The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset.
Parallel Translations
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The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset.
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The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
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A Psalm of Asaph. God, God, the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
Cross-references (25)
Passages linked to Psalms 50:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 113:3 From the rising of the sun to its going down, Yahweh’s name is to be praised.
- Joshua 22:22 “The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, the Mighty One, God, Yahweh, he knows; and Israel shall know: if it was in rebellion, or if in trespass against Yahweh (don’t save us today),
- Matthew 25:32 Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
- Amos 3:8 The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord Yahweh has spoken. Who can but prophesy?
- Jeremiah 32:18-19 You show loving kindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The great, the mighty God, Yahweh of Armies is your name: great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings;
- Nehemiah 9:6 You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.
- Isaiah 1:2 Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.
- 1 Chronicles 16:37 So he left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of Yahweh’s covenant, to minister before the ark continually, as every day’s work required;
- 1 Chronicles 25:2 of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asharelah. The sons of Asaph were under the hand of Asaph, who prophesied at the order of the king.
- 1 Chronicles 25:6 All these were under the hands of their father for song in Yahweh’s house, with cymbals, stringed instruments, and harps, for the service of God’s house: Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman being under the order of the king.
- Nehemiah 9:32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, don’t let all the travail seem little before you, that has come on us, on our kings, on our princes, on our priests, on our prophets, on our fathers, and on all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.
- Psalms 49:1-2 Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together.
- Psalms 73:1 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
- Psalms 83:1 God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God.
- Psalms 145:3-6 Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will commend your works to another, and will declare your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious majesty of your honor, on your wondrous works. Men will speak of the might of your awesome acts. I will declare your greatness.
- Isaiah 9:6 For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
- Isaiah 37:20 Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only.”
- Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.
- Jeremiah 10:6 There is no one like you, Yahweh. You are great, and your name is great in might.
- Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless.
- 1 Kings 18:21 Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.
- 1 Kings 18:36-37 At the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Hear me, Yahweh, hear me, that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again.”
- 1 Chronicles 15:17 So the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel; and of his brothers, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brothers, Ethan the son of Kushaiah;
- 2 Chronicles 29:30 Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises to Yahweh with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. They sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped.
- Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the nations,” says Yahweh of Armies.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1. The God of gods, even Jehovah, hath spoken…
1. The God of gods, even Jehovah, hath spoken The inscription of this psalm bears the name of Asaph; but whether he was the author of it, or merely received it as chief singer from the hand of David, cannot be known. This, however, is a matter of little consequence. The opinion has been very generally entertained, that the psalm points to the period of the Church’s renovation, and that the design of the prophet is to apprise the Jews of the coming abrogation of their figurative worship under the Law. That the Jews were subjected to the rudiments of the world, which continued till the Church’s majority, and the arrival of what the apostle calls “the fullness of times,” (Galatians 4:4,) admits of no doubt; the only question is, whether the prophet must here be considered as addressing the men of his own age, and simply condemning the abuse and corruption of the legal worship, or as predicting the future kingdom of Christ? From the scope of the psalm, it is sufficiently apparent that the prophet does in fact interpret the Law to his contemporaries, with a view of showing them that the ceremonies, while they existed, were of no importance whatever by themselves, or otherwise than connected with a higher meaning. Is it objected, that God never called the whole world except upon the promulgation of the Gospel, and that the doctrine of the Law was addressed only to one peculiar people? the answer is obvious, that the prophet in this place describes the whole world as convened not for the purpose of receiving one common system of faith, but of hearing God plead his cause with the Jews in its presence. The appeal is of a parallel nature with others which we find in Scripture:
“Give ear, O ye heavens! and I will speak; and hear, O earth! the words of my mouths” (Deuteronomy 32:1;)
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or as in another place,
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death,” (Deuteronomy 30:19;)
and again Isaiah,
“Hear, O heaven! and give ear, O earth! for the Lord hath spoken,” (Isaiah 1:2.)
This vehement mode of address was required in speaking to hypocrites, that they might be roused from their complacent security, and their serious attention engaged to the message of God. The Jews had special need to be awakened upon the point to which reference is here made. Men are naturally disposed to outward show in religion, and, measuring God by themselves, imagine that an attention to ceremonies constitutes the sum of their duty. There was a strong disposition among the Jews to rest in an observance of the figures of the Law, and it is well known with what severity the prophets all along reprehended this superstition, by which the worst and most abandoned characters were led to arrogate a claim to piety, and hide their abominations under the specious garb of godliness. The prophet, therefore, required to do more than simply expose the defective nature of that worship which withdraws the attention of men from faith and holiness of heart to outward ceremonies; it was necessary that, in order to check false confidence and banish insensibility, he should adopt the style of severe reproof. God is here represented as citing all the nations of the earth to his tribunal, not with the view of prescribing the rule of piety to an assembled world, or collecting a church for his service, but with the design of alarming the hypocrite, and terrifying him out of his self-complacency. It would serve as a spur to conviction, thus to be made aware that the whole world was summoned as a witness to their dissimulation, and that they would be stripped of that pretended piety of which they were disposed to boast. It is with a similar object that he addresses Jehovah as the God of gods, to possess their minds with a salutary terror, and dissuade them from their vain attempts to elude his knowledge. That this is his design will be made still more apparent from the remaining context, where we are presented with a formidable description of the majesty of God, intended to convince the hypocrite of the vanity of those childish trifles with which he would evade the scrutiny of so great and so strict a judge.
To obviate an objection which might be raised against his doctrine in this psalm, that it was subversive of the worship prescribed by Moses, the prophet intimates that this judgment which he announced would be in harmony with the Law. When God speaks out of Zion he necessarily sanctions the authority of the Law; and the Prophets, when at any time they make use of this form of speech, declare themselves to be interpreters of the Law. That holy mountain was not chosen of man’s caprice, and therefore stands identified with the Law. The prophet thus cuts off any pretext which the Jews might allege to evade his doctrine, by announcing that such as concealed their wickedness, under the specious covert of ceremonies, would not be condemned of God by any new code of religion, but by that which was ministered originally by Moses. He gives Zion the honorable name of the perfection of beauty, because God had chosen it for his sanctuary, the place where his name should be invoked, and where his glory should be manifested in the doctrine of the Law.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Who was either the author, or a chief singer,…
Who was either the author, or a chief singer, to whom it was committed.
To plead against his dissembling people before heaven and earth.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 50:1 « A Psalm of Asaph. » The…
Psa 50:1 « A Psalm of Asaph. » The mighty God, [even] the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
A Psalm of Asaph] Who was both a music master, 1Ch 25:2, and a psalm composer, 2Ch 29:30. The most are of the opinion that this psalm was made by David, and committed to Asaph to be sung, after that Israel had been afflicted with three years’ famine and three days’ pestilence, and the angel had appeared to David, and set out the place where the temple should be built, 2Sa 21:1-3 2Sa 24:13-18 1Ch 21:18; 1Ch 22:4 (Jun.).
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Ver. 1. The mighty God, even the Lord] Heb. The God of gods, whether they be so deputed, as angels, magistrates; or reputed only, as heathen deities, 1Co 8:5. Jehovah or Essentiator, is God’s proper name. Some say God is here thrice named, to note the Trinity in Unity (R. Nahum ap. Nebien).
Hath spoken] sc. By the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, spoke much like, Jdg 1:14. The Rabbis say that this psalm is De die iudicii futuro, of the day of judgment. Others, that it is the Lord’s judging of his Church, drawn according to the model of the great and last judgment, whereunto it serveth as a preparation or a warning piece.
And called the earth from the rising, &c.] The "habitable part of God’s earth; the sons of men," Pro 8:31, with Mal 1:11. These are all called to attest the equity of God’s proceedings against a hypocritical nation, children that were corrupters. For God hath thus far instructed all men, that he is to be honoured of all, with all manner of observance, Rom 1:20. Let this be pressed upon all sorts, said Zalcucus the Locrian lawgiver, in the preface to his laws 1. That there is a God. 2. That this God is to be duly worshipped.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain i.e. All the inhabitants of the earth, from one…
i.e. All the inhabitants of the earth, from one end to the other; whom he here summons to be witnesses of his proceedings in this solemn judgment between him and his people, which is here poetically represented; for here is a tribunal erected, the judge coming to it, the witnesses and delinquents summoned, and at last the sentence given, and cause determined.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain It is probable that Asaph was not only the…
It is probable that Asaph was not only the chief musician, who was to put a tune to this psalm, but that he was himself the penman of it; for we read that in Hezekiah's time they praised God in the words of David and of Asaph the seer, Ch2 29:30. Here is,
I. The court called, in the name of the King of kings (Psa 50:2): The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken - El, Elohim, Jehovah, the God of infinite power justice and mercy, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is the Judge, the Son of God came for judgement into the world, and the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of judgment. All the earth is called to attend, not only because the controversy God had with his people Israel for their hypocrisy and ingratitude might safely be referred to any man of reason (nay, let the house of Israel itself judge between God and his vineyard, Isa 5:3), but because all the children of men are concerned to know the right way of worshipping God, in spirit and in truth, because when the kingdom of the Messiah should be set up all should be instructed in the evangelical worship, and invited to join in it (see Mal 1:11, Act 10:34), and because in the day of final judgment all nations shall be gathered together to receive their doom, and every man shall give an account of himself unto God.
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II. The judgment set, and the Judge taking his seat. As, when God gave the law to Israel in the wilderness, it is said, He came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir, and shone forth from Mount Paran, and came with ten thousands of his saints, and then from his right hand went a fiery law (Deu 33:2), so, with allusion to that, when God comes to reprove them for their hypocrisy, and to send forth his gospel to supersede the legal institutions, it is said here, 1. That he shall shine out of Zion, as then from the top of Sinai, Psa 50:2. Because in Zion his oracle was now fixed, thence his judgments upon that provoking people denounced, and thence the orders issued for the execution of them (Joe 2:1): Blow you the trumpet in Zion. Sometimes there are more than ordinary appearances of God's presence and power working with and by his word and ordinances, for the convincing of men's consciences and the reforming and refining of his church; and then God, who always dwells in Zion, may be said to shine out of Zion. Moreover, he may be said to shine out of Zion because the gospel, which set up spiritual worship, was to go forth from Mount Zion (Isa 2:3, Mic 4:2), and the preachers of it were to begin at Jerusalem (Luk 24:47), and Christians are said to come unto Mount Zion, to receive their instructions, Heb 12:22, Heb 12:28. Zion is here called the perfection of beauty, because it was the holy hill; and holiness is indeed the perfection of beauty. 2. That he shall come, and not keep silence, shall no longer seem to wink at the sins of men, as he had done (Psa 50:21), but shall show his displeasure at them, and shall also cause that mystery to be published to the world by his holy apostles which had long lain hid, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs (Eph 3:5, Eph 3:6) and that the partition-wall of the ceremonial law should be taken down; this shall now no longer be concealed. In the great day our God shall come and shall not keep silence, but shall make those to hear his judgment that would not hearken to his law. 3. That his appearance should be very majestic and terrible: A fire shall devour before him. The fire of his judgments shall make way for the rebukes of his word, in order to the awakening of the hypocritical nation of the Jews, that the sinners in Zion, being afraid of that devouring fire (Isa 33:14), might be startled out of their sins. When his gospel kingdom was to be set up Christ came to send fire on the earth, Luk 12:49. The Spirit was given in cloven tongues as of fire, introduced by a rushing mighty wind, which was very tempestuous, Act 2:2, Act 2:3. And in the last judgment Christ shall come in flaming fire, Th2 1:8. See Dan 7:9; Heb 10:27. 4. That as on Mount Sinai he came with ten thousands of his saints, so he shall now call to the heavens from above, to take notice of this solemn process (Psa 50:4), as Moses often called heaven and earth to witness against Israel (Deu 4:26, Deu 31:28, Deu 32:1), and God by his prophets, Isa 1:2; Mic 6:2. The equity of the judgment of the great day will be attested and applauded by heaven and earth, by saints and angels, even all the holy myriads.
III. The parties summoned (Psa 50:5): Gather my saints together unto me. This may be understood either, 1. Of saints indeed: "Let them be gathered to God through Christ; let the few pious Israelites be set by themselves;" for to them the following denunciations of wrath do not belong; rebukes to hypocrites ought not to be terrors to the upright. When God will reject the services of those that only offered sacrifice, resting in the outside of the performance, he will graciously accept those who, in sacrificing, make a covenant with him, and so attend to and answer the end of the institution of sacrifices. The design of the preaching of the gospel, and the setting up of Christ's kingdom, was to gather together in one the children of God, Joh 11:52. And at the second coming of Jesus Christ all his saints shall be gathered together unto him (Th2 2:1) to be assessors with him in the judgment; for the saints shall judge the world, Co1 6:2. Now it is here given as a character of the saints that they have made a covenant with God by sacrifice. Note, (1.) Those only shall be gathered to God as his saints who have, in sincerity, covenanted with him, who have taken him to be their God and given up themselves to him to be his people, and thus have joined themselves unto the Lord. (2.) It is only by sacrifice, by Christ the great sacrifice (from whom all the legal sacrifices derived what value they had), that we poor sinners can covenant with God so as to be accepted of him. There must be an atonement made for the breach of the first covenant before we can be admitted again into covenant. Or, 2. It may be understood of saints in profession, such as the people of Israel were, who are called a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, Exo 19:6. They were, as a body politic, taken into covenant with God, the covenant of peculiarity; and it was done with great solemnity, by sacrifice, Exo 24:8. "Let them come and hear what God has to say to them; let them receive the reproofs God sends them now by his prophets, and the gospel he will, in due time, send them by his Son, which shall supersede the ceremonial law. If these be slighted, let them expect to hear from God another way, and to be judged by that word which they will not be ruled by."
