good as those are who profess to be religious, and that, therefore, there can be no evidence from the lives of the professed friends of God that religion is either true or of any value. No inconsiderable part of the evidence in favor of religion, it is intended, shall be derived from the lives of its friends; and when that evidence is not furnished, of course no small part of the proof of its reality and value is lost. Hence, so much importance is attached everywhere in the Bible to the necessity of a consistent life on the part of the professed friends of religion. Compare Isa 43:10. The words my people here are properly to be regarded as the words of the psalmist, identifying himself with the people of God, and speaking of them thus as his own people. Thus one speaks of his own family or his own friends. Compare Rth 1:16. Or this may be spoken by David, considered as the head or ruler of the nation, and he may thus speak of the people of God as his people. The connection does not allow of the construction which would refer the words to God.
And call not upon the Lord – They do not worship Yahweh. They give this evidence of wickedness that they do not pray; that they do not invoke the blessing of their Maker; that they do not publicly acknowledge him as God. It is remarkable that this is placed as the last or the crowning thing in the evidence of their depravity; and if rightly considered, it is so. To one who should look at things as they are; to one who sees all the claims and obligations which rest upon mankind; to one who appreciates his own guilt, his dependance, and his exposure to death and woe; to one who understands aright why man was made – there can be no more striking proof of human depravity than in the fact that a man in no way acknowledges his Maker – that he renders him no homage – that he never supplicates his favor – never deprecates his wrath – that, amidst the trials, the temptations, the perils of life, he endeavors to make his way through the world as if there were no God. The highest crime that Gabriel could commit would be to renounce all allegiance to his Maker, and henceforward to live as if there were no God. All other iniquities that he might commit would spring out of that, and would be secondary to that. The great sin of man consists in renouncing God, and attempting to live as if there were no Supreme Being to whom he owes allegiance. All other sins spring out of that, and are subordinate to it.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 14:4-6
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?
Conscience
I. Conscience informed. It is quite true that the workers of iniquity seem like brute beasts, as if they had no common sense, no conscience; but they had these gifts, and it is this fact which renders their conscience so dark.
1. We sin against our understanding. Our reason protests against sill.
2. We sin against conscience. Our moral sense echoes the words and thunders of Sinai, and protests against transgression.
3. We sin against experience. Our history shows how all that is desirable and honourable lies in the path of obedience, and how paths of transgression are paths of misery and shame. Sin is not a mistake or a misfortune, but a crime.
II. Conscience asleep.
1. Asleep as to men (Psa 14:4).
2. Asleep as to God. Call not upon the Lord. Thus men stifle their moral sense, and live neither fearing God nor regarding man.
III. Conscience aroused (Psa 14:5). Men awake to find that God is in the generation of the righteous. All is true that the righteous held, and the angry God is ready to avenge Himself on the proud sinner. (W. L. Watkinson.)
.
Psa 15:1-5
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?] Is there not one of them who takes this dreadful subject into consideration? To their deeply fallen state they add cruelty; they oppress and destroy the poor, without either interest or reason.
Who eat up my people as they eat bread] Ye make them an easy and unresisting prey. They have no power to oppose you, and therefore you destroy them. That this is the meaning of the expression, is plain from the speech of Joshua and Caleb relative to the Canaanites. Nu 14:9: “Neither fear ye the people or the land; for they are bread for us.”
And call not upon the Lord.] They have no defence, for they invoke not the Lord. They are all either atheists or idolaters.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Have the workers of iniquity lost their wits? have they neither religion nor common discretion? either of which would teach them not to make themselves so hateful to the all-seeing and almighty God, and to all men. The words may be rendered thus, Do not all the workers of iniquity know it? So it is only an ellipsis of the pronoun, which is frequent, as I have showed before. Are they not conscious to themselves of the truth of what I say? I dare appeal to their own consciences. But this I propound with submission.
Who eat up; or, they eat up, i.e. devour and destroy, as this word signifies, Deu 7:16; Pro 30:14; Jer 1:17; Nah 3:15.
My people, i.e. the poor and godly Israelites, of whom he principally speaks; whom he calleth my people. Either,
1. Gods people, as they were in many respects; or rather,
2. Davids people; for David speaks both these words, and all the rest of this Psalm, in his own name and person. And David might well call them his people, either because they were his friends and favourers; or because he being anointed their king, they were consequently his people; or because he was now actually their king, and so they were actually his people; for some conceive that this Psalm was made in the time and upon the occasion of Absaloms rebellion.
