Fools Rush In

This psalm is an almost exact copy of Psalm 14. One preacher commented that it was a lament on our presumptuous folly in thinking we know best. If the psalmist wrote the earlier version in his youth, he was just as persuaded of humanity’s folly in his later years. If David was the psalmist here, he may even have had in mind his encounter with Nabal, whose name means “fool” (1 Sam. 25:25). The psalm seems like a reflection from a disillusioned man, picturing God looking down in vain from heaven to see if anyone has a pure heart to seek him, but finding none. “Do all these evildoers know nothing?” exclaims the psalmist in exasperation (4). Their thinking is all wrong and distorted. “Everyone has turned away…there is no one who does good” (3). The writer ends with a yearning for salvation, a restoration of right thinking that results in right living (6). This reminds us of Isaiah 53:6-12 where the prophet similarly laments that “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way,” but foresees that salvation will come through the sacrifice of a suffering Messiah.