The sure anticipation of triumph is triumph. The sad minor of "How long?" if coming from faithful lips, passes into a jubilant key, which heralds the full gladness of the yet future songs of deliverance. PSALM XIV. 1 The fool says in his heart, There is no God; They corrupt; they make abominable their doings; There is no one doing good. 2 Jehovah looketh down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there is any having discernment, Seeking after God. 3 They are all turned aside: together they are become putrid; There is no one doing good, There is not even one. 4 Do they not know, all the workers of iniquity, Who devour my people [as] they devour bread? On Jehovah they do not call. 5 There they feared a [great] fear, For God is in the righteous generation. 6 The counsel of the afflicted ye would put to shame, For God is his refuge. 7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When Jehovah brings back the captivity of His people, May Jacob exult, may Israel be glad! This psalm springs from the same situation as Psalms x. and xii. It has several points of likeness to both. It resembles the former in its attribution to "the fool" of the heart-speech, "There is no God," and the latter in its use of the phrases "sons of men" and "generation" as ethical terms and in its thought of a Divine interference as the source of safety for the righteous. We have thus three psalms closely connected, but separated from each other by Psalms xi. and xiii. Now it is observable that these three have no personal references, and that the two which part them have. It would appear that the five are arranged on the principle of alternating a general complaint of the evil of the times with a more personal pleading of an individual sufferer. It is also noticeable that these five psalms--a little group of wailing and sighs--are marked off from the cognate psalms iii.-vii. and xvi., xvii., by two (Psalms viii. and xv.) in an entirely different tone. A second recast of this psalm appears in the Elohistic Book (Psalm liii.), the characteristics of which will be dealt with there. This is probably the original. The structure of the psalm is simple, but is not carried out completely. It should consist of seven verses each having three clauses, and so having stamped on it the sacred numbers 3 and 7, but vv. 5 and 6 each want a clause, and are the more vehement from their brevity.