God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
The psalm is almost the same as Psalm 14, with only a few verbal changes. It belongs to the book whose Hebrew title Tehillim means praises or songs of praise, made up of songs set to music that served as the hymn book arranged for use in the temple service. The book holds one hundred fifty psalms composed over a thousand years from Moses to the close of the captivity, divided into five books with Psalms 42 to 72 forming the second book, and it is often called the Psalms of David because he was the greatest of the sweet singers of Israel and wrote the first division. Its Hebrew poetry is elegant and elevated in style without rhyme or appreciable rhythm, giving lamentation, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and prophecy including prophecy of Christ, as a mirror of the faith, love, and hope of the true Israelite and as words inspired by God for man to speak to God. The psalm relates chiefly to the sorrows and afflictions of the Hebrew captives, and it is placed most likely in the latter part of the Babylonian captivity during the reign of Belshazzar, when Jewish persecution and distress were greatest.
God looking down from heaven upon mankind to see if any understand and seek Him reveals the sad condition of fallen man as abominably wicked, finding with the next verse that every one is gone back, altogether become filthy, with none doing good, no, not one. The fool who says in his heart there is no God is not only the open professed atheist, since he does not avow disbelief openly but denies God in his heart, and therefore the fool is everyone who breaks the commandments of God. The description is the real condition of the fallen race of Adam viewed in the light of God's holy law, showing Jews and Gentiles alike to be sinners and transgressors of God's law.
The verse applies to all the world, to Jews and Gentiles together, proving that no one is righteous and that all are under sin. Those who held the other teaching held that the verse speaks of the Jews, those under the law, and not of Gentiles, and that its words are the source of the quotation in Romans 3:10-19, so that quotation refers only to the Jews, as confirmed by the question in Romans 3:1 about what advantage the Jew has over the Gentile. In view of this condition there is longing for the salvation of Israel to come out of Zion to bring rejoicing and gladness when the captivity is turned, which is the time for the Lord to work because they have made void His law, with exhortation, encouragement, and assurance of divine help and final deliverance from persecutors.
The psalm is almost the same as Psalm 14, with only a few verbal changes. It belongs to the book whose Hebrew title Tehillim means praises or songs of praise, made up of songs set to music that served as the hymn book arranged for use in the temple service. The book holds one hundred fifty psalms composed over a thousand years from Moses to the close of the captivity, divided into five books with Psalms 42 to 72 forming the second book, and it is often called the Psalms of David because he was the greatest of the sweet singers of Israel and wrote the first division. Its Hebrew poetry is elegant and elevated in style without rhyme or appreciable rhythm, giving lamentation, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and prophecy including prophecy of Christ, as a mirror of the faith, love, and hope of the true Israelite and as words inspired by God for man to speak to God. The psalm relates chiefly to the sorrows and afflictions of the Hebrew captives, and it is placed most likely in the latter part of the Babylonian captivity during the reign of Belshazzar, when Jewish persecution and distress were greatest.
God looking down from heaven upon mankind to see if any understand and seek Him reveals the sad condition of fallen man as abominably wicked, finding with the next verse that every one is gone back, altogether become filthy, with none doing good, no, not one. The fool who says in his heart there is no God is not only the open professed atheist, since he does not avow disbelief openly but denies God in his heart, and therefore the fool is everyone who breaks the commandments of God. The description is the real condition of the fallen race of Adam viewed in the light of God's holy law, showing Jews and Gentiles alike to be sinners and transgressors of God's law.
The verse applies to all the world, to Jews and Gentiles together, proving that no one is righteous and that all are under sin. Those who held the other teaching held that the verse speaks of the Jews, those under the law, and not of Gentiles, and that its words are the source of the quotation in Romans 3:10-19, so that quotation refers only to the Jews, as confirmed by the question in Romans 3:1 about what advantage the Jew has over the Gentile. In view of this condition there is longing for the salvation of Israel to come out of Zion to bring rejoicing and gladness when the captivity is turned, which is the time for the Lord to work because they have made void His law, with exhortation, encouragement, and assurance of divine help and final deliverance from persecutors.