As they eat bread, i.e. with as little regret or remorse, and with as much greediness, and delight, and constancy too, as they use to eat their meat. The particle as is here understood, as it is Psa 125:2; Pro 26:9, and in many other places.
Call not upon the Lord; they are guilty not only of gross injustice, and oppression towards men, but also of horrid impiety and contempt of God, whose providence they deny, and whose worship they wholly neglect and despise.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4-6. Their conduct evincesindifference rather than ignorance of God; for when He appears injudgment, they are stricken with great fear.
who eat up my peopletoexpress their beastly fury (Pro 30:14;Hab 3:14). To “call on theLord” is to worship Him.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?…. Of the being of God, of the nature of sin, and of the punishment due unto it? This question is put either by way of admiration, as Kimchi and Aben Ezra observe; the psalmist, or rather God speaking after the manner of men, wondering that there should be such ignorance and stupidity among men, as before expressed; or rather, as denying this to be the case, and affirming that they have knowledge, notwithstanding they think, and say, and do, as before related, as in Ro 9:21. Do not they know that there is a God? and that they are accountable to him for their actions? Verily they do: for this is said, not of sinners of the Gentiles; though even they, by the light of nature, know there is a God, and show the work of the law written in their hearts; and have a consciousness in them of good and evil; but of sinners in Zion, of the profligate part of mankind among the Jews, who had a divine revelation, by which they knew the one God of Israel; and a law, by which was the knowledge of sin, and whose sanctions were rewards and punishments. And it seems to design the chief among them, who had power over others, to eat them up and devour them; even their political and ecclesiastical governors see Mic 3:1, who, though they had no spiritual understanding, nor experimental knowledge of things, yet had a theoretical and speculative one; so that their sins were attended with this aggravation, that they were against light and knowledge, particularly what follows:
who eat up my people [as] they eat bread: not David’s people, but the Lord’s people: see Ps 14:2; whom he chose for his people, who were his covenant people, and who professed his name, and were called by it; these the workers of iniquity ate up, devoured, and consumed; see
Jer 10:25; by reproaching and persecuting them, doing injury to their persons, property, and character: they devoured their persons, by using them cruelly and putting them to death; they devoured their substance, by spoiling them of it, and converting it to their own use, as the Pharisees are said to devour widows’ houses and they destroyed their good names and characters with their devouring words: and this they did with as much ease, delight, and pleasure, and without any remorse of conscience, and as constantly, as a man eats his bread. Or the words may be rendered, “they eat up my people, they eat bread”; that is, though they act such a wicked and cruel part, yet they have bread to eat, and fulness of it; they are not in straits, nor afflicted and punished; and because they are not, they are hardened in their impiety and iniquity: or “they eat bread”, after they have persecuted and devoured the Lord’s people, with peace of mind, without remorse of conscience, as if they had done no iniquity, like the adulterous woman in Pr 30:20;
and call not upon the Lord; or pray to him, or serve and worship him; for invocation includes the whole worship of God; and this they do not, though they know him, and are daily supplied by him, and eat his bread. Some read this clause with the former, “they eat bread, and call not on the Lord”; as if their sin was, that when they eat bread, they did not ask a blessing upon it, nor return thanks to God for it, which ought to be done; but the accent “athnach” under , “bread”, will not admit of this sense, though it seems to be countenanced by the Targum.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thus utterly cheerless is the issue of the divine scrutiny. It ought at least to have been different in Israel, the nation of the positive revelation. But even there wickedness prevails and makes God’s purpose of mercy of none effect. The divine outburst of indignation which the psalmist hears here, is applicable to the sinners in Israel. Also in Isa 3:13-15 the Judge of the world addresses Himself to the heads of Israel in particular. This one feature of the Psalm before us is raised to the consistency of a special prophetic picture in the Psalm of Asaph, Psa 82:1-8. That which is here clothed in the form of a question, , is reversed into an assertion in Psa 82:5 of that