Psalms

View other Psalms

Psalm 50

The God of gods, the Lord,
has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Sion’s perfect beauty he shines.

(Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.)

Before him fire devours,
around him tempest rages.
He calls on the heavens and the earth
to witness his judgement of his people.

“Summon before me my people
who made covenant with me by sacrifice.”
The heavens proclaim his justice,
for he, God, is the judge.
 
“Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you,
for I am God your God.
I accuse you, lay the charge before you.

I find no fault with your sacrifices,
your offerings are always before me.
I do not ask more bullocks from your farms,
nor goats from among your herds.

For I own all the beasts of the forest,
beasts in their thousands on my hills.
I know all the birds in the sky,
all that moves in the field belong to me.

Were I hungry, I would not tell you,
for I own the world and all it holds.
Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God
and render him your votive offerings.
Call on me in the day of distress.
I will free you and you shall honour me.

(But God says to the wicked:)

“But how can you recite my commandments
and take my covenant on my lips,
you who despise my law
and throw my words to the winds,

you who see a thief and go with him;
who throw in your lot with adulterers,
who unbridle your mouth for evil
and whose tongue is plotting crime,

you who sit and malign your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
You do this , and should I keep silence?
Do you think that I am like you?

Mark this, you who never think of God,
lest I seize you and you cannot escape;
a sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me
and I will show God’s salvation to the upright.”

Commentary


The author of this psalm, Asaph, writes poetry that is direct, vigorous, confident, powerful and regal. Unlike Korah, who was demoted from the Temple, Asaph and his house were put in charge of the Temple liturgy, a position which he and his descendants held right into the post-exilic era (see 1 Chronicles 25:1-2; Ezra 3:10). The psalm itself has the character of a liturgy, where the main section consists of a divine utterance of judgement delivered in the style of a prophetic rebuke. God Himself appears among them to sit in judgement. But if all eyes are upon Him, His eyes are upon Israel.

The whole psalm is addressed to the covenant people: first to the unthinking religious, then to the hardened and the hypocritical, to bring them to their senses. This is reality therapy, where God makes His people see things as they really are. It is the message which the prophets, and finally Jesus, tried to get through to Israel, and the Church, lest they forget, involved in all their lovely liturgies, that they were dealing with the living God.

The features of the psalm recalling the covenant on Sinai (vv. 1-5), allusions to the ten commandments (vv. 7, 18-20), and to allegiance to the covenant (v. 16), combine to set this psalm in the festival of the covenant. The essence of the Covenant renewal was not sacrifice, but the surrender of the heart to God in obedience to His Commandments, and to the stipulations of the Covenant.

The God of gods, the Lord,
has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Sion’s perfect beauty he shines.

(Our God comes, he keeps silence no longer.)

Before him fire devours,
around him tempest rages.
He calls on the heavens and the earth
to witness his judgement of his people.

“Summon before me my people
who made covenant with me by sacrifice.”
The heavens proclaim his justice,
for he, God, is the judge.
                               (vv. 1-6).

The psalm opens with a great theophany in the Temple. Somehow God manifests His powerful presence during the liturgical ceremonies, a presence reminiscent of that given to Moses on Sinai (see Exodus 3:19), or to Elijah (1 Kings 19:9-18), or Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-6), or even Ezekiel (Ezekiel chapter 1). Asaph here describes how God acts, rather than how He appears to them, because God has come to sit in judgement over His covenant people. As God of the universe He summons all peoples to witness this trial. He is in special relationship with Israel because of the covenant, yet, to their amazement, the pagan nations are called in as the jury! They had never grasped that God had plans for the rest of mankind too. The Israelites have failed to allow themselves to be spiritually affected, touched or transformed by God’s presence among them. The pagan world will now bear witness against them for their privileged status, and for their failure to respond to it (v. 1).

God is now in their midst, the perfection of beauty, light and glory, and Mount Sion reflects this because the Temple was situated there. Asaph is obviously speaking about a time when the Temple worship was in full bloom (v. 2). The prophet among them speaks out now that God should hold His silence no longer, for the people need the rebuke that is coming to them. Recalling Sinai he reminds the people that God is majestic and awesome, that He comes as a devouring fire or tempest, so that the people should tremble before Him in humility and a proper fear (see Exodus 19:16-25; 1 Kings 19:11ff). Awesome reverence is the correct attitude in anyone who really knows who God is.