IV. The issue of this solemn trial foretold (Psa 50:6): The heavens shall declare his righteousness, those heavens that were called to be witnesses to the trial (Psa 50:4); the people in heaven shall say, Hallelujah. True and righteous are his judgments, Rev 19:1, Rev 19:2. The righteousness of God in all the rebukes of his word and providence, in the establishment of his gospel (which brings in an everlasting righteousness, and in which the righteousness of God is revealed), and especially in the judgment of the great day, is what the heavens will declare; that is, 1. It will be universally known, and proclaimed to all the world. As the heavens declare the glory, the wisdom and power, of God the Creator (Psa 19:1), so they shall no less openly declare the glory, the justice and righteousness, of God the Judge; and so loudly do they proclaim both that there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, as it follows there, Psa 50:3. 2. It will be incontestably owned and proved; who can deny what the heavens declare? Even sinners' own consciences will subscribe to it, and hell as well as heaven will be forced to acknowledge the righteousness of God. The reason given is, for God is Judge himself, and therefore, (1.) He will be just; for it is impossible he should do any wrong to any of his creatures, he never did, nor ever will. When men are employed to judge for him they may do unjustly; but, when he is Judge himself, there can be no injustice done. Is God unrighteous, who takes vengeance? The apostle, for this reason, startles at the thought of it; God forbid! for then how shall God judge the world? Rom 3:5, Rom 3:6. These decisions will be perfectly just, for against them there will lie no exception, and from them there will lie no appeal. (2.) He will be justified; God is Judge, and therefore he will not only execute justice, but he will oblige all to own it; for he will be clear when he judges, Psa 51:4.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The mighty God,.... In the Hebrew text it is…
The mighty God,.... In the Hebrew text it is "El", "Elohim", which Jarchi renders the "God of gods"; that is, of angels, who are so called, Psa 8:5; so Christ, who is God over all, is over them; he is their Creator, and the object of their worship, Heb 1:6; or of kings, princes, judges, and all civil magistrates, called gods, Psa 82:1; and so Kimchi interprets the phrase here "Judge of judges". Christ is King of kings, and Lord of lords, by whom they reign and judge, and to whom they are accountable. The Targum renders it "the mighty God"; as we do; which is the title and name of Christ in Isa 9:6; and well agrees with him, as appears by his works of creation, providence, and redemption, and by his government of his church and people; by all the grace, strength, assistance, and preservation they have from him now, and by all that glory and happiness they will be brought unto by him hereafter, when raised from the dead, according to his mighty power. It is added,
even the Lord, hath spoken: or "Jehovah", Some have observed, that these three names, El, Elohim, Jehovah, here mentioned, have three very distinctive accents set to them, and which being joined to a verb singular, "hath spoken", contains the mystery of the trinity of Persons in the unity of the divine Essence; see Jos 22:22; though rather all the names belong to Christ the Son of God, and who is Jehovah our righteousness, and to whom, he being the eternal Logos, speech is very properly ascribed. He hath spoken for the elect in the council and covenant of grace and peace, that they might be given to him; and on their behalf, that they might have grace and glory, and he might be their Surety, Saviour, and Redeemer. He hath spoken all things out of nothing in creation: he spoke with. Moses at the giving of the law on Mount Sinai: he, the Angel of God's presence, spoke for the Old Testament saints, and spoke good and comfortable words unto them: he hath spoken in his own person here on earth, and such words and with such authority as never man did; and he has spoken in his judgments and providences against the Jews; and he now speaks in his Gospel by his ministers: wherefore it follows,
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and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof; which may be considered as a preface, exciting attention to what is after spoken, as being of moment and importance; see Deu 32:1; or as calling the earth, and so the heavens, Psa 50:4, to be witnesses of the justness and equity of his dealings with the Jews, for their rejection of him and his Gospel; see Deu 4:26; or rather as a call to the inhabitants of the earth to hear the Gospel; which had its accomplishment in the times of the apostles; when Christ having a people, not in Judea only, but in the several parts of the world from east to west, sent them into all the world with his Gospel, and by it effectually called them through his grace; and churches were planted everywhere to the honour of his name; compare with this Mal 1:11.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The design of this psalm is to reprove the…
The design of this psalm is to reprove the common miscarriages of many professors of religion, who satisfied their own consciences, and fancied that they pleased God with their external and ceremonial performances, notwithstanding their neglect of piety, justice, and charity: and to instruct men concerning the nature of the true and acceptable worship of God. The glorious appearance of the great judge, ver. 1-6. Instructions given how to worship him, ver. 7-15. A reproof of those who pretend to worship him, while they disobey his commands, ver. 16-20. Their doom read, and warning given to all, to order their conversation aright, ver. 21-23. A psalm of Asaph. Title of the psalm. Asaph - Who was not only the chief of the sacred singers, but also a prophet, 2 Chron. xxix, 30, and a composer of several psalms, 2 Chron. xxix, 30.
Called - All the inhabitants of the earth, from one end to the other: whom he here summons to be witnesses of his proceedings in this solemn judgment, between him and his people, which is here poetically represented. For here is a tribunal erected, the judge coming to it, the witnesses and delinquents summoned, and at last the sentence given.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain God, the Sovereign Judge, cites before his throne all…
PSALM L
God, the Sovereign Judge, cites before his throne all his
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people, and the priests and the judges, 14;
and reproaches them for their vain confidence in the sacrifices
they had offered, 7-13;
and shows them the worship he requires, 14, 15;
and then enters into a particular detail of their hypocrisy,
injustice, and union with scandalous transgressors; all of
whom he threatens with heavy judgments, 16-22.
The blessedness of him who worships God aright, and walks
unblamably, 23.
NOTES ON PSALM L
In the title this is said to be A Psalm of Asaph. There are twelve that go under his name; and most probably he was author of each, for he was of high repute in the days of David, and is mentioned second to him as a composer of psalms: Moreover Hezekiah the king, and the princes, commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord, with the WORDS of DAVID, and of ASAPH the SEER. His band, sons or companions, were also eminent in the days of David, as we learn from 1Ch 25:1, c. Asaph himself was one of the musicians who sounded with cymbals of brass, 1Ch 15:19. And he is mentioned with great respect, Ne 12:46: And in the days of DAVID and ASAPH of old there were CHIEF of the SINGERS, and SONGS of PRAISE and THANKSGIVING unto God. He was certainly a prophetic man: he is called a seer-one on whom the Spirit of God rested and seems from this, his education, and natural talent, to be well qualified to compose hymns or psalms in the honour of God. Persons capable of judging, on a comparison of those Psalms attributed to Asaph with those known to be of David, have found a remarkable difference in the style. The style of David is more polished, flowing, correct, and majestic, than that of Asaph, which is more stiff and obscure. He has been compared to Persius and to Horace; he is keen, full of reprehensions, and his subjects are generally of the doleful kind; which was probably caused by his living in times in which there was great corruption of manners, and much of the displeasure of God either threatened or manifested. It is not known on what particular occasion this Psalm was written; but at most times it was suitable to the state of the Jewish Church.
Verse 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken] Here the essential names of God are used: אל אלהים יהוה EL, ELOHIM, YEHOVAH, hath spoken. The six first verses of this Psalm seem to contain a description of the great judgment: to any minor consideration or fact it seems impossible, with any propriety, to restrain them. In this light I shall consider this part of the Psalm, and show, -
First, The preparatives to the coming of the great Judge. El Elohim Jehovah hath spoken, and called the earth-all the children of men from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, (מכלל יפי michlal yophi, the beauty where all perfection is comprised,) God hath shined, Ps 50:1-2.
1. He has sent his Spirit to convince men of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
2. He has sent his WORD; has made a revelation of himself; and has declared both his law and his Gospel to mankind: "Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined," Ps 50:2. For out of Zion the law was to go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Isa 2:3.
Secondly, The accompaniments.
1. His approach is proclaimed, Ps 50:3: "Our God shall come."
2. The trumpet proclaims his approach: "He shall not keep silence."
3. Universal nature shall be shaken, and the earth and its works be burnt up: "A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him," Ps 50:3.
Thirdly, The witnesses are summoned and collected, and collected from all quarters; some from heaven, and some from earth.
1. Guardian angels.
2. Human associates: "He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people," Ps 50:4.
Fourthly, The procedure. As far as it respects the righteous, orders are issued: "Gather my saints," those who are saved from their sins and made holy, "together unto me." And that the word saints might not be misunderstood, it is explained by "those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice;" those who have entered into union with God, through the sacrificial offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the rest are passed over in silence. We are told who they are that shall enter into the joy of their Lord, viz., only the saints, those who have made a covenant with God by sacrifice. All, therefore, who do not answer this description are excluded from glory.
Fifthly, The final issue: all the angelic host, and all the redeemed of the Lord, join in applauding acclamation at the decision of the Supreme Judge. The heavens (for the earth is no more, it is burnt up) shall declare his righteousness, the exact justice of the whole procedure, where justice alone has been done without partiality, and without severity, nor could it be otherwise, for God is Judge himself. Thus the assembly is dissolved; the righteous are received into everlasting glory, and the wicked turned into hell, with all those who forget God. Some think that the sentence against the wicked is that which is contained, Ps 50:16-22. See the analysis at the end, See Clarke on Ps 50:23, and particularly on the six first verses, in which a somewhat different view of the subject is taken.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 50:1. The mighty God, even the Lord —…
Psa 50:1. The mighty God, even the Lord — Hebrew. Eel Elohim, Jehovah; the God of gods; Jehovah; the supreme Lord of heaven and earth, the Lawgiver and Judge of men and angels; to whom the greatest kings and potentates are but subjects; the infinite, the eternal, who changes not; hath spoken and called the earth, &c. — Hath given forth his orders, that all the inhabitants of the earth, from one end to the other, should appear before him. These he now summons to be witnesses of his proceedings in this solemn judgment, between him and his people, which is here poetically represented. For here is a tribunal erected, the judge coming to it, the witnesses and delinquents summoned, and at last the sentence given, and cause determined.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The mighty God, even the Lord - Even “Yahweh,”…
The mighty God, even the Lord - Even “Yahweh,” for this is the original word. The Septuagint and Vulgate render this “The God of gods, the Lord.” DeWette renders it, “God, God Jehovah, speaks.” Prof. Alexander, “The Almighty, God, Jehovah, speaks;” and remarks that the word “mighty” is not an adjective agreeing with the next word (“the mighty God”), but a substantive in apposition with it. The idea is, that he who speaks is the true God; the Supreme Ruler of the universe. It is “that” God who has a right to call the world to judgment, and who has power to execute his will.
Hath spoken - Or rather, “speaks.” That is, the psalmist represents him as now speaking, and as calling the world to judgment.
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And called the earth - Addressed all the inhabitants of the world; all dwellers on the earth.
From the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof - From the place where the sun seems to rise, to the place where it seems to set; that is, all the world. Compare the notes at Isa 59:19. See also Mal 1:11; Psa 113:3. The call is made to all the earth; to all the human race. The scene is imaginary as represented by the psalmist, but it is founded on a true representation of what will occur - of the universal judgment, when all nations shall be summoned to appear before the final Judge. See Mat 25:32; Rev 20:11-14.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Psalms 50
Psalms 50
A Psalm of Asaph
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The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken,
And called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God hath shined.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence:
A fire shall devour before him,
And it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that he may judge his people.
5 Gather my saints together unto me;
Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness:
For God is judge himself. Selah.
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, and I will testily against thee:
I am God, even thy God.
8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices
Or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
9 I will take no bullock out of thy house,
Nor he goats out of thy folds:
10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
And the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains:
And the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee:
For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer unto God thanksgiving;
And pay thy vows unto the Most High:
15 And call upon me in the day of trouble:
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
16 But unto the wicked God saith, “What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,
Or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
17 Seeing thou hatest instruction,
And castest my words behind thee.
18 When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him,
And hast been partaker with adulterers.
19 Thou givest thy mouth to evil,
And thy tongue frameth deceit.
20 Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother;
Thou slanderest thine own mother’s son.
21 These things hast thou done, and I kept silence;
Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself:
But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.
22 Now consider this, ye that forget God,
Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me:
And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Contents and Composition.—Out of Zion a sublime and terrible manifestation of God is made, like that on Mount Sinai, Psa_50:1-3. Heaven and earth are summoned as witnesses, while He sits in judgment, and pronounces sentence on His covenant people, Psa_50:4-6. He explains to them the first table of the Law, Psa_50:7-15; rebukes them for their misconception and abuse of the ordinances of sacrifice, and at the same time, encourages them to the true service of Himself, with the promise of His help. He next describes and threatens to punish the hypocrites who have His covenant on their lips, but break it in their lives, Psa_50:16-20, warning them to take good heed to this Divine reproof, Psa_50:21-22, and concludes with a general and prophetic announcement of the fundamental idea of the whole address, Psa_50:23. This idea, expressed after the manner of the prophets, corresponds with Psalms 15; Psa_24:3-6; and still more closely with Psa_11:7-7; Psa_51:8-9; Psa_69:31. All these passages have for their basis the truth uttered by Samuel to Saul (1Sa_15:22). Of course the later prophets teach the same thing, but there is nothing in the character of this Psalm to oblige us to refer it, not to the times of David, but to those of Josiah (Ewald), or to those of the so-called Deutero-Isaiah (Hitzig). Nor is there any ground for objection to this, in the fact that Asaph (concerning whom see Introduction, § 2), as a Levite, belonged to the tribe whose duty it was to see that the sacrifices were offered in accordance with the rules of Divine service. For this is equally applicable to the prophet Jeremiah, (comp. Jer_6:22, and Lam_2:15), and the opinion is certainly ill-founded, that there is here a general repudiation of the Mosaic sacrifices. In this view of it, many of the ancient expositors referred the whole Psalm to the abolition of the Mosaic law through Christ, while later ones think that there is some indication of hostility to it on the part of the author.
