Psalm 50 A Psalm of Asaph.

¹The Mighty One, God the Lord,

Has spoken and called the earth

From the rising of the sun to its going down.

²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God will shine forth.

³Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;

A fire shall devour before Him,

And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.

⁴He shall call to the heavens from above,

And to the earth, that He may judge His people:

⁵“Gather My saints together to Me,

Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”

⁶Let the heavens declare His righteousness,

For God Himself is Judge. Selah

⁷“Hear, O My people, and I will speak,

O Israel, and I will testify against you;

I am God, your God!

⁸I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices

Or your burnt offerings,

Which are continually before Me.

⁹I will not take a bull from your house,

Nor goats out of your folds.

¹⁰For every beast of the forest is Mine,

And the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I know all the birds of the mountains,

And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.

¹²“If I were hungry, I would not tell you;

For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.

¹³Will I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats?

¹⁴Offer to God thanksgiving,

And pay your vows to the Most High.

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

¹⁶But to the wicked God says:

“What right have you to declare My statutes,

Or take My covenant in your mouth,

¹⁷Seeing you hate instruction

And cast My words behind you?

¹⁸When you saw a thief, you consented with him,

And have been a partaker with adulterers.

¹⁹You give your mouth to evil,

And your tongue frames deceit.

²⁰You sit and speak against your brother;

You slander your own mother’s son.

²¹These things you have done,

and I kept silent;

You thought that I was altogether like you;

But I will rebuke you,

And set them in order before your eyes.

²²“Now consider this, you who forget God,

Lest I tear you in pieces,

And there be none to deliver:

²³Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;

And to him who orders his conduct aright

I will show the salvation of God.”

 

Commentary

Vs. 1 “The Mighty One, God the Lord,

Has spoken and called the earth

From the rising of the sun to its going down.”

This Psalm begins with a call from the Mighty One, God the Lord, The Supreme One, the All Sufficient One, who called the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down. This then is His call to all peoples to give ear to Him as the Supreme Sovereign, the One and only True and Living God. 

Vs. 2 “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God will shine forth.”

His call is now given as coming from Zion, the perfection of beauty, from the place where God will shine forth. This then must be within the New Jerusalem where He will reign over the new heavens and earth.

Vs. 3 ³Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;

A fire shall devour before Him,

And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.

God’s Presence shall be very awesome on earth, and His voice shall not be silent. For a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. All men will tremble and fear at the presence and sound of Him. 

Vs. 4-5 ⁴He shall call to the heavens from above,

And to the earth, that He may judge His people:

⁵“Gather My saints together to Me,

Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”

God Himself as Lord now calls out to heavens from above and the earth beneath to bring forth His people, all His saints who have made a covenant with Him by sacrifice, so that He may now speak to us.

Vs. 6 “Let the heavens declare His righteousness,

For God Himself is Judge. Selah”

A cry is now heard from the heavens that declare He alone is Righteous, therefore because He alone is Righteous, He alone is Justified in Judging us all.

Vs. 7-13 ⁷“Hear, O My people, and I will speak,

O Israel, and I will testify against you;

I am God, your God!

⁸I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices

Or your burnt offerings,

Which are continually before Me.

⁹I will not take a bull from your house,

Nor goats out of your folds.

¹⁰For every beast of the forest is Mine,

And the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I know all the birds of the mountains,

And the wild beasts of the field are Mine.

¹²“If I were hungry, I would not tell you;

For the world is Mine, and all its fullness.

¹³Will I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats?

