Psalm 10:4

Psalm 10:4, in plain English

In their arrogance, the wicked person simply doesn't think about God or factor Him into their plans at all. They operate as if He doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

Why it's here

This isn't atheism in the intellectual sense—most people in the ancient world believed gods existed. This is practical atheism: living as if God has no authority over you, no power to judge you, nothing to say about how you should live. It's pride so thick that it blocks out the reality of God's existence.

Who's speaking

The psalmist, continuing to describe the internal spiritual state of the wicked person

Where it sits in the story

The Bible teaches that this kind of willful blindness is a choice we make, not something forced on us. Romans 1 describes people who 'suppress the truth' about God. The tragedy is that they're rejecting the one being who could actually transform their life.

The scholarly reading

The wicked man's pride becomes epistemic blindness—in all his scheming, he has literally removed God from consideration.

Language and setting

The Hebrew לֹא דָרַשׁ אֱלֹהִים (lo darash ʾElohim, 'he does not seek God') uses the root דָּרַשׁ (darash), which elsewhere means 'to inquire of' God, to consult as one consults an oracle. The wicked man's refusal to seek is not mere neglect but active intellectual suppression. The phrase 'in all his schemes there is no God' (אֱלֹהִים בְּכָל־מְזִמּוֹתָיו, ʾElohim bekhol-mezimatav) suggests that practical atheism—living as though God doesn't exist—constitutes the essential posture of wickedness. Chrysostom and Augustine both recognized this as the core sin: not doubt about God's existence, but the operational erasure of Him from moral deliberation.

Voice

The righteous sufferer, anatomizing the wicked man's fundamental cognitive and spiritual error.

Significance

This verse locates human rebellion not primarily in explicit blasphemy but in the systematic compartmentalization of God from life's calculations—a condition Paul would later diagnose as humanity's fundamental problem in Romans 1.

2In pride the wicked pursue the needy; let them be caught in the schemes they devise.

3For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.

4In his pride the wicked man does not seek Him; in all his schemes there is no God.

5He is secure in his ways at all times; Your lofty judgments are far from him; he sneers at all his foes.

6He says to himself, “I will not be moved; from age to age I am free of distress.”

Read all of Psalm 10 — The wicked prosper and the helpless are crushed. Why do You stand far off, Lord? A cry that the oppressed have prayed in every century.