The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Have those who work evil no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
There they are, in great terror,
where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
Comment: I, one day in heaven may be able to sit down with David and ask him why this is a psalm shooting off statements and not clarifying them or taking them to their conclusion! He will probably say to me something like ‘You don’t understand poetry, young man.’ And he’ll be right, although I might be more understanding when I get there!
The first sentence calling someone a ‘fool’, may not mean that he is not very knowledgable, very sophisticated, very important with lots of status but he, by denying God, is the epitome of stupidity! The word ‘fool’ is used in several meanings in the Bible Paul even says that believers are ‘fools’ for Christ’s sake! These fools may be ‘good’, ‘generous’ people but by their causing others to doubt God are thoroughly wicked. You cannot deny God and in the eternal sense escape being corrupt and thoroughly wicked.
God wants people to seek Him, and seekers are hard to find! Then in staccato phrases he heaps dead bones on great terror. He piles shame on rejection by God. But mixed in this nasty conglomeration is a strain of salvation coming out of the midst of it. It says to Israel and Jacob and Zion, which I think refers to what is often called the ‘remnant of faithful ones’ rather than the nation as a whole.
Prayer: God I do not want to be called a fool in Your classification of people.
As I read it! 