Psalm. It is not to be translated: will they not have to feel (which ought to be ); but also not as Hupfeld renders it: have they not experienced. “Not to know” is intended to be used as absolutely in the signification non sapere , and consequently insipientem esse , as it is in Psa 82:5; Psa 73:22; Psa 92:7; Isa 44:18, cf. 9, Isa 45:20, and frequently. The perfect is to be judged after the analogy of novisse (Ges. 126, 3), therefore it is to be rendered: have they attained to no knowledge, are they devoid of all knowledge, and therefore like the brutes, yea, according to Isa 1:2-3 even worse than the brutes, all the workers of iniquity? The two clauses which follow are, logically at least, attributive clauses. The subordination of to the participle as a circumstantial clause in the sense of is syntactically inadmissible; neither can , with Hupfeld, be understood of a brutish and secure passing away of life; for, as Olshausen, rightly observes does not signify to feast and carouse, but simply to eat, take a meal. Hengstenberg correctly translates it “who eating my people, eat bread,” i.e., who think that they are not doing anything more sinful, – indeed rather what is justifiable, irreproachable and lawful to them, – than when they are eating bread; cf. the further carrying out of this thought in Mic 3:1-3 (especially Mic 3:3 extr.: “just as in the pot and as flesh within the caldron.”). Instead of Jeremiah says in Jer 10:21 (cf. however, Jer 10:25): . The meaning is like that in Hos 7:7. They do not pray as it becomes man who is endowed with mind, therefore they are like cattle, and act like beasts of prey.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD. 5 There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. 6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge. 7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
In these verses the psalmist endeavours,
I. To convince sinners of the evil and danger of the way they are in, how secure soever they are in that way. Three things he shows them, which, it may be, they are not very willing to see–their wickedness, their folly, and their danger, while they are apt to believe themselves very wise, and good, and safe. See here,
1. Their wickedness. This is described in four instances:– (1.) They are themselves workers of iniquity; they design it, they practise it, and take as much pleasure in it as ever any man did in his business. (2.) They eat up God’s people with as much greediness as they eat bread, such an innate and inveterate enmity they have to them, and so heartily do they desire their ruin, because they really hate God, whose people they are. It is meat and drink to persecutors to be doing mischief; it is as agreeable to them as their necessary food. They eat up God’s people easily, daily, securely, without either check of conscience when they do it or remorse of conscience when they have done it; as Joseph’s brethren cast him into a pit and then sat down to eat bread,Gen 37:24; Gen 37:25. See Mic 3:2; Mic 3:3. (3.) They call not upon the Lord. Note, Those that care not for God’s people, for God’s poor, care not for God himself, but live in contempt of him. The reason why people run into all manner of wickedness, even the worst, is because they do not call upon God for his grace. What good can be expected from those that live without prayer? (4.) They shame the counsel of the poor, and upbraid them with making God their refuge, as David’s enemies upbraided him, Ps. xi. 1. Note, Those are very wicked indeed, and have a great deal to answer for, who not only shake off religion, and live without it themselves, but say and do what they can to put others out of conceit with it that are well-inclined–with the duties of it, as if they were mean, melancholy, and unprofitable, and with the privileges of it, as if they were insufficient to make a man safe and happy. Those that banter religion and religious people will find, to their cost, it is ill jesting with edged-tools and dangerous persecuting those that make God their refuge. Be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong. He shows them,
2. Their folly: They have no knowledge; this is obvious, for if they had any knowledge of God, if they did rightly understand themselves, and would but consider things as men, they would not be so abusive and barbarous as they are to the people of God.
3. Their danger (v. 5): There were they in great fear. There, where they ate up God’s people, their own consciences condemned what they did, and filled them with secret terrors; they sweetly sucked the blood of the saints, but in their bowels it is turned, and become the gall of asps. Many instances there have been of proud and cruel persecutors who have been made like Pashur, Magormissabibs–terrors to themselves and all about them. Those that will not fear God perhaps may be made to fear at the shaking of a leaf.