God having assembled His people Israel, now addresses them collectively. He begins by telling them that He will testify against them, because He is God, their God, but His rebuke of them is not for their sacrifices nor for their burnt offerings which are continually before Him. No His cause with  Israel was not for their performing these, their observing His commanded ritual offerings to Him (vs. 8). Rather His cause with them was their putting these before Him, with their making observing sacrifice and ritual the means to their staying in a right relationship with Him. And as verses nine to thirteen reveal Israel’s’ obsession with these, came at the expense of their own love for Him, of their keeping His Word in their hearts, and thus making it the guide for their lives. For religious ritual, and one’s devotion to it, can never replace ones love and obedience towards God. For that is what God requires of us all, our faith in Him and love for Him above all else, because ritual and sacrifice and never replace relationship. Now to see how bad this got before the Lord Jesus Christ’s Arrival and His making the Finial and Atoning Sacrifice for us all on the Cross consider Malachi 1:6-14 and the priests’ indifferent attitudes there.

Vs. 14-15 ¹⁴Offer to God thanksgiving,

And pay your vows to the Most High.

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

Therefore God calls the people back to Himself to delight themselves in Him again. To keep their word to Him. For it is not observing “the ritual”, or doing “a sacrifice”, that delights God, rather it is that our hearts our thankful towards Him. That when we worship Him, and give sacrificially to Him, we delight ourselves in Him (consider Judges 5:2, 9; 1 Chr. 29:6, 9, 14, 17; 2 Chr. 35:8; Ezra 1:5-6, 3:5 etc.). That when we speak a vow to Him, we keep it (Ecc. 5:4-7; Jonah 2:9). That we do not make false promises to Him. That in the day of our trouble we call upon the Lord first, before we call upon everyone and everything else. For He will deliver us, and we will glorify Him! This then is God’s call to us all who believe in Him.

Vs. 16-21 ¹⁶But to the wicked God says:

“What right have you to declare My statutes,

Or take My covenant in your mouth,

¹⁷Seeing you hate instruction

And cast My words behind you?

¹⁷Seeing you hate instruction

And cast My words behind you?”

¹⁸When you saw a thief, you consented with him,

And have been a partaker with adulterers.

¹⁹You give your mouth to evil,

And your tongue frames deceit.

²⁰You sit and speak against your brother;

You slander your own mother’s son.

²¹These things you have done,

and I kept silent;

You thought that I was altogether like you;

But I will rebuke you,

And set them in order before your eyes.

Having addressed His saints, everyone who has entered into a Covenant with Him by sacrifice; which for us now is the New Covenant through the Blood of Christ, which by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we enter into God's Everlasting Covenant. God now turns to wicked and rebukes and rejects them. For God knowing their ways now lays His charges against them, telling them they have no right to declare His statutes, or take His covenant in their mouth, for when they saw thief, they did not rebuke them, instead they consented with them. Indeed, such was their moral and ethical depravity that they even went and partook with adulterers (vs. 18). For when they loosed “the bonds” of righteousness from themselves, they also gave their mouths over to speaking evil; thus all manner of wicked lies and deceit proceeded from their mouths (vs. 19). Even the people around them became victims of their malicious and slanderous speech (vs. 20). And yet somehow, they took God’s silence while doing such horrible things as His somehow being okay with their doing so. Nonetheless His patience has an end, and He now tells them that He will rebuke them, and set them in order before their eyes, which is a clear reference to His Judgment when He will set straight all which mankind has made crooked (vs. 20).

 Vs. 22-23 ²²“Now consider this, you who forget God,

Lest I tear you in pieces,

And there be none to deliver:

²³Whoever offers praise glorifies Me;

And to him who orders his conduct aright

I will show the salvation of God.”

Therefore God now gives us all a warning not to forget Him, not to forget that He is our God and Judge. For He alone kills and makes alive according to His own counsels (Deut. 32:39). Therefore, to brandish unbelief before Him is only to incur His wrath! God then having rebuked the wicked and all unbelief now offers us His Promise of showing His salvation to everyone who offers Him praise, who sets their conduct aright before Him, (consider Acts 10:34-35). The question then is, will you repent and believe and open your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? For it is by Him alone that God's salvation will come to you! Open then your heart to Him and invite Him in and He will come in and save you (Rev. 3:21)!

Scripture Quotations

New King James (1982): Thomas Nelson.