Psa 14:4, 17:6, 31:17, 53:4, 118:5 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? ] Is there not one of them who takes this dreadful subject into consideration? To their deeply fallen state they add cruelty; they oppress and destroy the poor, without either interest or reason. Who eat up my people as they eat bread ] Ye make them an easy and unresisting prey. They have no power to oppose you, and therefore you destroy them. That this is the meaning of the expression, is plain from the speech of Joshua and Caleb relative to the Canaanites. : "Neither fear ye the people or the land; for they are bread for us." And call not upon the Lord. ] They have no defence , for they invoke not the Lord . They are all either atheists or idolaters .

‏ Psalms 14:4

Verse 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?] Is there not one of them who takes this dreadful subject into consideration? To their deeply fallen state they add cruelty; they oppress and destroy the poor, without either interest or reason.

Who eat up my people as they eat bread] Ye make them an easy and unresisting prey. They have no power to oppose you, and therefore you destroy them. That this is the meaning of the expression, is plain from the speech of Joshua and Caleb relative to the Canaanites. Nu 14:9: "Neither fear ye the people or the land; for they are bread for us."

And call not upon the Lord.] They have no defence, for they invoke not the Lord. They are all either atheists or idolaters.

‏ Psalms 17:6

Verse 6. Incline thine ear unto me] David prayed from a conviction that God would hear: but he could not be satisfied unless he received an answer. In a believer's mind the petition and the answer should not be separated.

‏ Psalms 31:17

Verse 17. Let the wicked be ashamed] Those who traduce my character and lay snares for my life; let them be confounded.

‏ Psalms 53:4

Verse 4. Have the workers of iniquity] For , poaley, workers seventy-two of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., with several ancient editions, the Chaldee, though not noticed in the Latin translation in the London Polyglot, the Syriac, Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, and the Arabic, with the Anglo-Saxon, add the word col, all,-ALL the workers of iniquity; which is the reading in the parallel place in Ps 14:3, 4. It may be necessary to observe, that the Chaldee, in the Antwerp and Paris Polyglots, and in that of Justinianus, has not the word col, ALL.

Have not called upon God] Elohim; but many MSS. have Jehovah, LORD.

‏ Psalms 118:5

Verse 5. I called upon the Lord] I am a standing proof and living witness of God's mercy. Take encouragement from me.