II. He endeavours to comfort the people of God, 1. With what they have. They have God’s presence (v. 5): He is in the generation of the righteous. They have his protection (v. 6): The Lord is their refuge. This is as much their security as it is the terror of their enemies, who may jeer them for their confidence in God, but cannot jeer them out of it. In the judgment-day it will add to the terror and confusion of sinners to see God own the generation of the righteous, which they have hated and bantered. 2. With what they hope for; and that is the salvation of Israel, v. 7. When David was driven out by Absalom and his rebellious accomplices, he comforted himself with an assurance that god would in due time turn again his captivity, to the joy of all his good subjects. But surely this pleasing prospect looks further. He had, in the beginning of the psalm, lamented the general corruption of mankind; and, in the melancholy view of that, wishes for the salvation which should be wrought out by the Redeemer, who was expected co come to Zion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, Rom. xi. 26. The world is bad; O that the Messiah would come and change its character! There is a universal corruption; O for the times of reformation! Those will be as joyful times as these are melancholy ones. Then shall God turn again the captivity of his people; for the Redeemer shall ascend on high, and lead captivity captive, and Jacob shall then rejoice. The triumphs of Zion’s King will be the joys of Zion’s children. The second coming of Christ, finally to extinguish the dominion of sin and Satan, will be the completing of this salvation, which is the hope, and will be the joy, of every Israelite indeed. With the assurance of that we should, in singing this, comfort ourselves and one another, with reference to the present sins of sinners and sufferings of saints.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
This question is added to give a more amplified illustration of the preceding doctrine. The prophet had said that God observed from heaven the doings of men, and had found all of them gone out of the way; and now he introduces him exclaiming with astonishment, What madness is this, that they who ought to cherish my people, and assiduously perform to them every kind office, are oppressing and falling upon them like wild beasts, without any feeling of humanity? He attributes this manner of speaking to God, not because any thing can happen which is strange or unexpected to him, but in order the more forcibly to express his indignation. The Prophet Isaiah, in like manner, (Isa 59:16,) when treating of almost the same subject, says,
“
And God saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.” (Isa 59:16)
God, it is true, does not actually experience in himself such affections, but he represents himself as invested with them, that we may entertain the greatest horror and dread on account of our sins, when he declares them to be of so monstrous a character, that he is as it were thrown into agitation and disorder by them. And were we not harder than the stones, our horror at the wickedness which prevails in the world would make the hair of our head to stand on end, (285) seeing God exhibits to us in his own person such a testimony of the detestation with which he regards it. Moreover, this verse confirms what I have said in the commencement, 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 were furnished with power and honor. This description would not apply to men who were altogether strangers to the revealed will of God; for it would be nothing wonderful to see those who do not possess the moral law, the rule of life, devoting themselves to the work of violence and oppression. But the heinousness of the proceedings condemned is not a little aggravated from this circumstance, that it is the shepherds themselves, whose office it is to feed and to take care of the flock, (286) who cruelly devour it, and who spare not even the people and heritage of God. There is a similar complaint in Mic 3:1,
“
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 a piece of injustice which could admit of no excuse; but when they glut themselves with the blood and flesh of the saints, as they devour bread, this is such monstrous iniquity, that it may well strike both angels and men with astonishment. Had such persons a particle of sound understanding remaining in them, it would restrain them from conduct so fearfully infatuated. They must, therefore, be completely blinded by the devil, and utterly bereft of reason and understanding, seeing 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 which is exercised against the godly, by those who pretend to be their shepherds. In 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 mistress for teaching us mutually to maintain equity and uprightness towards each other; and where a concern for religion is extinguished, then all regard for justice perishes along 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 whole of the service of God.
(285) “ Il faut que l’horreur des meschancetez qui regnent au monde nous face dresser les cheveux en la teste.” — Fr.
(286) “ Desquels l’office est de paistre et governer le troupeau.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?i.e., are they so senseless as not to perceive the consequences of their wrong-doing? or if we point the verb as the LXX. and Vulg., shall they not know? i.e., they are sure to find out to what their wickedness is leading them.
Who eat up.Literally, eating my people, they have eaten bread; on Jehovah they have not called, which is usually explained, as in Authorised Version, to devour Gods people has been as usual and as regular as the daily meal. Another rendering is whilst eating my people they have eaten bread, regardless of Jehovah, i.e., they have gone on in their security eating and drinking, with no thought of the vengeance preparing for them by the God of the oppressed race. Some, however, prefer to divide the two clauses, Ah, they shall seeall the workers of iniquity who eat my peoplethey eat bread (i.e., live) regardless of Jehovah. This makes a better parallelism. A comparison with Mic. 3:3-4, suggests that this verse of the psalm was a proverbial saying. (For the image, comp. Jer. 10:25; and Homers people-devouring kings.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Who eat up my people God is introduced as speaking. “Who devour the righteous with the same unconsciousness with which they would take their accustomed meal.” Perowne. The spirit that “calls not upon the Lord,” that says, “There is no God,” has been in all ages a spirit of persecution of God’s people and of inhumanity to man. “My people” must be understood of the covenant people, specially of those who adhered to the spirit of the covenant.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who devour my people as they eat bread,
And call not on YHWH?
