Psalms 14:3

3 But all have turned away. Together, everyone has become evil. There is no one who does anything good, not even one.

Psalms 14:3 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 14:3

They are all gone aside
As bankrupts, having run out their whole stock, and into debt, and have nothing to pay, nor make composition with, and are obliged to abscond, as Adam, ( Genesis 3:8 Genesis 3:24 ) . The words in ( Psalms 53:3 ) are, "everyone of them is gone back"; from God; have revolted from him, and turned their backs upon him, and have gone back from his commandment, despised his law, and cast away his word. The Apostle Paul interprets it, "they are all gone out of the way"; out of God's way, into their own way; out of the path of truth, righteousness, and holiness, into the way of sin, error, darkness, and death; and with this agrees the interpretation of Aben Ezra, who adds, "out of the right way"; and of Kimchi and Ben Melech, whose gloss is, "out of the good way"; which is God's way, or the way of his commandments;

they are [all] together become filthy,
or "stinking" F1, like putrid and corrupt flesh; see ( Psalms 38:5 ) ( Isaiah 1:6 ) ; and so "unprofitable", useless, and good for nothing, as the apostle renders it, ( Romans 3:12 ) . Mankind are universally filthy and unclean; they are all of them defiled with sin, both in soul and body, in all the faculties of their souls and members of their bodies; and they are originally and naturally so; nor can anything cleanse them from their pollution but the blood of Christ;

[there is] none that doeth good, no, not one:
this is repeated partly to asseverate more strongly the depravity of mankind, and partly to express the universality of it; that there is no exception to it in any that descend from Adam by ordinary generation. Here follows in the Septuagint version, according to the Vatican copy, all those passages quoted by the apostle, ( Romans 3:13-18 ) ; which have been generally supposed to have been taken from different parts of Scripture; so the Syriac scholiast says, in some ancient Greek copies are found eight more verses, and these are they, "Their throat"


FOOTNOTES:

F1 (wxlan) "faetnerunt, putruerunt", Pagninus; "aut putruerunt", Vatabulus; "putidi vel foetidi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Psalms 14:3 In-Context

1 Fools say to themselves, "There is no God." Fools are evil and do terrible things; there is no one who does anything good.
2 The Lord looked down from heaven on all people to see if anyone understood, if anyone was looking to God for help.
3 But all have turned away. Together, everyone has become evil. There is no one who does anything good, not even one.
4 Don't the wicked understand? They destroy my people as if they were eating bread. They do not ask the Lord for help.
5 But the wicked are filled with terror, because God is with those who do what is right.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.