Moses warned the people what would happen in the event of their breaking the covenant; we find his prophecy fulfilled here, as God calls heaven and earth to witness the trial of His people ( see Deuteronomy 30:19). As St Peter told the infant Church later, judgement must “begin with the Household of God” (see 1 Peter 4:17). Both Israel and the Church must face the responsibility that goes with their privileged status before God, for “to whom much is given much is expected” (see Luke 12:48). Israel may think she is fine in her own eyes, but in this trial her justification before the ultimate authority is at stake. The reason for the trial was that the people, as a nation, had solemnly bound themselves to God by sacrifice to keep the covenant made with their consent on Mount Sinai (see Exodus 24:4-8). This had placed them in a unique relationship with God, different from all other peoples, but their history shows that they preferred the privileges to the responsibilities incumbent on them. Now the moment of
truth has come . . . (vv. 4-6).


“Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you,
for I am God your God.
I accuse you, lay the charge before you.

I find no fault with your sacrifices,
your offerings are always before me.
I do not ask more bullocks from your farms,
nor goats from among your herds.

For I own all the beasts of the forest,
beasts in their thousands on my hills.
I know all the birds in the sky,
all that moves in the field belong to me.

Were I hungry, I would not tell you,
for I own the world and all it holds.
Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,
or drink the blood of goats?

Pay your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God
and render him your votive offerings.
Call on me in the day of distress.
I will free you and you shall honour me.
                                      (vv. 7-15).

God here reveals to His people that their cardinal sin is that they resort to ritual while refusing Him the relationship which alone can give inner reality to the offering. It is mindless religion; they seek to keep God “happy” with sacrifices and ritual while refusing to repent and let God save them. This type of religion tends to end up in empty ritual and legalistic formalism, the sin of the Pharisee at a later date, perhaps the sin of many Christians today? (see 2 Timothy 3:5). But God wants to be taken seriously, and He wants us to realize who He is! (v. 7).

It is not the sacrifices themselves, nor their zeal in offering them, that God finds fault with. Indeed, so many sacrifices were offered that God said they were continually before Him! The problem lies in the fact that the people think that God needs their sacrifices, and is, therefore, dependent on them for their gifts and prayers. They reveal the depth of their insecurity here; they made themselves independent of God, they tried to “control” God by their sacrifices, rituals and prayers so that He would obey the will of His creatures instead of them obeying Him. Thus they have turned religion upside down!

Our true position before God is very different. God is independent of His creatures, as He reveals here, and He cannot and will not be manipulated by them. Sacrifices and rituals represent our need, not God’s. It is prideful arrogance that seeks to put man on an equal footing with God. It is preposterous even to think that God needed to eat, and somehow fed on the animal sacrifices; this type of thinking showed that man had lost sight of the majesty, glory and other-worldliness of God. Hence the theophany was needed to re-educate the people to the fact that God is pure spirit, and needs nothing from His creatures (vv. 8-13).

The response required of us by God is not pomp and ceremony but love, and surrender to His will and to His redeeming work in us. He looks for the sacrifice of praise coming from the depths of the heart (see Hebrews 13:15). This type of worship acknowledges God as the most high and gives Him due honour, while enabling us to have a stance of humility before Him. The people must recognize their dependence on God, and call on Him for deliverance in their troubles. The prayer of the heart, not ritual, gets through to God, because God wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth (see John 4:21-24).

(But God says to the wicked:)

“But how can you recite my commandments
and take my covenant on my lips,
you who despise my law
and throw my words to the winds,

you who see a thief and go with him;
who throw in your lot with adulterers,
who unbridle your mouth for evil
and whose tongue is plotting crime,

you who sit and malign your brother
and slander your own mother’s son.
You do this , and should I keep silence?
Do you think that I am like you?

Mark this, you who never think of God,
lest I seize you and you cannot escape;
a sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me
and I will show God’s salvation to the upright.”
                                           (vv. 16-23).