Psa_50:1-6. The mighty God, even the Lord (El Elohim Jehovah).—These three names of God are, by the accents, in apposition. Hupf. thinks, without reason, that this accumulation of titles is chilling. On the contrary, it awakens and intensifies attention, as in Jos_22:22, where God is described as the Mighty One, the God demanding reverence, who had revealed Himself in His Divine fulness in history. We do not approve the suggestion that the first two words should be combined=ingens Deus (Böttcher), or “the strong God” (Aquil., Symm.), or “the God of gods” (Sept., Isaki, Calvin, Ewald, Hupfeld); nor do we like the translation “God is Elohim Jehovah” (Chald.), nor “God, a God is Jehovah” (Hitzig). This last construction is connected with the rendering of the following line: “He speaks, the earth resounds.” This is ingenious, but doubtful, on account of the change in the subjects of the two verbs standing in juxtaposition; nor is it at all necessary. For in Psa_50:4 the same word is not used as a call to the heavens and the earth (Ols., Hitz.), i.e. for the assembling of the Israelites given literally in Psa_50:5, as if heaven and earth were the judicial messengers (Hupfeld), or the instruments and servants of Divine justice (Stier). This does not agree with the well-known idiom of Scripture, and would convey a monstrous idea. On the contrary, it is quite common to call heaven and earth as witnesses, Deu_4:26; Deu_32:1; Isa_1:2; 1Ma_2:37. This also agrees well with the universal historic significance of the judgment seat before which God orders His people to assemble, and on which He shines forth in terrible majesty, as when He appeared as lawgiver on Mount Sinai. We would most naturally take the “messengers”—who are not expressly named—to be the angels who so often appeared in visions, and in Mat_24:31 are described as God’s heavenly servants. Accordingly Psa_50:6 declares, not the execution of the order, or that the heavens proclaimed the approaching judgment of God, i.e., announced to the parties that God would sit in judgment on them (Hupfeld); but that among the witnesses those celestial inhabitants publicly proclaimed the justice of the Divine sentence. We must therefore regard Psa_50:1 as the call of God to the whole earth, its contents being akin to, though not synonymous with, the introductory formula of God’s commands to the prophet: “and the word of the Lord came,” etc. (Aquil., Symm., Theodot., Hupfeld). God does not yet call upon the earth to act as a witness, (most commentators), for this would be to anticipate the subsequent description, but He demands its attention. For this first address precedes the Theophany—a fact generally overlooked. It is not a superscription, or summary statement of what will afterwards be more fully detailed, but it rehearses the first act of the entire drama.—The accents show that by “the perfection of beauty,” we are to understand not God (Aquil., Older Comments., Luther, Böttcher), but Zion, not, however, the city of Jerusalem, but Mount Zion, as the residence of Jehovah.—The comparison of God’s appearance to the sunrise occurs also Deu_33:2; Psa_80:1; Psa_94:1.—The negative אל in Psa_50:3 would seem to show that the Imperfect tenses which here take the place of Perfects, are to be understood in an optative sense, the rather as they are again followed by Perfects, (Ols., Hengst., Hupfeld). But as in this connection the wish simply means the consent of the speaker, it would be perhaps better to take the Imperfects as Futures, and the negative Al, as in Psa_34:6; Psa_41:3, as indicating a personal interest in the mind of the speaker. If, however, the sentence is part of a narrative, and this narrative is an account, not of a historic event, but of a prophetic vision, the discourse has no reference to the future, and the certainty that God cannot keep silence may as well be expressed by the Present tense. Maurer’s rendering, neque est quod sileat, is good. The phrase “not keep silence,” can hardly be understood to mean “not tarry;” nor can it be taken in the sense of “thunder,” as if in keeping with the “fire and tempest,” (Hupfeld and others); but it refers to reproof, or more exactly, to the sinner’s next judicial sentence.—The object of the “covenant,” mentioned in Psa_50:5, is not the “sacrifices.” It was not entered into for the sake of them (Aben Ezra); they were simply the ground of it, giving it legal validity and religious sanctity, Exo_14:5; Num_10:10; Psa_92:4.
[Perowne: The God of gods, Jehovah.—This is, there can be no doubt, the proper rendering of the words El Elohim.—These three names of God occur in the same way in Jos_22:22, where they are twice repeated, and are in like manner separated by the accents. This is the only use of the name Jehovah in the Psalm, Which is in accordance with the general Elohistic character of the Second book, but the adjunct “God of gods,” is certainly remarkable.—Alexander: The Almighty, God, Jehovah. Almighty is not an adjective agreeing with the next word (the Mighty God), but a substantive in apposition with it. The three names are put together in a kind of climax, El, Elohim, Jehovah. The first represents God as almighty, the second, as the only proper object of worship, and (by its plural form) as perfect, the third, as self-existent and eternal, and at the same time, as the peculiar God of Israel.—Perowne: Will not keep silence. The optative seems to be required by the form of the negative (אָל=μη), with the second verb. Still, it must be confessed, that the abrupt introduction of a wish here disturbs the flow of the language, and this is not obviated even if, with Hupfeld, we suppose this to be a common formula, in which God is called upon to manifest Himself.—J. F.]
Psa_50:7-15. I am God, even Thy God,—These words are designed, not simply to excite attention (De Wette), for this has been already aroused, as is indicated by the intensive א: but they declare the rightful title to act as judge (Hupf. Del.) Exo_6:2; Exo_20:2 and lawgiver, Psa_71:11.—The Divine reprimand is given, not because the sacrifices enjoined by the law had been omitted. Israel had not neglected to offer them, and God was unmindful neither of them nor of Israel’s conduct in presenting them day by day. But in these material sacrifices God felt no interest, because, on the one hand, men could offer to Him nothing which He did not already possess, since all creatures are His; and on the other hand, He had no need of them, as food or as a means of enjoyment. It is not said that Israel had fallen into this error, nor is there any reproof in express terms. But the lawgiver sitting as a judge, first presents and explains to His people standing before His tribunal, the law of sacrificial service, and then leaves the application of it with themselves. This can be the more readily done, because by the change of the negative into the positive form, the exhibition of the law becomes a direct exhortation and promise. Now, out of the many sacrifices prescribed by the law, some specially important ones are named, though not confined to those associated with thanksgiving and certain kinds of vows. No ritualistic sacrifice in itself, even if offered in a proper spirit, with confession of sin (Kimchi), is what God requires. But, in terms derived, no doubt, from the sacrificial liturgy, as in Psa_51:19; Hos_14:3, (Arnoldi in Justin’s Flowers of Ancient Hebrew Poetry, 183), He insists upon an offering of praise and thanksgiving, instead of the symbol, the sincere payment of vows, and a trustful call upon Himself, as a condition of such a hearing of prayer, as should supply new causes of praise to God, (compare Psa_69:31). “Pay thy vows,” Psa_50:14, means fulfill all the commandments of God, according to thy promise on entering into the covenant, Exo_19:8. This is not to be limited to the moral law, or the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20. (Baur, De Wette), for this supposes a distinction never made in the Old Testament. Nor are the “vows” thank-offerings (Lev_7:16;Pro_7:14), in a spiritual sense, i.e. songs of thanksgiving (Hupfeld), for this would needlessly limit what is demanded. For Todah means not simply “praise” (Geier, J. H. Mich.), but “praise and thanksgiving.” Nor can this be taken only in an individualizing sense, as a form of inward heart devotion, in contrast with merely outward worship (Hengst.), without the rendering “offer praises to God, and thus pay, i.e. thou shalt pay thy vows, and then calling upon me,” etc. (Hengst.);—a rendering which requires the unwarranted insertion of the words “thus” and “then,” and the violent change of the Imperfect into a Future.—The prophetic character of this Psalm, and the Divine utterance in it, indicate a progress in revelation. This is seen also in such passages as Isa_1:11; Hos_6:6; Mic_6:6; Pro_21:3, anticipating, as they do to some extent, New Testament views, but the same thing is discoverable even in the Pentateuch, in Deuteronomy, partly in promise, partly fulfilled. The legal definitions are treated as normal expressions of the Divine will in regard to the whole moral and religious conduct of mankind; and thus they are divested not only of their merely ceremonial character, but even of their externality.
[Barnes: To have been continually before me, E. V. (Psa_50:8). The words “to have been” are inserted by the translators, and weaken the sense. The simple idea is that their offerings were continually before Him, i.e. they were constantly made. He had no charge in this respect to bring against them. The insertion of the words “to have been,” would seem to imply that though they had neglected the external rite, it was a matter of no consequence; whereas the simple meaning is that they were not chargeable with this neglect. It was on other grounds altogether that a charge was brought against them.—J. F.]
Psa_50:16. But to the wicked, etc. The address turns from the first to the second table of the law, here, as in Exo_24:7; Exo_34:28, designated as the “covenant;” and the sins against the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments, i.e. sins against one’s neighbor are specially mentioned. It does not follow from this nor other like descriptions, e.g.Isa_1:15; Isa_66:3, that the erring members of God’s people, those who were content with a merely external Worship of Him, are always in Scripture identical with the “wicked,” and that they are here addressed as those alluded to in Psa_50:7 and the following verse (Hengst.). This is correct only in so far as Psa_50:7 addresses the whole people and not a part of them, and as to this people those belong who are specially censured as “forgetting God,” Psa_50:22. There is no previous threat of punishment, but only an exposition of the law of sacrifice, ending with an exhortation and a promise. To this the contrast refers, and not to different classes or grades of sinners (most commentators), On this account Psa_50:22 must be connected, not with the concluding sentence, but with Psa_50:21.
Psa_50:16-20. What hast thou to do to declare, etc.—This is not an inquiry indicating surprise or disapproval, for the reason of an aimless action, “what can it profit thee?” (De Wette). It is an express reprimand of an insolent one, “How darest thou?” The construction ל with the infinitive is changed into that of the infinitive verb.—The translation of Psa_50:18 : “thou goest with him,” (Chald., Sept., Vulgate, Luther), grows out of the derivation from the word רוּץ. But in this case the vowels must be placed thus: וַתָּרָץ. The word in our present text וַתָּדֶץ must come from רָצּה as in Job_34:9, with עִם, i.e. to have pleasure in the society of some one.—“Thine own mother’s son” describes the nearest blood relationship, and contains an allusion to the polygamous relations then common. Ordinarily אח designates a “brother” in a wider sense. The “blow” given to him is not a physical one (Hitzig), nor something given to him, or laid in his way by which he may receive a blow, like σκανδαλον (Sept.), or offendiculum (Vulgate, Gesen., Maurer), but one with the tongue, but not necessarily in the sense of calumny (Rab., Ewald, Hengst.), though נתן is often equivalent to “give away.”—The “keeping silence,” Psa_50:21, is a proof of Divine forbearance designed to lead men to repentance (Rom_2:4), though often misinterpreted by them. There is no question asked here—“should I keep silence?” (Hitzig), nor in the following line, where the oratio obliqua is indicated by the infinitive construct.—To translate the concluding verse, “And this (more accurately “these”) is the way” (Sept., Syr., Luther), gives the general meaning, but it is based on the erroneous reading שָׁם, instead of the one handed down by the Talmud שָׂם, which, according to Isa_43:19, compares with Psa_49:11; Eze_21:25 would lead to the sense of: to make, prepare, or to pave a way (Böttcher). Taking the sentence as an independent one, it would read: “who prepares a way” (Hengst.), or: “who directs the way” (Hupfeld); qui ordinat viam (Vulgate, Geier); qui disposuit viam (Calvin, Maurer.) But to get this ethical sense, it must be paraphrased: “who regulates his life according to fixed principles,” or “who prepares himself to walk in the right way.” A simpler meaning perhaps would be: “who prepares the way,” i.e. “who equips himself for the journey” (Hitzig). This, how ever, would seem to refer the Psalm to the times of the Exile. The versions: “who has a care of his walk” (De Wette), “who walks carefully” (Ewald), are either elliptical or involve grammatical difficulties. It is perhaps better, therefore, to regard the sentence not as an independent one, but as a continuation of the preceding (Del.).
Psa_50:21. Imagined.—The Hebrew verb originally means to liken or compare, and another of the same form, to be silent, so that it is peculiarly appropriate in this place, where the mention of God’s silence immediately precedes, and the imagining referred to was a false assimilation of the Most High to> the sinner himself.
[Alexander: O consider this, etc., Psa_50:22. The Hebrew particle of entreaty (נַא) is not so well expressed by the now of the English Bible, as by the oh of the Prayer Book version.—Perowne: Sacrificeth thanksgiving, Psa_50:23. The verb is designedly employed in order to mark the nature of the sacrifice which God will have; slay not victims, bring not animals, but bring thanksgiving as sacrifices. The E. V. with its rendering “offereth praise,” loses slightly the distinct reference to the Mosaic sacrifices, which are not indeed absolutely suspended—the time had not yet come for this—but are put in their true place. The very great prominence again given to thanksgiving, is worthy of our careful notice. There is no duty so commonly forgotten.—J. F.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. We must carefully distinguish those actual judgments of a world-historic significance, to execute which God is often said to come down from heaven, from that sitting in judgment on His covenant people, which is in this Psalm set forth as a prophetical vision, though connected with certain great historic events. For this latter purpose, God appears in supreme majesty; He shines forth from Zion, that He may reveal in His word, neither a new law nor a new exposition of it, but a Divine sanction of the deeper conception of the law. And so by exhibiting the real purport of the law, while reprimanding and exhorting His people, He would have it take a firmer hold on their consciences, and aid them in a new development of life.
