Psalms 14:1

Psalm 14 ¹ 

For the music director; by David.

14:1 Fools say to themselves, ²  “There is no God.” ³ 

They sin and commit evil deeds; ⁴ 

none of them does what is right. ⁵ 

Exodus 8:31

8:31 and the Lord did as Moses asked ⁶  – he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. Not one remained!

Exodus 12:30

12:30 Pharaoh got up ⁷  in the night, ⁸  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ⁹  in which there was not someone dead.

Deuteronomy 1:35

1:35 “Not a single person ¹⁰  of this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your ancestors!

Job 14:4

14:4 Who can make ¹¹  a clean thing come from an unclean? ¹² 

No one!

Romans 3:10

3:10 just as it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one,

Romans 3:1

3:1 Therefore what advantage does the Jew have, or what is the value of circumcision?

Colossians 1:5

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹³  from the hope laid up ¹⁴  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ¹⁵ 

[14:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 14. The psalmist observes that the human race is morally corrupt. Evildoers oppress God’s people, but the psalmist is confident of God’s protection and anticipates a day when God will vindicate Israel.

[14:1]  ² tn Heb “a fool says in his heart.” The singular is used here in a collective or representative sense; the typical fool is envisioned.

[14:1]  ³ sn “There is no God.” The statement is probably not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that God is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see Ps 10:4, 11).

[14:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “they act corruptly, they make a deed evil.” The verbs describe the typical behavior of the wicked. The subject of the plural verbs is “sons of man” (v. 2). The entire human race is characterized by sinful behavior. This practical atheism – living as if there is no God who will hold them accountable for their actions – makes them fools, for one of the earmarks of folly is to fail to anticipate the long range consequences of one’s behavior.

[14:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “there is none that does good.”

[8:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to the word of Moses” (so KJV, ASV).

[12:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ⁸ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ⁹ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.

[1:35]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Not a man among these men.”

[14:4]  ¹¹ tn The expression is מִי־יִתֵּן (mi-yitten, “who will give”; see GKC 477 §151.b). Some commentators (H. H. Rowley and A. B. Davidson) wish to take this as the optative formula: “O that a clean might come out of an unclean!” But that does not fit the verse very well, and still requires the addition of a verb. The exclamation here simply implies something impossible – man is unable to attain purity.

[14:4]  ¹² sn The point being made is that the entire human race is contaminated by sin, and therefore cannot produce something pure. In this context, since man is born of woman, it is saying that the woman and the man who is brought forth from her are impure. See Ps 51:5; Isa 6:5; and Gen 6:5.

[1:5]  ¹³ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ¹⁴ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.