This Psalm gives us the solitary musing of a godly soul over the atheism of the world. He recites God’s verdict (Psa. 14:3-43They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord. (Psalm 14:3‑4)) upon man after making a solemn inquisition (such as he made of old at Babel and at Sodom, Gen. 11:5; 18:215And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. (Genesis 11:5)
21I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. (Genesis 18:21))—then anticipates the confusion of the children of men, when God shows Himself in the midst of His generation (thus morally opposed to the generation of Psa. 12:7-87Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. 8The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted. (Psalm 12:7‑8)), and closes with uttering a desire for that occasion.
The “willful king” of the last days is surely contemplated in “the fool” or atheist of this Psalm; for the confederacy which he heads is to be broken up when the salvation here anticipated comes out of Zion. But man is man. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” And thus the Apostle can quote this Psalm, when describing men in Romans 3. All of us by nature have the mind of “the willful one,” or the atheist—alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4).
Thus, while this is the meditation of either Jesus or His Remnant looking on the infidel of the last days, every instructed soul may use it. (See Psa. 53.) Indeed, the language of Psalm 14:33They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Psalm 14:3) in the Septuagint is used by the Apostle in Romans 3:11-1811There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17And the way of peace have they not known: 18There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:11‑18).