2. Before God chastises His people, He makes known to them by His word, how intensely He hates sin, and how carefully He watches over the covenant established by Him under the sanction of sacrificial ordinances. The importance of this word is enhanced by the certainty of God’s personal participation in them, and by the assurance that while graciously dwelling in the midst of His people, He is still sublime and terrible in His majesty. At the same time His love is manifest in this: that He makes known to them the judicial earnestness of His royal administration, by symbols, whose design and meaning could not be misunderstood, (Exo_20:17; Deu_4:24; Deu_9:3; Deu_32:22; 1Ki_19:11; Heb_12:29); and that before punishing them, He instructs, warns, exhorts them, mingling both threats and promises with the exposition of His law. As in His first proclamation, so now, He claims the authority of the only true God, the Lord of heaven and earth; the God whom the people of Israel had acknowledged and accepted as their God.
3. The real character of God and His holy will was utterly misconceived, when the sacrifices of the law of Moses were viewed as gifts of man that satisfied a want of the Divine nature, or as performances by which a sinner fulfilled his moral obligations, or could redeem himself from the guilt and punishment of his transgressions. If God had such a want, since He is Lord of all things, He had no need of looking to man for its supply. As the Omnipotent and Omniscient One, He could refresh Himself when and where He pleased. But His nature is spiritual, and therefore subject to no such necessities. What He desired was not the correct observance of legal rites, but a far higher thing, Psa_50:12, the discharge of those moral and religious duties of which these rites were simply the symbolic expression.
4. God’s commands must be expounded in order that they may be learned and understood, but this is only as a means to an end, viz: their actual fulfillment. When the law speaks of sins, it does so, not to influence our evil passions, but to make us see the hatefulness of sin, to warn against the dangers that surround us, and to awaken that holy fear which leads to repentance, and guards against abusing God’s patience, and goodness, and grace. For the wrath of God is as terrible as His grace is lovely.
5. The first and most natural duty of those who are received into the covenant of grace, is gratitude. The expression of it in word and work, is acceptable to God only when it embraces obedience both to the first and second tables of the law. True gratitude is not bounded by a legal command, or the letter of an appointment, but it passes over into the domain of love. Thus it paves a way for an ever-enlarging experience, and an ever deepening conception of the salvation of God—a way leading out of the Old Testament into the New.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
One and the same God delivers the law to His people, explains it to His church, and accomplishes it in those whom He graciously pardons.—Grace not only deserves our gratitude, but it works it in us and blesses it.—God’s commands must not only be learned and spoken about, but must also be obeyed.—The wrath of God is as terrible as His grace is lovely; and yet in each of them the majesty of the Heavenly King is alike revealed.—Think what God is, consider what God does, observe what God wills.—Gratitude is not only the best offering for grace received, but also the foundation most acceptable to God, of new prayers for needed help.
Luther: To call upon God in times of trouble, and to thank Him for His aid, is the truest worship, the most acceptable sacrifice, and the proper way to salvation.
Starke: God speaks! who would not diligently attend? He who despises His words, despises God Himself, and such an one shall be despised himself.—The fairest ornament of a land or a locality, is the confession of the doctrine of Christ and a godly walk.—As the sweetest wine may become the most acid vinegar, and the most pleasant summer day may end in the severest thunder-storm, so the wanton abuse and contempt of God’s grace is followed by the most fearful punishment.—Remember, O man ! how many witnesses there are of thy conduct.—Heaven and earth must testify before God that His judgment of the despisers of His grace is perfectly just.—Divine service without faith displeases God more than it honors Him.—Think not that God needs thy service, or that He gets any advantage thereby.—But to thyself, the true service of God is the greatest blessing and benefit.—The Christian’s first vow is that made to God in Baptism—to serve and believe in Him; his first and chiefest care should be to see that this vow is not broken.—All those hate discipline who, while they know and perhaps teach others the word of God, are not themselves brought by it to true repentance, faith, and holiness.—Esteem no sin trifling because punishment does not quickly follow it.—What is loaned for a long time must not be regarded as a gift.—God looks upon the wickedness of men, not because He has pleasure in it, but to afford them time for repentance, and to cut off all excuses for it.—When the period of grace is passed, no hope of salvation is left; and he who has not found the true Saviour, will never find another.—To see Jesus here by faith, and hereafter face to face, is a sufficient reward for those who are now diligent in offering sacrifice to God.—Reichel: People are reprehensible, not for going to the Holy Supper, but because while going to it they continue to live in all sorts of sins and abominations.—Arndt: Gratitude includes many virtues, e.g. the knowledge of God, for it recognises Him as the source of all good; the fear of God, or the filial fear, which, as a child, receives all benefits from God as a father; humility, or the consciousness that we have nothing in ourselves, but get everything from God.—Richter: From Sinai Jehovah spake as a Lawgiver; from Zion, as a Saviour; from His throne He speaks in both characters, to the whole human race.—The more heartily you give thanks, the richer and greater cause for thanksgiving shall you receive.—Stier: God, before whose judgment-seat stand only those holy ones who have entered into covenant with Him by sacrifice, explains to His erring and offending people that true way of sacrifice that leads to salvation.—Those offenders who mean to sin and offer sacrifice at the same time shall certainly be punished.—Umbreit: Heaven and earth shall be witnesses, while God judges His people.—The new commandment of the pure and true worship of God.—Unbridled iniquity leads men, step by step, from one abomination to another.—Guenther: Are we really sincere and honest in rendering our service to God? Is there no concealed hypocrisy of any kind within us? Listen attentively: none at all? Taube: The majestic appearance of the Lord when He comes as a judge, and to testify to His people concerning His true worship, and the hypocritical service of the ungodly. Judgment begins at the house of God, but it also makes manifest His faithful ones.—Deichert: Our God shall come, and not keep silence. 1. How He comes. 2. What He finds amongst us. 3. What He has to say to us about it.—Ahlfeld: How does the Christian enter the new year? 1. With thanks. 2. With confession. 3. With prayer (according to Psa_50:14-16).:—Heubner: The proper way of calling upon God. 1. Wherein it consists. 2. What should induce us to do it. 3. How we are prepared to do it.
[Barnes: The general ideas in this Psalm are: (1) That there is to be a solemn judgment of mankind; (2) that the issues of that judgment will not be determined by the observance of the external forms of religion; (3) that God will judge men impartially for their sins, though they observe these forms of religion; and (4) that no worship of God can be acceptable which does not spring from the heart.—Henry: (1) It is not enough for us to offer praise, but we must withal order our conversation aright—thanksgiving is good, but thanksliving is better. (2) Those that would have their conversation aright, must take care and pains to order it; to dispose it according to rule; to understand their way and to direct it. (3) Those that take care of their conversation make sure their salvation; them God will make to see His salvation; for it is a salvation ready to be revealed; He will make them to see it and enjoy it, to see it, and to see themselves happy in it forever. Note: The right ordering of the conversation is the only way, and it is a sure way to obtain the great salvation.—F.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken—Hebrew,…
1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken—Hebrew, God, God Jehovah, hath spoken. The psalms of Asaph are Elohistic. The name “God” appears ten times in this psalm, the name “Jehovah” once. This accumulating of titles is not to give a turgid exordium, but to make a solemn impression of the judicial summons, Psa_50:4-7, for the trial of his people. The titles mark a gradation in the sense, אלהים, (Eloheem, God,) plural, the pluralis excellentia, being more emphatic than אל, (el,) the Mighty One. As if he would say: “The Almighty, the most awful God, Jehovah,” etc. The fundamental idea of the first two titles is that of almightiness, the second being intensive of the first; that of the last is self-existence.
Called the earth—All nations, all mankind.
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From the rising of the sun—מזרח, (mizrahh,) east, where it stands opposed to west, as here, denotes the extreme east, the sun rising, that is, the extreme part of heaven, as מבוא, (mahboh,) going down of the sun, does the extreme west, which, according to Hebrew ideas, represented the utmost boundaries of the world east and west.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. The mighty God, even the Lord] El Elohim…
1. The mighty God, even the Lord] El Elohim Jehovah. The three names, representing three aspects of the Divine character, are combined to emphasise the majesty of Him with Whom Israel has to do. El represents Him as the Mighty One; Elôhîm perhaps (the original meaning is doubtful) as the Awful One in Whom are united all manifold excellences of Deity; Jehovah as the Self-revealing One. Elôhîm is His name as the God of nature and creation: Jehovah as the God of the covenant and of grace. The same threefold combination is found, twice repeated, in Jos_22:22, in the solemn asseveration by the trans-Jordanic tribes of their innocence of any wrong motive in erecting the altar of Witness. It occurs nowhere else in exactly the same form, but similar combinations are found. See Gen_33:20; Gen_46:3, “El, the God of thy father”; Deu_4:31, “Jehovah thy God (Elohim) is a merciful God” (El); Deu_5:9, “I Jehovah thy God (Elohim) am a jealous God” (El); and similarly Deu_6:15; Deu_7:9, “Jehovah thy God, he is God (Elohim); the faithful God” (El).
It is noteworthy that two other names of God occur in this Ps. He is called ‘the Most High’ (Elyôn), as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe (Psa_50:14), cp. Psa_7:17; Psa_18:13; and see Appendix, Note ii. In Psa_50:22, Elôah, the singular of Elôhim, is used. This form is found frequently in Job; in Deu_32:15; Deu_32:17; Isa_44:8; Hab_1:11; Hab_3:3; and in a few other passages; but elsewhere in the Psalter only in Psa_18:31; Psa_114:7; Psa_139:19.
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The rendering The God of gods, the Lord (Jehovah), is not probable, though its adoption by the LXX has given it a wide currency.
hath spoken] In the summons which the next line describes. He breaks the silence which has been misunderstood to mean indifference (Psa_50:21) by proclaiming a great assize.
and called the earth] The earth in all its length and breadth, with all its inhabitants, is summoned to be the witness of the trial.
1–6. A solemn introduction, describing the Advent of Jehovah to judge His people. Of old He appeared at Sinai in the midst of lightnings and storm to give the Law: now He comes forth from Zion with the same tokens of power and majesty to enforce it.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) The mighty God, even the Lord.—Heb., El Elohîm,…
(1) The mighty God, even the Lord.—Heb., El Elohîm, Jehovah, a combination of the Divine names that has been very variously understood. The Authorised Version follows the rendering of Aquila and Symmachus. But the Masoretic accents are in favour of taking each term as an appellative. Hitzig objects that this is stiff, but it is so on purpose. The poet introduces his vision of judgment in the style of a formal royal proclamation, as the preterite tenses also indicate. But as in this case it is not the earthly monarch, but the Divine, who is “Lord also of the whole earth,” the range of the proclamation is not territorial, “from Dan even unto Beersheba,” as in 2Ch_30:5, but is couched in larger terms, “from sunrise to sunset,” an expression constantly used of the operation of Divine power and mercy. (Comp. Psa_103:12; Psa_113:3; Isa_41:25; Isa_45:6.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain THE psalmist announces an appearance of God to his…
THE psalmist announces an appearance of God to his people "out of Zion," and a pronouncement of judgment upon them, which all heaven (ver. 4) and earth (ver. 1) are called upon to witness. The judgment takes the shape of a twofold address; first, to the righteous, who are exhorted to the spiritual worship of God (vers. 14, 15), and warned against putting too much trust in sacrifice (vers. 8-13); secondly, to the wicked, who are sternly reproved for their hypocrisy, their hatred of instruction, their sins in act and speech, their want of natural affection, and their low and unworthy idea of the nature of God (vers. 16-21). In conclusion, a word of final warning is given to the wicked (ver. 22), and a word of final encouragement to the righteous (ver. 23).
The psalm consists of four portions:
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1. An introduction (divided off by the pause-mark, "Selah," from the rest of the psalm), announcing the "appearance," and calling on heaven and earth to witness it (vers. 1-6).
2. An address to the godly Israelites (vers. 7-15).
3. An address to the ungodly Israelites (vers. 16-21). 4. A conclusion, divided equally between threat and promise (vers. 22, 23).
The psalm is ascribed to Asaph, the "chief," or superintendent, of the Levites to whom David assigned the ministry of praise before the ark. (1Ch_16:4, 1Ch_16:5) So are also Psalm 73-83. Some of these may have been composed by later Asaphite Levites; but the present ode may well be Asaph"s own, since it "bears all the marks of the golden age of Hebrew poetry." Asaph"s composition of a portion of the Psalter is implied in Hezekiah"s command to the Levites, reported in 2Ch_29:30.
The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken. A combination of three names of God viz. El, Elohim, and Jehovah only found here and in Jos_22:22. There it is translated "the Lord God of gods," which is a possible rendering. Separately, the three names seem to mean, "The Mighty One," "The Many in One" (Cheyne) or "The Three in One," and Self-Existent One." He who is all these, the psalmist announces, "has spoken," and called (or, summoned) the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof; i.e. God has summoned all mankind to hear his judgment of his covenant people.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-23. The Judge, the judged, and the eternal judgment.