There were they in great fear,
For God is in the generation of the righteous.
You put to shame (deride) the counsel of the poor,
Because YHWH is his refuge.’
Indeed God is perplexed at the folly of men. He cannot believe that they are so lacking in wisdom and common sense. They neither call on YHWH nor treat well those who do truly call on Him. They ‘eat up My people as they eat bread’. ‘My people’ must refer here to those who truly call on Him, the faithful in Israel (Mic 2:9; Mic 3:5). For while ‘my people’ is used of Israel as a whole it is always with the understanding that they are potentially responding to the covenant. Those who fail to do so in the end cease to be ‘His people’. They are combined with the enemy. Devouring or eating up His people refers both to depriving them of their possessions, devouring their wealth, and to oppressing them, giving them a hard time and even doing violence to them (compare Mic 3:1-3; Isa 3:14-15). So the world is seen as in deliberate antagonism against God, and against true righteousness as personified in His true people.
‘The workers of iniquity’ are thus those who deliberately continue in the way of sin having refused to become one of His people. They are not necessarily great sinners as the world would view it, but they are from God’s viewpoint, because they fail to truly respond to Him.
What is more they overlook the fact that ‘God is in the generation of the righteous’, that He is among the righteous and concerned about them and looks after them in each generation. Thus He will judge the persecutors in such a way that they will be in great fear. (This may be referring to a past event, or a number of past events, an example of judgments that have already happened. Or it may be simply looking to the future, to a judgment yet to come. Hebrew tenses are often not particular as regards to time. They are more concerned with whether an action is complete or incomplete, than whether past or future). And all because they have taken advantage of, or have derided, the lowly who have taken refuge in Yahweh, and whose thoughts and honesty and peacemaking attitude make them a prey to their scheming.
‘The poor’ regularly indicates those who are lowly and godly. This confirms that while ‘My people’ must in one sense mean Israel, it basically means the ones who show that they are His people by their way of living. The remainder are linked with the world.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 14:4-5. Have all the workers &c. Do they not observe, all the dealers in vanity, devourers of my people? They eat bread, they called not upon the Lord: Psa 14:5. They were upon the spot, in a great fear: Mudge: who remarks, that these words point at something which had lately happened at an impious entertainment, where God sufficiently discovered his favour to his people, as well as his vengeance to their enemies.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The sad blindness of men’s minds in their denying the existence of God, is here very strongly described; and the contradiction of such unbelief, as strongly pointed out in the fear of such a guilty mind. And the cruelties to God’s people is also shown. The sacred writer hath drawn a striking representation of the horrors of an alarmed conscience, enough to make the ears of everyone that heareth it to tingle. Deu 28:66-67 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 14:4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people [as] they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
Ver. 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? ] No, not so much as Pilate’s wife had in a dream; for else they would take heed of having anything to do with those just men. But they are workers of iniquity, habituated and hardened in cruelty, fleshed in blood; and having a hoof upon their hearts, so that they are masters of their consciences, and have taken a course with them. In this question here asked the psalmist doth not so much quaerere as queri, ask as chide and complain.
Who eat up my people as they eat bread
They call not upon the Lord
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 14:4-6
4Do all the workers of wickedness not know,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon the Lord?
5There they are in great dread,
For God is with the righteous generation.
6You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted,
But the Lord is his refuge.
Psa 14:4-6 This strophe heightens the results of not knowing (BDB 393, KB 390, Qal perfect, see Special Topic: Know ). The actions of the wicked against the poor, needy, and those with no social voice or power will be judged by God, their protector (cf. Deu 10:17-19; Deu 14:29; Deu 24:17; Deu 24:19-22; Deu 26:12-13; Deu 27:19)!
He is their refuge (BDB 340, cf. Psa 2:12; Psa 5:11; Psa 34:22). To attack them is to attack Him. He will defend them.
Psa 14:4
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV, LXXdo not call upon the Lord
TEVthey never pray to me
NJB, REBthey never call to YHWH
JPSOAdo not invoke the Lord
The verb (BDB 894, KB 1128, Qal perfect) is a common one used in many ways (i.e., a wide semantic field). In Psalms it has several usages.
