What Does Psalm 14:3 Mean?
They all turn aside; together they are soiled. There is none doing good, not even one.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.THE KEY
The turning is collective: no one can claim to be the one good exception.
THE MEANING
This verse addresses the reader as part of a humanity that has turned aside together and become corrupt; it says no one remains who does good. Its scope is total: no exception is named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it dissolves is that corruption belongs to other people while I stand outside it as the exception.
THE ROOT
נֶאֱלָחוּ
ne'elachu
GROWS FROM
א־ל־ח
ʾ-l-ḥ
Become foul, tainted, or corrupt.
“soiled” in this verse is ne'elachu. English “filthy” can suggest surface dirt, while this rare verb describes becoming foul or corrupt. The verb names a condition the group has become, making the corruption a shared result; it recurs in Psalm 53:3.
ALSO GROWS
ne'elach: Has become foul or corrupt; singular form.
נֶאֱלַח
The singular form carries the same state in one subject; the verse’s plural form spreads that state across the group.
ne'elachu: They have become foul or corrupt; plural form.
נֶאֱלָחוּ
This same rare verb recurs in Psalm 53:3, repeating the description of collective corruption.
סָר
sar
GROWS FROM
ס־ו־ר
Turn aside, depart, or remove.
“turn aside” in this verse is sar. The verb pictures movement away: the whole has turned off course. The next word, יַחְדָּו (yachdav, “together”), makes that turning communal before the verse names its outcome.
ALSO GROWS
sur: Turn aside or depart.
סוּר
This is the root’s basic movement, expressed here as a collective turning away.
hesir: Remove or take away.
הֵסִיר
This causative form carries the root’s sense of something being moved from its place.
יַחְדָּו
yachdav
GROWS FROM
י־ח־ד
Join, unite, or be together.
יַחְדָּו (yachdav, “together”) and אֶחָד (echad, “one”) share a sound echo around ח־ד while belonging to distinct roots. The verse moves from people joined in corruption to its closing “not one,” bringing collective and individual into the same frame.
ALSO GROWS
yachad: Together or united.
יַחַד
It makes the shared character of the turning explicit.
yachid: Only, solitary, or one of a kind.
יָחִיד
This related form brings the root’s movement between togetherness and the solitary into view beside the verse’s final “not one.”
THE PATTERN
A shared turning from good leaves no human being outside the claim that good is absent.
For there is no aligned human upon the earth who does good and does not miss the mark.All of us like sheep have wandered; each has turned to his own way, and the LORD has caused the crookedness of us all to fall upon him.They have all gone out of the way. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good, not even one.THE THREAD
For there is no aligned human upon the earth who does good and does not miss the mark.Ecclesiastes uses the same Hebrew phrase, עֹשֵׂה טוֹב (ʿoseh tov, “doing good”), from עשה (asah, “do or make”) and טוב (tov, “good”). Its closing וְלֹא יֶחֱטָא (velo yeḥeta, “and does not miss”) brings the human miss into the same sentence, opening Psalm 14’s claim as a shared human condition.
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