A psalm-writer whom we have not met before, appears to have penned this psalm Asaph. But whether it was by him or for his choir is somewhat uncertain. Asaph was the leader and superintendent of the Levitic choirs appointed by David. (1Ch_16:4, 1Ch_16:5; cf. 2Ch_29:30) He and his sons presided over four out of the twenty-four groups, consisting each of twelve Levites, who conducted, in turn, the musical services of the temple." "It is remarkable," says Hengstenberg, "that the voice against the false estimate of the external worship of God proceeded from the quarter which was expressly charged with its administration. Asaph, according to 1Ch_6:24, was of the tribe of Levi." a But let the human penman have been whosoever he may, there is in this psalm so much of the sublime grandeur of a stern and inflexible righteousness, that we have therein, manifestly, the writing of one who was borne along by the Holy Ghost to utter words for God that should be suited for all Churches and all the ages throughout all time; so that it behoves us to listen to them as to the words of the living God, declaring the principles of eternal judgment. "In a magnificent vision the prophet to whom this psalm is due beholds the Almighty denouncing a solemn judgment against the degradation of his Name, and setting forth the requirements of a spiritual religion." In opening up this psalm, therefore, the expositor may well yearn to unfold it, "not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God." In that spirit, and with that aim, we hope to deal with it now. There are some ten questions to be asked and answered concerning this disclosure of judgment which the psalm so sublimely sets before us.
I TO WHOM DOES THE OFFICE OF JUDGE BELONG? In the sixth verse we read, "God is Judge himself." He allows none but himself to sit in judgment on others; for none else has the authority or the ability to do it. But he, whose great Trinity of names is given here, keeps all in infinite hands. "God," the Supreme Ruler; El-Elohim, the God of gods; Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel; he it is who is thus enthroned and speaks with his voice, on the eternal principles which are the basis of his throne.
II WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THAT OFFICE? As here indicated, it includes the expression of his mind and will, as to the worship he requires, the conduct he approves or disapproves, the decisions he forms, the sentences he pronounces, the destinies he assigns. For long God may have seemed to keep silence hereon (ver. 21), but he will not be silent always (ver. 3).
III WHEN DOES THE JUDGMENT TAKE PLACE? It can scarcely be questioned that the remarkable words in ver. 3 point to a specific time when God shall come to judgment, and when attendant on the judgment there will be great signs and wonders in the heaven above and the earth beneath (see vers. 1, 3, 4). But three or four distinctive forms of God"s judgment are indicated in Scripture.
1. The judgment at the last day. This is brought before us in Mat_25:31-46.
2. The judgment expressed in providential dispensations on the Jewish Church. (Jer_7:1-20 Eze_9:4-6 1Pe_4:17)
3. The judgments that are brought upon Christian Churches that are unfaithful. These are plainly enough shown us in the epistles to the seven Churches.
4. The judgment that is ever going on in every visible Church a judgment by One whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who walks in the midst of the golden lamps. This is God"s "eternal judgment", (Heb_6:1) the principles of which never, never vary. What they will be seen to be at the last day they are now, seen or unseen.
IV WHO ARE THE JUDGED? (Ver. 5) The heavens and the earth are called to be witnesses of God"s judgment "of the covenant people" (Cheyne). "This psalm," says Dickson, "is a citing of the visible Church before God... to compear before the tribunal of God, now in time while mercy may be had, timously to consider the Lord"s controversy against the sinners in his Church, that they may repent and be saved." "The psalm," says Perowne, "deals with "the sinners and the hypocrites in Zion," but it reaches to all men, in all places, to the end of time." It contains the message of Divine indignation to those in Israel who were not of Israel; it specifies:
1. The superstitious those who brought offerings of slain beasts in sacrifice, thinking that God accepted them as such, or who even, perhaps, stooped to the pagan notion that such sacrifices were "food for the gods." Hence, though there is no rebuke over any offerings withheld (ver. 8), yet there is severe indignation against the low conceptions of God and his worship with which these offerings were brought (vers. 9-13).
2. There were the scribes (see Matthew Poole), who expounded the Law, but kept it not (ver. 16).
3. There were those whose service was but a form who vowed to God, but did not pay (ver. 14).
4. There were the openly wicked, who sought by profession of religion to cloak their wickedness (vers. 17-20). Think of such a heterogeneous mass being collected together in one visible Church! Is it any wonder that "judgment must begin at the house of God"?
V WHAT IS THE BASIS OF JUDGMENT? (Ver. 2) "Out of Zion God hath shined." As from Mount Sinai he declared his will in the legislation of Moses, so from Zion he hath declared his will in the proclamations of prophet, apostle, saint, and seer; and according to those principles of truth and righteousness thus proclaimed is God"s judgment ever being exercised; according to them will it finally proceed. And according to the measure of light granted to men, will be the standard by which they will be tried. Fuller light on this theme comes to view in the New Testament. Peter"s words, (Act_10:35 Act_14:10 1Pe_3:18-22; 1Pe_4:1-6) Paul"s words, (Rom_2:16 2Co_5:10) throw a flood of light hereon, showing us that ere the final judgment comes every soul will come to know its relation to the Lord Jesus, and that according to its response will be its destiny.
VI WHAT ARE THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH JUDGMENT WILL PROCEED? Five of these are indicated in the psalm.
1. That merely formal offerings are offensive to God (vers. 8-13).
2. That no measure of religiousness will be accepted if iniquity has prevailed in the heart and life (ver. 16).
3. That the truly acceptable worship is a life of consecration, fidelity, prayer, and praise (vers. 14, 15).
4. That whosoever has ordered his life after the revealed will of God, will see God"s salvation (ver. 23).
5. That wherever the life has been one of forgetfulness and neglect of God, the guilty one will be confounded (ver. 22).
VII WHAT ARE THE COMPLAINTS MADE BY THE GREAT JUDGE? One is negative, viz. the absence of the worship of the heart; another is positive hypocrisy and guilt screened under a profession of religion, and the thought being cherished all the while that they would never be detected (ver. 21).
VIII WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SOVEREIGN JUDGE? A life of
(1) praise (ver. 23);
(2) thanksgiving (ver. 14);
(3) loyalty (ver. 14);
(4) prayer (ver. 15);
(5) glorifying God (ver. 15);
(6) a good and upright conversation (ver. 23).
Who does not see how infinitely such a life rises above that of merely formal lip-service?
IX WHAT WILL BE THE ISSUE OF THE JUDGMENT? Under varied forms of expression, the results are declared to be twofold, according to the main drifts of character and life.
1. For those in the wrong, rejection, sin set in order, brought home, exposed, condemned (vers. 21, 22).
2. For those who are in the right the salvation of God. (Act_10:35 Act_15:8, Act_15:9, Act_15:11) Thus under every head, though in archaic form, and with light less full, the very same truths are declared by the psalmist that were afterwards brought out more fully by Jesus Christ and his apostles.
X TO WHOM IS THE CALL ADDRESSED TO HEAR ALL THIS, AND WHY? (Vers. 1, 4) The whole earth is called on to witness and to watch the severely discriminating judgments of God on his visible Church; and every one is called upon to hearken, because it is God who speaketh. The Apostle Peter raises a momentous question in 1Pe_4:17, 1Pe_4:18. Whether we are ready to face the last judgment depends on how we stand in relation to that judgment which is going on every hour. Mote: After studying such a psalm as this, how vain does the question put by Roman Catholics appear, "Where can I find God"s true Church?" For this whole psalm is addressed to God"s true Church. Yet whoever, even "in Zion," is at ease, or formal, or corrupt, will find that not even membership in any visible Church will save him. Only those will be saved whose hearts are purified by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-23. God the righteous Judge.
I THAT GOD WILL JUDGE ALL MEN. Even now there is judgment. Every act of our lives has its moral character, and carries its consequences of good or evil. But this judgment is but partial and incomplete. Reason, conscience, and Holy Scripture proclaim a judgment to come which will be perfect and final. The supreme Judge of all men is God. He and he alone has the right and the power. Be has perfect knowledge, and cannot err; he has absolute righteousness, and cannot do injustice; he has almighty power, and cannot be prevented from carrying his judgments into effect. In the psalm the vision seems gradually to unfold itself till the great God stands before us in awful majesty and glory, "the Judge of the quick and the dead.
II THAT GOD"S JUDGMENT WILL SETTLE FOR EVER THE DESTINIES OF MEN. God comes to us now, but it is in mercy. He has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but would rather that all should turn from their evil ways and live. But there is a great crisis near, when he will come as a Judge, and when all men shall be brought consciously before him for judgment. The judgment will be universal: not only Israel, but all the earth; but it will begin at the house of God. Unavoidable: there will be no possibility of eluding the officers of justice, or of evading the testimony of the witnesses. Conclusive: it is the last judgment, from which there can be no appeal, whose sentences are irreversible and eternal.
III THAT GOD WILL SETTLE THE DESTINIES OF MEN ON THE GROUNDS OF ETERNAL JUSTICE. There is a hint as to the principles on which the judgment will be based in ver. 7. Everything may be said to turn on the kind of religion which we have. This is shown negatively (vers, 8-13), then positively (vers. 14-23). True religion is not outward, but inward; not formal, but spiritual; not conventional, but personal; not in privileges, not in professions, not in ceremonial observances, hut in the sincere obedience of the heart and life. It implies that God"s love is supreme in the heart, and God"s law is supreme in the life. Such a religion can only be obtained for sinners through Jesus Christ the Saviour. Where it really exists there is not only the form, but the power of godliness in grateful thanksgiving and joyous obedience and adoring prayer (ver. 23). W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-15. False to covenant.
God comes to Zion, as he once came to Sinai, amidst fire and tempest, calling upon the heavens and the earth to be his witnesses, while he summons his people to judgment, in which he proclaims how they had been false to the covenant that was between them.
I THE ACCUSATION. (Vers. 7-13)
1. They had forgotten the spiritual relations between them. (Vers. 5-7) They were "his saints," "his people; he was God, even their God." And he had to testify against them. They had not acted up to the spirit of that relation.
2. They brought him unspiritual sacrifices. Their heart did not go with their offerings. He did not complain of the offering in itself, but of the spirit in which it was brought.
3. What they brought was no gift of their own. (Vers. 10-12) Their offerings were his possessions, which he had in abundance.
4. They had forgotten his spiritual nature arid requirement. (Ver. 13) The flesh and blood of animals could not please or satisfy a spiritual nature.
II THE REQUIREMENT. (Vers. 14, 15)
1. Thanksgiving. The gratitude and praise of the heart a spiritual offering.
2. The paying of vows. The vows that are upon us in consequence of our covenant with God or fidelity, faithfulness.
3. Prayer. "Call upon me in the day of trouble;" not only then, but specially then.
III THE REWARD OF SPIRITUAL SERVICE. (Ver. 15) "I will deliver thee in the day of trouble, and thou shalt praise me. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Title. A Psalm of Asaph. This is the first…
Title. A Psalm of Asaph. This is the first of the Psalms of Asaph, but whether the production of that eminent musician, or merely dedicated to him, we cannot tell. The titles of twelve Psalms bear his name, but it could not in all of them be meant to ascribe their authorship to him, for several of these Psalms are of too late a date to have been composed by the same writer as the others. There was an Asaph in David's time, who was one of David's chief musicians, and his family appear to have continued long after in their hereditary office of temple musicians. An Asaph is mentioned as a recorder or secretary in the days of Hezekiah 2Ki 18:18, and another was keeper of the royal forests under Artaxerxes. That Asaph did most certainly write some of the Psalms is clear from 2Ch 29:30, where it is recorded that the Levites were commanded to "sing praises unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer, "but that other Asaphic Psalms were not of his composition, but were only committed to his care as a musician, is equally certain from 1Ch 16:7, where David is said to have delivered a Psalm into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. It matters little to us whether he wrote or sang, for poet and musician are near akin, and if one composes words and another sets them to music, they rejoice together before the Lord.
Division. The Lord is represented as summoning the whole earth to hear his declaration, Ps 50:1-6; he then declares the nature of the worship which he accepts, Ps 50:7-15, accuses the ungodly of breaches of the precepts of the second table, Ps 50:16-21, and closes the court with a word of threatening, Ps 50:22, and a direction of grace, Ps 50:23.
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Ver. 1. The mighty God, even the Lord. El, Elohim, Jehovah, three glorious names for the God of Israel. To render the address the more impressive, these august titles are mentioned, just as in royal decrees the names and dignities of monarchs are placed in the forefront. Here the true God is described as Almighty, as the only and perfect object of adoration and as the self existent One. Hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun until the going down thereof. The dominion of Jehovah extends over the whole earth, and therefore to all mankind is his decree directed. The east and the west are bidden to hear the God who makes his sun to rise on every quarter of the globe. Shall the summons of the great King be despised? Will we dare provoke him to anger by slighting his call?
Whole Psalm. The exordium or beginning of this Psalm is the most grand and striking that can possibly be imaginedthe speaker GOD, the audience an assembled world! We cannot compare or assimilate the scene here presented to us with any human resemblance; nor do I imagine that earth will ever behold such a day till that hour when the trumpet of the archangel shall sound and shall gather all the nations of the earth from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other; when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God, and the sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them. Barton Bouchier.
Ver. 1. El, Elohim, Jehovah has spoken! So reads the Hebrew. Andrew A. Bonar.
Ver. 1. (first clause). Some have observed that these three names, El, Elohim, Jehovah, here mentioned, have three very distinct accents set to them, and which being joined to a verb singular (dbd), hath spoken, contains the mystery of the trinity of Persons in the unity of the divine Essence. John Gill.
Ver. 1. And called the earth, etc., i.e., all the inhabitants of the earth he has commanded to come as witnesses and spectators of the judgment. Simon de Muis.
Ver. 1-5.
No more shall atheists mock his long delay;
His vengeance sleeps no more; behold the day!
Behold! the Judge descends; his guards are nigh,
Tempests and fire attend him down the sky.
When God appears, all nature shall adore him.
While sinners tremble, saints rejoice before him.
Heaven, earth and hell, draw near; let all things come,
To hear my justice, and the sinner's doom;
But gather first my saints (the Judge commands),
Bring them, ye angels, from their distant lands.
When Christ returns, wake every cheerful passion,
And shout, ye saints; he comes for your salvation.
Isaac Watts.