1. of priests in ritual and prayer Psa 99:6
2. of the prayers of the covenant people Psa 4:3; Psa 20:9; Psa 50:15; Psa 86:5; Psa 91:15; Psa 107:6; Psa 107:13; Psa 116:2; Psa 141:1
3. the nations do not call on YHWH (i.e., Psa 79:6) but Israel does Psa 14:4; Psa 50:15; Psa 53:4
In the NT this OT worship phrase (i.e., ritual and prayer) becomes a way of denoting entrance into a relationship with YHWH through Jesus (cf. Act 2:21; Act 22:16; Rom 10:9-13).
We are a called people who call on the name of the Lord and are then called to service! Prayerlessness is a sign of false faith and practical atheism!
Psa 14:5 There they are in great dread Literally this is they feared a fear (Qal perfect and noun of the same root BDB 808, KB 922).
Since there is undefined, some switch it to the end of the phrase and add where there is no fear (AB, NJB).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
eat up My People. Compare Jer 10:25. Amo 8:4. Mic 3:3. Between Psa 14:3 and Psa 14:4 the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulg, insert four verses; three are retained in P.B.V. Probably an ancient marginal note which found its way into a MS.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 14:4
Psa 14:4
“Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up people as they eat bread, and call not upon Jehovah?”
The custom of eating bread without calling upon Jehovah was also mentioned by Paul in Romans in Rom 1:21, where the very beginning of mankind’s hardening was lodged in their refusal to “Give God thanks.” “Knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Yes, this has its application to eating without offering thanks to God, the giver of all gifts. There is no failure in America today that is any more shameful or loaded with any greater potential for ultimate moral disaster for the whole nation than is this simple neglect of thanksgiving for food. The beginning of all wickedness is “eating bread and not calling upon Jehovah,” as stated here. Jesus gave thanks for the loaves and fishes that he himself had created; and Paul gave thanks in a storm at sea facing a shipwreck; and there is no excuse whatever for the widespread neglect of such thanksgiving for meals that marks our society today.
Barnes pointed out that in our text, the fact of the sinful people not offering prayer and thanksgiving to God, “Is placed last, as the crowning thing in their depravity. This does not contradict Paul’s placing it first as the beginning of depravity, because it is true both ways.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 14:4. The distinction between the workers of iniquity and my people agrees with the remarks concerning a rule and its exceptions in the preceding verse. The question about the lack of knowledge is really a charge that the knowledge is lacking. That lack of knowledge, however, was without excuse. The 19th psalm, also the statement of Paul in Rom 1:20-21, indicates there were many evidences of the existence of God. Their ignorance was wilful, then, and due to their failure to consider the evidences as was charged later against the Israelites in Isa 1:3.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Have: Psa 94:8, Psa 94:9, Isa 5:13, Isa 27:11, Isa 29:14, Isa 44:19, Isa 44:20, Isa 45:20, Rom 1:21, Rom 1:22, Rom 1:28, 2Co 4:3, 2Co 4:4, Eph 4:17, Eph 4:18
eat up: Jer 10:25, Amo 8:4, Mic 3:2, Mic 3:3, Gal 5:15
and: Psa 79:6, Job 21:15, Job 27:10, Isa 64:7
Reciprocal: Gen 20:11 – Surely Gen 37:25 – they sat Num 14:9 – are bread Psa 27:2 – to Psa 44:11 – like sheep appointed for meat Psa 86:14 – and have Psa 94:5 – break Pro 4:17 – General Pro 30:14 – to devour Isa 43:22 – thou hast not Amo 3:10 – they Mic 3:1 – Is it Rom 10:2 – but not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 14:4. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Have they lost their senses? Have they neither religion nor common discretion, either of which might teach them not to fight against Omnipotence, not to seek death, everlasting death and destruction, in the error of their life, not to rush voluntarily into the wrath of God, and provoke the vengeance of eternal fire. Who eat up my people Who devour and destroy them, meaning Gods people, the poor and godly Israelites; as they eat bread With as little regret or remorse, and with as much greediness, delight, and constancy also, as they use to eat their meat. They call not upon the Lord They are guilty, not only of gross injustice toward men, but also of horrid impiety and contempt of God, denying his providence, and wholly neglecting, if not despising, his worship. Strange! that they should all be thus senseless, as not only to injure and oppress my poor innocent people, but to be cruel and void of all pity toward them, and to throw off likewise all religion!
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2. God’s punishment of the wicked 14:4-6
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
David marveled at the ignorance of the wicked who disregard God and consequently have no regard for His people.