These verses are addressed, not to the pagan nations who are present to witness this trial of God’s people, but to the nominally orthodox, those members of the covenant community who neglect their duty to God, and therefore neglect to obey His commandments. If the last group addressed in verses 7-15 needed a reminder that God was spiritual, this group in verses 16-21 need to be told that God is moral, and demands a true inward response to the covenant. The first group were corrected in their response to the first half of the Decalogue, regarding their relationship with God. This group need enlightenment on the second half of the Decalogue, which deals with our relationship with our neighbour. This has always been part of our service to God, for the whole law is summed up in loving God and our neighbour (see Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:34-40).

This second group fall into the category of those who are prepared to study the Law, even teach it to others, but who, because they hate discipline, never put it into practice. There was nothing wrong with their theology – just with their behaviour. They were denounced by the prophets, and later by Jesus, as hypocrites (see Isaiah 29:13; Jeremiah 8:8; Matthew 5:20). For them God’s Law was a subject for discussion and debate rather than obedience. Unfortunately for them God’s judgement deals with behaviour and not theology! (see Matthew 25). Like the first group, these people have a wrong concept of God. Thinking that God acts like a human being they misinterpret His silence, patience and lack of retribution. They equate their own will with God’s will, because they do not see God as He really is, nor do they consider His right to their absolute obedience. They too have trivialized God, and made Him into their own image. This is their sin; again this is upside-down religion. Now they are confronted by God in
this theophany as He really is, and their eyes are opened to their true obligations before Him. If they will not change, they must face the wrath of God for breaking their vows to Him. He will show them who is master and lord. Should they repent, they will find Him a true saviour. The choice is theirs.

Two fundamental problems of the spiritual life are touched upon in this psalm. The first is that we try to make God into our own image, and think that by prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works, we can somehow manipulate and control God. The second is that we think that the externals of religion, namely liturgy and ritual, make us very religious people, and somehow keep God happy. In this second misconception we find that we have a serious, but very common, problem. By our observance of the externals of religion we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are true servants of God. In fact, liturgy is necessary to express our worship to God, but if it is devoid of the spiritual content, the dynamism that energizes it, then it becomes empty formalism. At best liturgy should express the attitude of the surrender of the heart to God, as well as our humility before Him, and our praise. Unfortunately many people think that there is some “magic” about going through the ritual itself; they are in danger
of thinking that they are serving God, when they may be closed to the challenge of His Word, and be unrepentant in several areas of their lives. If they persist in this attitude, they may think that they are doing God a service by going to church, in which case they would have God dependent on man instead of the other way around. Meanwhile the invitation of God remains the same: “My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes keep to my ways” (Proverbs 23:26, N.A.B.).

For many nominal Christians it is like being in a club or a political party; they follow the party line on doctrine and theology, but live private lives that contradict the very doctrines they hold! Religion devoid of morality is monstrous, mere fuel for scoffers, lacking any reality or living testimony to the presence and the glory of God. Jesus had hard words for the Pharisees on this point: they occupied the chair of Moses, but did not practise what they preached. Jesus uncovered their sins in public – just as in this psalm – so that the people became aware of their refusal to surrender to God or obey His Law (see Matthew23:1-36). They kept to the rituals but neglected the weightier matters of the Law concerning justice, mercy, good faith and forgiveness.

Further along the spiritual path we find others who have gone through a conversion experience, are sincerely seeking God and praying, yet they too can think that their prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works can manipulate God into doing what they ask. For example, they pray sincerely for a sick person’s healing, but their attitude is that God “ought to” or “must” heal the person because they have prayed and fasted. The thinking behind it is the same, that God somehow needs our prayer and fasting to do this work of mercy. It is an important enlightenment when we discover who God is; then we realize that He can in no way be manipulated and controlled by any amount of prayer and fasting. If our prayer and fasting are sincere, God will enlighten us to the fact that His perfect will for this person is the greatest thing we can pray for, because it includes the salvation of the whole person. The greatest grace we can ask for is the fullness of redemption to be manifested in the person, and if this
includes the healing of the body, then amen. One must question whether the “demand” for healing in particular cases is not just an ego trip, to show to others the power of my prayers or “my ministry”, instead of being concerned with the ultimate good of the person, and with the glory of God.

This psalm shows us that God wants a people who will know Him, will relate to Him personally, a people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, a people who will keep His commandments, and whatever vows they have contracted in His presence. In return He will be a God of mercy and compassion.

Other Psalms