Ver. 1. It unspeakably concerns all men to know what God has spoken. W. S. Plumer.
Ver. 1.
1. Who has spoken? The Mighty, not men or angels, but God himself.
2. To whom has he spoken? To all nationsall ranks all characters. This calls for,
1. Reverenceit is the voice of God.
2. Hopebecause he condescends to speak to rebels.
3. Where has he spoken?
1. In creation.
2. In providence.
3. In his word. G. R.
Ver. 1-6.
1. The court called in the name of the King of kings.
2. The judgment set, and the judge taking his seat; Ps 50:2-3.
3. The parties summoned; Ps 50:8.
4. The issue of this solemn trial foretold; Ps 50:6.
Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
In the old quarto edition (1634) of "Mr. Paul Bayne's Commentary on Colossians, "among the "divers places of Scripture briefly explained, "there is an exposition of Ps 50:21-23, of this Psalm, entitled, "The Terror of God displayed against carnal security."
Psalms 50:2*
Ver. 1-5. See Psalms on "Ps 50:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-6.
1. The court called in the name of the King of kings.
2. The judgment set, and the judge taking his seat.
3. The parties summoned; Ps 50:8.
4. The issue of this solemn trial foretold; Ps 50:6. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-5. See Psalms on "Ps 50:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-6.
1. The court called in the name of the King of kings.
2. The judgment set, and the judge taking his seat.
3. The parties summoned; Ps 50:8.
4. The issue of this solemn trial foretold; Ps 50:6. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Psalms 50:4*
Ver. 1-5. See Psalms on "Ps 50:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-6.
1. The court called in the name of the King of kings.
2. The judgment set, and the judge taking his seat.
3. The parties summoned; Ps 50:8.
4. The issue of this solemn trial foretold; Ps 50:6. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-5. See Psalms on "Ps 50:1" for further information.
Ver. 1-6.
1. The court called in the name of the King of kings.
2. The judgment set, and the judge taking his seat.
3. The parties summoned; Ps 50:8.
4. The issue of this solemn trial foretold; Ps 50:6. Matthew Henry.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Psalms 50:10*
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Psalms 50:11*
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Psalms 50:12*
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Psalms 50:13*
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Ver. 1-15. What sacrifices are not, and what are acceptable with God.
Psalms 50:15*
Ver. 1-15.
1. God's call to man.
2. Man's call to God.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and…
Psa_50:1-23
The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
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The first of the Asaph psalms
This, the first of the Asaph psalms, is separated from the other eleven (Psa_73:1-28; Psa_74:1-23; Psa_75:1-10; Psa_76:1-12; Psa_77:1-20; Psa_78:1-72; Psa_79:1-13; Psa_80:1-19; Psa_81:1-16; Psa_82:1-8; Psa_83:1-18.) for reasons that do not appear. Probably they are no more recondite than the verbal resemblance between the summons to all the earth at the beginning of Psa_49:1-20., and the similar proclamation in the first verses of Psalm
1. The arrangement of the Psalter is often obviously determined by such slight links. The group has certain features in common, of which some appear here: e.g. the fondness for descriptions of theophanies; the prominence given to Gods judicial action; the preference for the Divine names of El, Adonai (the Lord), Elyon (Most High). Other peculiarities of the class--e.g. the love for the designation Joseph for the nation, and delight in the image of the Divine Shepherd--are not found in this psalm. It contains no historical allusions which aid in dating it. The leading idea of it--viz, the depreciation of outward sacrifice--is unhesitatingly declared by many to have been impossible in the days of the Levite Asaph, who was one of Davids musical staff. But is it so certain that such thoughts were foreign to the period in which Samuel declared that obedience was better than sacrifice? Certainly the tone of the psalm is that of later prophets, and there is much probability in the view that Asaph is the name of the family or guild of singers from whom these psalms came rather than that of an individual. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The religion of man
I. A solemn judgment awaits the religion of man.
1. Its Author. The mighty God, etc.
(1) Omniscient.
(2) Absolutely righteous.
2. Its witnesses. He hath called the earth, etc.
3. Its grandeur. Our God shall come, etc. The Eternal seems now silent; souls deafened by sin hear not His voice, but He will speak in thunder to them in the coming day.
4. Its officers (Psa_50:5). Who are the officers? (Mat_24:31; Psa_104:4). Gather My saints; what a gathering! From whence? To whom? What for?
5. Its rectitude (Psa_50:6). We may deceive ourselves, as well as others now; but the undeceiving period draweth near, and a period of inexpressible solemnity it will be to us all.
II. The worthlessness of mere ceremony in the religion of man.
1. You can give God nothing in your offerings. All belongs to Him.
2. He requires nothing. He is absolutely independent (Psa_50:14-15).
III. The value of right-heartedness in the religion of man.
1. The nature of spiritual religion.
(1) Hearty gratitude. Offer unto God thanksgiving. Not because our thanksgiving is of any service to Him; but because it is right that His moral creatures should appreciate the favours He bestows upon them. Because it is necessary to their own virtue and happiness. Genuine thankfulness of heart to God is the paradise of spirits. Heaven is praise.
(2) Hearty vows. Pay thy vows unto the Most High. Resolve to love, worship, and obey the great God; and in genuine earnestness carry out the vows in daily life.
(3) Hearty prayer. Call upon Me in the day of trouble--with thine own voice, in thine own language, from thy own heart (Php_4:6).
2. The advantages of spiritual religion.
(1) Divine deliverance. I will deliver thee.
(2) Divine approbation. Thou shall glorify Me. That is, thou shall honour Me. What a reward! (Homilist.)
Preparation to meet God
The whole business which we have in the world is this, to prepare to meet God. This is the meaning of the whole Bible, to warn us that we must meet God, and to afford us every assistance and encouragement in this preparation. It is this in which mankind differs from all other creatures of God which we know of. Angels have not this call made to them. Brute creatures have not to appear before Him. Every mall that is born must at last come into His presence. Who may abide the day of His coming? Our Lords warning is, Be ye ready. What it will be to meet our God, no heart of man can conceive; for what thought of man can ever understand what God is? But we may come to know Him even in this world far more than we think we can, as He is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. The thought of meeting God is of itself so awful that we might have been disposed to sit down in despair at the contemplation of it, were it not for this access to the Father which we have in Jesus Christ. It is of infinite consequence that we should be prepared, lest that day should overtake us unawares. And we know in what way we are to be prepared, what the things are which will be required of us. We cannot undo the past, which must all come before the all-seeing eye of the Judge; but, during the little time that remains to us, we can earnestly ask forgiveness, with lastings, and prayers, and tears, for the sake of Christ; and thus we may, with Gods mercy, gain some hope and comfort before we die. (Plain Sermons by authors of Tracts for the Times.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Psalms 50
Psalms 50
This is the first of the Asaph psalms, and is separated from the other eleven (Psalms 73-83) for reasons that do not appear. Probably they are no more recondite than the verbal resemblance between the summons to all the earth at the beginning of Psa_49:1 and the similar proclamation in the first verses of Psalms 50. The arrangement of the Psalter is often obviously determined by such slight links. The group has certain features in common, of which some appear here: e.g., the fondness for descriptions of theophanies; the prominence given to Gods judicial action; the preference for the Divine names of El, Adonai (the Lord), Elyon (Most High). Other peculiarities of the class-e.g., the love for the designation "Joseph" for the nation, and delight in the image of the Divine Shepherd-are not found in this psalm. It contains no historical allusions which aid in dating it. The leading idea of it-viz., the depreciation of outward sacrifice-is unhesitatingly declared by many to have been impossible in the days of the Levite Asaph, who was one of Davids musical staff. But is it so certain that such thoughts were foreign to the period in which Samuel declared that obedience was better than sacrifice? Certainly the tone of the psalm is that of later prophets, and there is much probability in the view that Asaph is the name of the family or guild of singers from whom these psalms came rather than that of an individual.
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The structure is clear and simple. There is, first, a magnificent description of Gods coming to judgment and summoning heaven and earth to witness while He judges His people (Psa_50:1-6). The second part (Psa_50:7-15) proclaims the worthlessness of sacrifice; and the third (Psa_50:16-21) brands hypocrites who pollute Gods statutes by taking them into their lips while their lives are foul. A closing strophe of two verses (Psa_50:22-23) gathers up the double lesson of the whole.
The first part falls again into two, of three verses each, of which the former describes the coming of the judge, and the latter the opening of the judgment. The psalm begins with a majestic heaping together of the Divine names, as if a herald were proclaiming the style and titles of a mighty king at the opening of a solemn assize. No English equivalents are available, and it is best to retain the Hebrew, only noting that each name is separated from the others by the accents in the original, and that to render either "the mighty God" (A.V.) or "the God of gods" is not only against that punctuation, but destroys the completeness symbolised by the threefold designation. Hupfeld finds the heaping together of names "frosty." Some ears will rather hear in it a solemn reiteration like the boom of triple thunders. Each name has its own force of meaning. El speaks of God as mighty; Elohim, as the object of religious fear; Jehovah, as the self-existent and covenant God.
The earth from east to west is summoned, not to be judged, but to witness God judging His people. The peculiarity of this theophany is that God is not represented as coming from afar or from above, but as letting His light blaze out from Zion, where He sits enthroned. As His presence made the city "the joy of the whole earth," {Psa_48:2} so it makes Zion the sum of all beauty. The idea underlying the representation of His shining out of Zion is that His presence among His people makes certain His judgment of their worship. It is the poetic clothing of the prophetic announcement, "You only have I known of all the inhabitants of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." The seer beholds the dread pomp of the advent of the Judge, and describes it with accessories familiar in such pictures: devouring fire is His forerunner, as clearing a path for Him among tangles of evil, and wild tempests whirl round His stable throne. "He cannot be silent." The form of the negation in the original is emotional or emphatic, conveying the idea of the impossibility of His silence in the face of such corruptions.
The opening of the court or preparation for the judgment follows. That Divine voice speaks, summoning heaven and earth to attend as spectators of the solemn process. The universal significance of Gods relation to and dealings with Israel, and the vindication of His righteousness by His inflexible justice dealt out to their faults, are grandly taught in this making heaven and earth assessors of that tribunal. The court having been thus constituted, the Judge on His seat, the spectators standing around, the accused are next brought in. There is no need to be prosaically definite as to the attendants who are bidden to escort them. His officers are everywhere, and to ask who they are in the present case is to apply to poetry the measuring lines meant for bald prose. It is more important to note the names by which the persons to be judged are designated. They are "My favoured ones, who have made a covenant with Me by (lit. over) sacrifice." These terms carry an indictment, recalling the lavish mercies so unworthily requited, and the solemn obligations so unthankfully broken. The application of the name "favoured ones" to the whole nation is noteworthy. In other psalms it is usually applied to the more devout section, who are by it sharply distinguished from the mass: here it includes the whole. It does not follow that the diversity of usage indicates difference of date. All that is certainly shown is difference of point of:dew. Here the ideal of the nation is set forth, in order to bring out more emphatically the miserable contrast of the reality. Sacrifice is set aside as worthless in the subsequent verses. But could the psalmist have given clearer indication that his depreciation is not to be exaggerated into entire rejection of external rites, than by thus putting in front of it the worth of sacrifice when offered aright, as the means of founding and sustaining covenant relations with God? If his own words had been given heed to, his commentators would have been saved the blunder of supposing that he is antagonistic to the sacrificial worship which he thus regards.
But before the assize opens, the heavens, which had been summoned to behold, declare beforehand His righteousness, as manifested by the fact that He is about to judge His people. The Selah indicates that a long-drawn swell of music fills the expectant pause before the Judge speaks from His tribunal.
The second part (Psa_50:7-15) deals with one of the two permanent tendencies which work for the corruption of religion-namely, the reliance on external worship, and neglect of the emotions of thankfulness and trust. God appeals first to the relation into which He has entered with the people, as giving Him the right to judge. There may be a reference to the Mosaic formula, "I am Jehovah, thy God," which is here converted, in accordance with the usage of this book of the Psalter, into "God (Elohim), thy God." The formula which was the seal of laws when enacted is also the warrant for the action of the Judge. He has no fault to find with the external acts of worship. They are abundant and "continually before Him." Surely this declaration at the outset sets aside the notion that the psalmist was launching a polemic against sacrifices per se. It distinctly takes the ground that the habitual offering of these was pleasing to the Judge. Their presentation continually is not reproved, but approved. What then is condemned? Surely it can be nothing but sacrifice without the thanksgiving and prayer required in Psa_50:14-15. The irony of Psa_50:9-13 is directed against the folly of believing that in sacrifice itself God delighted; but the shafts are pointless as against offerings which are embodied gratitude and trust. The gross stupidity of supposing that mans gift makes the offering to be Gods more truly than before is laid bare in the fine, sympathetic glance at the free, wild life of forest, mountain, and plain, which is all Gods possession, and present to His upholding thought, and by the side of which mans folds are very small affairs. "The cattle" in Psa_50:10 are not, as usually, domesticated animals, but the larger wild animals. They graze or roam "on the mountains of a thousand"-a harsh expression, best taken, perhaps, as meaning mountains where thousands [of the cattle] are. But the omission of one letter gives the more natural reading "mountains of God". {cf. Psa_36:6} It is adopted by Olshausen and Cheyne, and smooths the construction, but has against it its obliteration of the fine thought of the multitudes of creatures peopling the untravelled hills. The word rendered "whatever moves" is obscure; but that meaning is accepted by most. Cheyne in his Commentary gives as alternative "that which comes forth abundantly," and in "Orig. of Psalt.," 473, "offspring." All these are "with Me"-i.e., present to His mind-a parallel to "I know" in the first clause of the same verse.
