Psalm 14:3

Their Throat Is an Open Sepulchre

Quoted in Romans 3:10–18

Side by Side

The Hebrew

The source text

They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (The six lines are not here.)

The Greek

Septuagint, where it went wrong (some copies)

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become good for nothing, there is none that does good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

Quoted in Romans 3:12–13

Paul’s chain of Scriptures

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips.

Your KJV reads: the Hebrew in Psalm 14, and Paul’s full chain in Romans 3:10–18.

See what changed and why ↓

What Your Bible Says

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood.
Romans 3:13–15 KJV

Paul is proving that Jew and Gentile alike are under sin. He opens with Psalm 14, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” and keeps going without a break.

What the Psalm Says

They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Psalm 14:3 KJV

The Psalm stops there. The open sepulchre, the poison of asps, the feet swift to shed blood are not in it.

What Changed

Some old Greek copies of this Psalm (numbered 13 in the Greek) carry six more lines after verse 3. They match Romans 3:13–18 almost word for word. The Hebrew has none of them.

Where the Lines Came From

Every one of the six lines is real Hebrew Scripture. Paul gathered them from Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7–8, and Psalm 36:1, and set them in one chain after Psalm 14.

Later copyists who knew Romans likely wrote that chain back into the Greek Psalm, so the Psalm would read the way Paul’s quotation does. Here the Greek copies are the ones that went wrong, and the Hebrew kept the Psalm as David wrote it.

Which One Is Right?

The Hebrew Psalm has no extra lines.

Psalm 53, the twin of Psalm 14, does not have them either.

The Greek copies do not agree. Some have the lines; others do not.

Jerome, around 400 AD, wrote that the lines were not in the Hebrew and had been added to the common Greek copies.

Purpose of the Change

The effect was to make the Psalm match Romans, as if Paul had quoted one Psalm instead of five places. The copyists likely meant well. Paul never needed it: every line he quoted is already in the Hebrew Bible.

The Bottom Line

The Hebrew Psalm is right. Paul built his chain from five Hebrew Scriptures, and later Greek copies borrowed it back.

The answer to that verdict, none righteous, no, not one, is sung in Revelation: “thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it

Where Each Line Comes From

“Their throat is an open sepulchre” — Psalm 5:9.

“The poison of asps is under their lips” — Psalm 140:3.

“Whose mouth is full of cursing” — Psalm 10:7.

“Their feet are swift to shed blood… the way of peace have they not known” — Isaiah 59:7–8.

“There is no fear of God before their eyes” — Psalm 36:1.

Jerome’s Warning

In his commentary on Isaiah, Jerome noted that Paul took these words from Isaiah 59 and other places, and that many wrongly thought they came from Psalm 13 in the Greek. He said the lines were in the common Greek copies but not in the Hebrew. Through the Latin, the lines later reached some English Prayer Book psalters.

Paul Did Not Make Void the Law

Paul’s chain shows that no one is made right by keeping the Law. Then he guards the Law from being thrown away:

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
Romans 3:31 KJV

Deliverance comes by trust in Messiah. The Law then stands, established, not erased.

An Honest Note

Some still hold that Paul found the lines in his Greek Psalm and that the Hebrew lost them. No one can prove either view for certain. But the weight leans one way: the Hebrew of Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 lacks them, the Greek copies disagree, and Jerome already treated them as an addition. This is not the Greek translators’ fault so much as later copyists’. And the lines are true Scripture wherever Paul gathered them.