Psalms 14:5

“There were they in great fear, etc.] This, shows that they had some knowledge of God, and consciousness of guilt, which they endeavoured to banish out of their minds by their fears of punishment; and these fears men of the most atheistic principles cannot get rid of. In (<195305>Psalm 53:5) it is added, “where no fear was”: that is, any cause or reason for it: such men are often frightened at their own shadows, afraid to be in the dark alone, as Hobbes the atheist was. The wicked flee when no man pursues, and are chased by the sound of a shaken leaf; (see <202801>Proverbs 28:1 <032636>Leviticus 26:36); or where there was no fear of God before their eyes, nor on their hearts, as well as no…”

“There were they in great fear - Margin, as in Hebrew, “they feared a fear.” The idea is, that they were in great terror or consternation. They were not calm in their belief that there was no God. They endeavored to be. They wished to satisfy themselves that there was no God, and that they had nothing to dread. But they could not do this. In spite of all their efforts, there was such proof of his existence, and of his being the friend of the righteous, and consequently the enemy of such as they themselves were, as to fill their minds with alarm. People cannot, by an effort of will, get rid of the evidence that there is a God. In the face of all their attempts to convince themselves of this,…”

“There - Upon the spot, where they practised these insolences, God struck them with a panick fear. For - God is on their side, and therefore their enemies have cause to tremble. Psalms 14:6”

“14:5 Though the wicked perish (1:5-6), God is with the godly.”

“were: etc. Heb. they feared a fear, Psa 53:5; Exo 15:16; Est 8:7; Pro 1:26, Pro 1:27, Pro 28:1 God: Psa 46:5, Psa 46:7, Psa 46:11; Isa 8:10, Isa 12:6, Isa 41:10, Isa 43:1, Isa 43:2; Mat 1:23 the generation: Psa 22:30, Psa 24:6, Psa 73:15, Psa 112:2; Pe1 2:9 Psalms 14:6”

“When Jahve thus bursts forth in scorn His word, which never fails in its working, smites down these brutish men, who are without knowledge and conscience. The local demonstrative שׁם is used as temporal in this passage just as in Psa 66:6; Hos 2:17; Zep 1:14; Job 23:7; Job 35:12, and is joined with the perfect of certainty, as in Job 36:13, where it has not so much a temporal as a local sense. It does not mean "there = at a future time," as pointing into the indefinite future, but "there = then," when God shall thus speak to them in His anger. Intensity is here given to the verb פּחד by the addition of a substantival object of the same root, just as is frequently the case in the more…”