Psa_50:12-13 turn the stream of irony on another absurdity involved in the superstition attacked-the grossly material thought of God involved in it. What good do bulls flesh and goats blood do to Him? But if these are expressions of thankful love, they are delightsome to Him. Therefore the section ends with the declaration that the true sacrifice is thanksgiving and the discharge of vows. Men honour God by asking and taking, not by giving. They glorify Him when, by calling on Him in trouble, they are delivered; and then, by thankfulness and service, as well as by the evidence which their experience gives that prayer is not in vain, they again glorify Him. All sacrifices are Gods before they are offered, and do not become any more His by being offered. He neither needs nor can partake of material sustenance. But mens hearts are not His without their glad surrender, in the same way as after it; and thankful love, trust, and obedience are as the food of God, sacrifices acceptable, well-pleasing to Him.
The third part of the psalm is still sterner in tone. It strikes at the other great corruption of worship by hypocrites. As has been often remarked, it condemns breaches of the second table of the law, just as the former part may be regarded as dealing with transgressions of the first. The eighth, seventh, and ninth commandments are referred to in Psa_50:18-19 as examples of the hypocrites sins. The irreconcilable contradiction of their professions and conduct is vividly brought out in the juxtaposition of "declare My statutes" and "castest My words behind thee." They do two opposite things with the same words-at the same time proclaiming them with all lipreverence, and scornfully flinging them behind their backs in their conduct. The word rendered in the A.V. "slanderest" is better taken as in margin of the R.V, "givest a thrust," meaning to use violence so as to harm or overthrow.
Hypocrisy finds encouragement in impunity. Gods silence is an emphatic way of expressing His patient tolerance of evil unpunished. Such "long suffering" is meant to lead to repentance, and indicates Gods unwillingness to smite. But, as experience shows, it is often abused, and "because sentence against an evil work is not axecuted speedily, the heart of the sons of men is thoroughly set in them to do evil." The gross mind has gross conceptions of God. One nemesis of hypocrisy is the dimming of the idea of the righteous Judge. All sin darkens the image of God. When men turn away from Gods self-revelation, as they do by transgression and most fatally by hypocrisy, they cannot but make a God after their own linage. Browning has taught us in his marvellous "Caliban on Setebos" how a coarse nature projects its own image into the heavens and calls it God. God made man in His own likeness. Men who have lost that likeness make God in theirs, and so sink deeper in evil till He speaks. Then comes an apocalypse to the dreamer, when there is flashed before him what God is and what he himself" is. How terrorstricken the gaze of these eyes before which God arrays the deeds of a life, seen for the first time in their true character! It will be the hypocrites turn to keep silence then, and his thought of a complaisant God like himself wilt perish before the stern reality.
The whole teaching of the psalm is gathered up in the two closing verses. "Ye that forget God" includes both the superstitious formalists and the hypocrites. Reflection upon such truths as those of the psalm will save them from else inevitable destruction. "This" points on to Psa_50:23, which is a compendium of both parts of the psalm. The true worship, which consists in thankfulness and praise, is opposed in Psa_50:23 a to mere externalisms of sacrifice, as being the right way of glorifying God. The second clause presents a difficulty. But it would seem that we must expect to find in it a summing up of the warning of the third part of the psalm similar to that of the second part in the preceding clause. That consideration goes against the rendering in the R.V. margin (adopted from Delitzsch): "and prepares a way [by which] I may show, etc. The ellipsis of the relative is also somewhat harsh. The literal rendering of the ambiguous words is, "one setting a way." Graetz, who is often wild in his emendations, proposes a very slight one here-the change of one letter, which would yield a good meaning: "he that is perfect in his way." Cheyne adopts this, and it eases a difficulty. But the received text is capable of the rendering given in the A.V, and, even without the natural supplement "aright," is sufficiently intelligible. To order ones way or "conversation" is, of course, equivalent to giving heed to it according to Gods word, and is the opposite of the conduct stigmatised in Psa_50:16-21. The promise to him who thus acts is that he shall see Gods salvation, both in the narrower sense of daily interpositions for deliverance, and in the wider of a full and final rescue from all evil and endowment with all good. The psalm has as keen an edge for modern as for ancient sins. Superstitious reliance on externals of worship survives, though sacrifices have ceased; and hypocrites, with their months full of the Gospel, still cast Gods words behind them, as did those ancient hollow-hearted proclaimers and breakers of the Law.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Superscription. “A Psalm of Asaph.” Asaph was “a Levite,…
INTRODUCTION
Superscription. “A Psalm of Asaph.” Asaph was “a Levite, son of Berachiah, one of the leaders of David’s choir (1Ch_6:39). Psalms 50, 73-83 are attributed to him, but probably all these, except 50, 73, and 77, are of later origin. He was in after times celebrated as a Seer as well as a musical composer, and was put on a par with David (2Ch_29:30; Neh_12:46). The office appears to have remained hereditary in his family, unless he was the founder of a school of poets and musical composers, who were called after him ‘the sons of Asaph’ ” (1Ch_25:1; 2Ch_20:14; Ezr_2:41).—Smith’s Dict. of the Bible.
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The occasion on which the psalm was composed is unknown. “The object of the psalm,” says Barnes, “seems to be to set forth the value and importance of spiritual religion as compared with a mere religion of forms.”
A SCENE OF JUDGMENT
(Psa_50:1-6.)
In these verses we have a poetical representation of the appearance of the Most High to judge His people as to their conduct in respect to His worship. Though the judgment spoken of in this psalm is a particular one, yet most of the features of this scene are elsewhere represented as characterising the general and final judgment. We have here set before us—
I. The Judge. “The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken.… God is Judge Himself.” Professor Alexander translates: “The Almighty, God, Jehovah, speaks;” and he points out that El is not an adjective agreeing with Elohim, but a substantive in apposition with it. Hengstenberg takes the same view, and says: “The heaping up of names must fill the hypocrites with terror, as these bring before their eyes the majesty of Him whose judgment they underlie. In the relation of these designations there is a gradation. Elohim is more than El, to which its singular Eloah is equivalent. The plural marks the fulness and the richness of the Divine nature. Jehovah is the highest name according to its derivation—it marks God as the only real Being—and, according to the usage also, which ascribes to Jehovah the most glorious manifestations of God to and in behalf of His people.” He who summons the world to judgment has the right to do so, and the power to enforce His right. As Judge God is perfect. Two things are essential to a just judgment.
1. Competent knowledge of the case to be tried. In this respect God is perfect as the Judge of man. He is fully acquainted with
(1) all spoken words and overt actions;
(2) all unuttered thoughts and unwrought purposes;
(3) all motives by which we have been actuated; and
(4) all the circumstances and influences, both good and evil, by which we have been affected (Psa_139:1-16).
2. Perfect justice in trying the case. “Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? God forbid: for how then shall God judge the world?” “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.” His judgment-throne is “a great white throne,” i.e., a throne whose judgments are characterised by perfect purity and righteousness. God is the Judge; and He is perfect in all things.
II. The principles upon which judgment will be administered. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.” On “Zion, the perfection of beauty,” see remarks on Psa_48:2. “The meaning here is, that the great principles which are to determine the destiny of mankind in the final judgment are those which proceed from Zion; or those which are taught in the religion of Zion; they are those which are inculcated through the Church of God. God has there made known His law; He has stated the principles on which He governs, and on which He will judge the world.”—Barnes. To the Church God has clearly revealed His will, and made known the principles upon which He will administer the final judgment. (See Ecc_12:14; Mat_25:14-46. Act_17:31; Rom_14:10; Rom_14:12.; et al.)
III. The certainty of the judgment. “God shall come,” &c. Here is no peradventure, but an unmistakable affirmation. Evidence is not wanting of the certainty of future judgment.
1. Conscience foreshadows it. “The consciousness of obligation,” says R. W. Hamilton,” would lead us to believe that God would bring us into judgment with Him. “
2. Moral government requires it. “Even-handed justice” is not administered here and now. As Dr. R. W. Dale points out, “the physical penalties of certain forms of sin torture and destroy an inhabitant of Fiji; while they are alleviated and almost wholly averted by the resources which science and wealth place at the disposal of a European; one merchant who is guilty of gross fraud escapes detection, while another who is guilty of precisely the same crime is accidentally discovered, and expiates his offence by long years of disgrace and misery; a lad who has no friends is ruined for life by a single act of folly and sin, while another, who may have been his confederate in wrong-doing, is rescued by the energy and constancy of human affection, recovers his reputation, and after long years of prosperity and honour leaves behind him a name which his children are proud to bear.” Many other inequalities of retribution as administered in this life might be pointed out. These demand a “judgment to come.”
3. The word of God affirms it. (See passages cited above, et al.) That last great Assize is certain as the throne of God.
IV. The terrible majesty of the judge at His appearing. “A fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.” There is doubtless a reference here to the sublime and terror-inspiring phenomena which accompanied the giving of the law on Sinai (Exo_19:16; Exo_19:18). In the last judgment Christ the Judge will come in “the clouds of heaven” and with “flaming fire,” and attended by “mighty angels” (Mar_13:26; 2Th_1:7-10; Rev_1:7). Such descriptions are not designed simply to represent God as clothed with appropriate majesty when appearing to judge the world. The flaming fire, the stormy tempest, the cloudy gloom, the flashings of His glory, are emblematical of the purity and the power and the consuming wrath of the Judge. And they are in keeping with the vast and important transactions and results of the solemn occasion, and the Divine dignity of the Judge. Such an appearance should fill the hearts of saints with holy fear, and sinners with unutterable terror.
V. The persons to be judged. “Judge His people.… My saints, … those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” The people of God are here represented as having entered into a solemn covenant-relation to Him. They have taken God to be their God, and given themselves up to Him and to His service, and the Jews in doing this presented solemn sacrifices to Him. The Christian covenants with God through Christ the great sacrifice, through whom alone we come to God. The Jews were the professed people of God,—His covenanted people (Exo_19:3-9). But how often and how sadly did they break the covenant! “It is at first sight strange, that those, whom the Lord will judge as transgressors of His covenant, should be described as His saints. But the allusion to the height of their standing and destiny is particularly fitted to cause shame, on account of their present actual condition.” Let not the professed people of God deceive themselves by imagining that if they sin God will not judge them for it; for He certainly will do so. The greater the privileges and profession of any people, the more deserving of punishment will they be found if they dishonour God and walk not in His statutes. But at the last judgment all men, without any exception whatever, must appear and be judged (Rom_14:10; Rom_14:12; 2Co_5:10; et al.)
VI. The witnesses of the judgment. “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people.” The universe is called upon to be present as witness to the solemn transactions of the judgment. Such appeals to the heaven and earth to witness, in Scripture, always indicate the importance and solemnity of the scenes and transactions to which they are called. Thus Moses warned the children of Israel of the danger of provoking God to anger,—“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish,” &c. (Deu_4:26; see also Mic_6:2.) “All His holy angels” will attend the Judge, and witness the proceedings, and testify to their righteousness.
VII. The righteousness of the judgment. “And the heavens shall declare His righteousness; for God is Judge Himself.” The perfections of God, especially His holiness and knowledge, guarantee the righteousness of His judgment. (See previous remarks on the perfection of God as a Judge.) The angelic witnesses of the judgment will declare its justice, saying, “True and righteous are His judgments.” The redeemed will praise the generosity of His dealings with them. The consciences even of the condemned will acknowledge the righteousness of their doom. The whole universe will subscribe to the justice of His judgments.
CONCLUSION.—
1. Here is solemn warning to the people of God. If you depart from Him, He will summon you to meet Him for judgment.
2. Here is a solemn inquiry for all. How shall we meet Him in judgment? Only through Christ Jesus can we do so (see Rom_8:1; Rom_8:33).
THE FORMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL IN DIVINE SERVICE
(Psa_50:7-15.)
The poet represents the judgment of the chosen people as commencing with God’s address to them: “Hear, O My people, and I will speak,” &c. He testifies against them because of the formality of their services; and calls upon them to offer to Him spiritual sacrifices.
I. The worthlessness of merely formal and material sacrifices in the Divine service. “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings continually before Me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds.” Such sacrifices are shown to be worthless.
1. Because of the infinite resources of God. “For every beast of the forest is mine,” &c. (Psa_50:10-12). He is the absolute proprietor of all things. We are but stewards of our possessions. We hold them under Him and for Him. “What hast thou that thou didst not receive” from Him? The devout and godly soul recognises this fact, and blesses God, as David did, because He has given to us wherewith we may offer to Him. “Blessed be Thou, Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness,” &c. (1Ch_29:10-16). Only of His own can we give unto Him. This is true of the man of temporal wealth, the man of genius, the man of piety and spiritual power, &c. Utterly worthless, therefore, are all our offerings in His sight, unless they are spiritually and heartily given (Act_17:25).
2. Because of the spirituality of God. “Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?” Did they suppose that the Infinite Spirit needed meat and drink for His support as our bodies do? Being a spirit, the mere outward sacrifices could afford no satisfaction to Him. “Among the heathen the opinion prevailed that the gods ate and drank what was offered to them in sacrifice; whereas the truth was, that these things were consumed by the priests who attended on heathen altars, and conducted the devotions of heathen temples, and who found that it contributed much to their own support, and did much to secure the liberality of the people, to keep up the impression that what was thus offered was consumed by the gods.” The Divine appeal implies that they to whom it was addressed knew better. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Therefore, in His sight the mere material offering was worthless. But let us not suppose that God rejects all outward offerings and sacrifices. He rather requires them. It is quite clear from the eighth verse, “that if the outward sacrifices had not been offered, this also would have been a ground of complaint.” But when they are offered as substitutes for the loving reverence of the heart, and the loyal obedience of the life, He rejects them as abominations. When they are the expressions of the soul’s prayerful penitence or thankful praise, He accepts them with delight. (See the remarks on Psa_40:6.)
II. The worth of spiritual sacrifices in the Divine service. “Offer,” or sacrifice, “unto God thanksgiving,” &c. (Psa_50:14-15). The worth of spiritual offerings is shown here in several respects:
1. They are enjoined by God. He commands us to present them unto Him. Notice
(1) The ground of this requirement. “Hear, O My people, and I will speak: I am God, thy God.” “On the one side, my people and Israel, the people of God and of the covenant; on the other side God, the God of heaven and of earth, thy God, who has bound Israel to Himself by so many benefits, has purchased his obedience so dearly.”—Hengstenberg. He demands the spiritual worship of His people on the twofold ground of His own Divine perfections and sovereignty, and His covenant relation to them.
(2) The inclusiveness of this requirement. These spiritual offerings include praise, payment of vows, and prayer. “The giving of thanks,” says John Arnd, “comprehends many virtues in itself,—acknowledgment of God as the fountain of all good; fear of God, namely, the childlike fear which receives all benefits from God as the child from the father: humility, confessing that we have nothing of ourselves, but obtain all from God,” &c. Hengstenberg translates: “Offer to God praise, and THUS pay to the Highest thy vows.” He explains: “He only who has rendered the substance of this thank-offering, thanks, has truly paid his vow.” Lives of penitence, prayer, gratitude, praise, affection, obedience, and trust, constitute the acceptable sacrifices.
2. They secure His blessing. “The whole fifteenth verse is of a promissory nature. It announces the reward which is appointed for the spiritual worship of God. Whoever thanks God in the right manner for deliverance obtained, may console himself in the time of distress with the assured hope of a new deliverance.”—Hengstenberg.
3. They are a means by which we glorify God. “Thou shalt glorify Me.” God is glorified not by our outward professions or material offerings, but by grateful and trustful hearts expressed in holy and earnest lives.
CONCLUSION.—Are we thus honouring Him? Our material offerings and formal services He will not accept unless we give Him our heart and life. Be it ours, through the atonement of Christ Jesus, and in imitation of His example, to devote ourselves unreservedly and for ever to God.
RESOURCE AND COMFORT IN TROUBLE
(Psa_50:15.)
Notice—
I. The period described. “The day of trouble.” We are often called to pass through trouble in the present world. We sometimes are troubled with opposition from the world (2Ti_3:12), sometimes with painful family discord (Pro_17:1), sometimes with great bodily infirmities (Isa_38:14-15), sometimes with inward conflicts (Rom_7:22-24), sometimes with perplexities in business, sometimes with worldly disappointments, sometimes with the unfaithfulness of friends (2Ti_4:10; 2Ti_4:16), sometimes with the weight of declining years, sometimes with slanderous reports (Psa_41:5-8), sometimes with pecuniary losses, sometimes with afflictive bereavements (Psa_88:18), and sometimes with tormenting fears (2Co_7:5).
II. The direction given. “Call upon Me.” We should do this—in the language of deprecation (Psa_143:2); in the language of petition (Psa_69:14); in the language of confession (Psa_51:2, 1Jn_1:9); in the language of humility (Gen_18:27; Gen_32:10); and in the language of submission (Mat_26:42).
III. The consolation introduced. “I will deliver thee.” This He will do at the fittest time, by the fittest instruments, through the fittest mediums, and in the fittest manner.
IV. The consequence anticipated. “Thou shalt glorify Me.” In the memory, by lively recollections of My kindness; in the conscience, by fearing to prove ungrateful; in the affections, by loving Me supremely; in the life, by devotedness to My service.—W. Sleigh.
GOD’S CHALLENGE TO RELIGIOUS HYPOCRITES
(Psa_50:16-23.)
We have here—
I. Religious hypocrites proclaiming God’s law. “What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldest take My covenant in thy mouth?” It is a great evil when private professors of religion are untrue to their profession. In them hypocrisy is an evil and pernicious thing. But for hypocrites to declare and teach God’s law to others, and set it at nought themselves, is an outrageous evil. He who preaches the law to others should endeavour to keep the law himself. A man who is not himself sincerely religious has no Divine authority to preach the Word of God to others. Neither has he the ability to do so aright. To represent the power and beauty of truth and grace faithfully, we must know their beauty and power for ourselves. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” (See Rom_2:17-24.)
II. Religious hypocrites despising God’s Word. “Thou hatest instruction, and castest My words behind thee.” A teacher of others, yet unwilling to learn himself. A preacher of the Word of God to others, yet contemptuously disregarding that Word himself. It is to be feared that there are still teachers of religion who themselves refuse to be taught of God; and who, by neglecting its study or disobeying its precepts, despise the Word of God. Such persons occupy and profane the sacred position of religious teachers for the gratification of their ambition, or for the emoluments of the office, &c. But whatever may be their motive, their sin is most heinous and mischievous.
III. Religious hypocrites breaking God’s laws. “When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him,” &c. (Psa_50:18-20). These teachers of the law are here charged by God with breaking its seventh, eighth, and ninth commandments. He accuses them of adultery, theft, and false witness. They approved the practices of thieves and shared in their plunder. Adultery was “very common among the Jews, for even the Talmud accuses some of the most celebrated Rabbis of this vice.”—M. Stuart. The charge of evil speaking is very strong. It was not an occasional thing with them; they were addicted to it. Mouth and tongue were devoted to wickedness and deceit. “The expression in Psa_50:20, ‘thou sittest,’ is a delineation to the life of babbling companies.” In the enjoyment of social intercourse they employed themselves in backbiting and slandering. Even the nearest relations were not exempt from their venomous tongues. Their “brother,” their “own mother’s son,” they would assail. “It is to be remembered that where polygamy prevailed there would be many children in the same family who had the same father, but not the same mother. The nearest relationship, therefore, was where there was the same mother as well as the same father. To speak of a brother, in the strictest sense, and as implying the nearest relationship, it would be natural to speak of one as having the same mother.”—Barnes. Now these sine—slander, even of the nearest relations, adultery, and complicity with thieves—are charged against not merely professors of religion, but teachers of the law. The effect of such sins in persons holding such a position and making such a profession is most baneful. These effects are—
1. Ruin to the hypocrites themselves. (See 2 Peter 2.)
2. Paralysis and corruption to the Church.
3. Stumbling to the world. (Rom_2:24; 2Pe_2:2.)
IV. Religious hypocrites deceiving themselves as to the Divine character and conduct. “These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” God had borne long with them in their evil ways. His forbearance and long suffering were exercised with a view to their repentance. But they misinterpreted His non-interference as an indication that He regarded sin even as they did. Sinners take God’s silence for consent, and His patience with them as palliation of their sins, and are thus encouraged in evil. But great is their mistake in this. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Yet it surely will be executed.
V. Religious hypocrites interrogated by God. “What hast thou to do to declare My statutes?” &c. (Psa_50:16). Thus God challenges their right and title to proclaim His statutes. What right had they to speak of His covenant when they were constantly and flagrantly violating it? This challenge implies—
1. The inconsistency of their conduct.
2. The enormity of their conduct. They were profaning the most sacred realities; endangering the most precious interests of human souls; dishonouring God.
3. The rejection by God of their professional duties. He rejects with utter abhorrence the professional services in His cause of those whose hearts and lives are profane and impure.
VI. Religions hypocrites convicted of their sins. “I will reprove thee, and set them in order before Mine eyes.” The word translated “reprove” means to demonstrate against, reprove, rebuke, chastise. We take it to mean here that God would thoroughly convince them of the charges which He brings against them, by setting their sins in order before their eyes. He would summon their sins from the graves of the past to rise and confront them, and so convince them. “He declares,” says Calvin, “that they will soon be drawn into open light, that they shall be compelled to see with their eyes the shameful deeds which they had imagined they could conceal from the eyes of God. For so I understand the setting in order, that God will lay before them in exact order a full catalogue of their misdeeds, which they must read and own, whether they will or not.” Unless our sins are blotted out by the blood of Christ, we must confront them all again to our utter confusion.
VII. Religious hypocrites warned by God. “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces,” &c. “It is the doom of hypocrites to be cat asunder (Mat_24:51). Note,—
1. Forgetfulness of God is at the bottom of all the wickedness of the wicked. Those that know God, and yet do not obey Him, do certainly forget Him.
2. Those that forget God forget themselves, and it will never be right with them till they consider, and so recover themselves. Consideration is the first step towards conversion.
3. Those that will not consider the warnings of God’s Word will certainly be torn in pieces by the execution of His wrath.
4. When God comes to tear sinners in pieces, there is no delivering them out of His hand. They cannot deliver themselves, nor can any friend they have in the world deliver them.”—M. Henry.
VIII. All men instructed by God. “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me,” &c. (Psa_50:23): The first clause of this verse is a compend of Psa_50:14-15. On the second, Matthew Henry remarks: “
1. It is not enough for us to offer praise, but we must withal order our conversation aright. Thanksgiving is good, but thanksliving is better.
2. Those that would have their conversation right must take care and pains to order it, to dispose it according to rule, to understand their way and to direct it.
3. Those that take care of their conversation make sure their salvation. The right ordering of the conversation is the only way, and it is a sure way, to obtain the great salvation.”
CONCLUSION.—Let professors of religion, and especially ministers thereof, examine themselves. To each of us who are ministers or teachers our Lord by His apostle says,—“Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” Brethren, are we such an example? If there be any hypocrisy, any insincerity in us, let us take warning, and repent, and be saved while yet we may.
And let the sincere Christian, who sacrifices unto God thanksgiving, and orders his conversation aright, be encouraged, for his salvation is of the Lord, and faileth not.
AN AWFUL FALLACY
Psa_50:21. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself.”
There are certain features in which we are like God. “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” There are certain features of that likeness which sin has not destroyed. Our reason remains. Our moral sense, though injured, is not destroyed, &c. If we were not in some respects like God, we could receive no revelation of Him. But it is a sinful fallacy to suppose that God is altogether like us. Let us exhibit the fallaciousness and evil of such a supposition.
I. Men are able to hide their sins from each other, and the wicked act as though they could hide them from God. Wicked men do impose upon their fellow-men by means of religious professions and practices. The Jews addressed in this psalm imagined that their ritualistic observances would hide from God the enormity of their moral conduct. They thought that they could impose upon God by their religious forms. This is what men are doing now. If men realised the impossibility of hiding anything from God, sin would become an exceptional thing. And yet, how preposterous it is to think to hide anything from the All-Seeing! He has “set our secret sins in the light of His countenance.”
II. Men are apt to lose all concern for the insignificant when occupied with the important, and the wicked act as though this were the case with God. The statesman dealing with national problems and influencing the destinies of mighty empires may overlook the beggar-child that stands at his gate. The wicked argue, “God is great and occupied with concerns of unlimited extent and unspeakable importance; He upholds the entire universe; do you think He leaves these vast concerns to notice the sins of one man? I can understand His punishing the sins of a host of angels, or of a multitude of men, or of a nation; but the failings of one imperfect man He does not concern Himself about.” How foolish! Great and small are only the relative terms of imperfect beings. To God nothing is unimportant, &c.
III. Men become unmindful of an offence in course of time, and the wicked think that in this God is altogether as they are. We are indifferent now to an offence which we bitterly resented some years ago when it was offered to us. Time has wonderfully toned down our feeling. But God never forgets or becomes indifferent to any sin. He knows the dark history of every sin, sees all its awful relations and bearings, and so He never becomes indifferent as we do. Moreover, He knows that sin must either be pardoned or punished, and, therefore, His solicitude for the sinner’s good keeps the sin ever before Him. We may grow indifferent to a wrong, but God never can.
IV. Men regard sin with great leniency, and the wicked imagine that God does so. “Fools make a mock at sin.” Society says of the profligate that he is “somewhat gay,” or “a trifle fast.” Philosophers speak of sin as “misdirection,” or as a result of deficient education, or unfavourable circumstances and surroundings. These tolerant and false views of sin men are prone to transfer to God. But with Him sin is the “abominable thing which He hates.” He has proclaimed His hatred of it in the punishment of the angels who sinned, in the destruction of the ungodly world by the flood, in the overthrow of the cities of the plain, &c. The sufferings and death of Jesus His Son to put away sin are God’s great protest against evil. He is completely, unchangeably, eternally opposed to it.
V. Men treat sin and sinners in a very changeable manner, and the wicked think that God will do so. Man burns with anger against an offender, and threatens stern punishment; but the anger cools and the punishment is never inflicted. Or man threatens a punishment which he cannot inflict. Men are prone to think that God is as they are in this respect. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,” &c. His threatenings, they think, are designed to deter men from evil; but if it is committed, He will not arise to punish for it. But this is a fatal mistake. He will fulfil His threatenings against the impenitent. Judgment is delayed, because in His mercy God waits for the wicked to turn penitently to Him. But if His forbearance do not result in their penitence, His judgment will be the more terrible. He will set their sins before them in all their multiplicity and enormity, and the sight will extinguish their hope, and call upon Despair henceforth to be their attendant angel.
Sin must be either cast behind God’s back, or it will cast the sinner into hell. There is forgiveness with God. He delighteth in mercy. He abundantly pardons. “The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” Seek Him while He may be found.
Let us not imagine that God is altogether like unto us in His estimate of evil and evil-doers; but let us seek to view sin as He does, with implacable hatred, and to resist it with relentless vigour.
Others, imagining God to be like themselves, conclude that He regards sin with feelings of stormy passion and sinful revenge. They do greatly err. And others that He is partial in His redemptive purposes and sectarian in His sympathies. They also err. His love is far greater than the best of our conceptions of it.
Let us not think that God is altogether like unto us, but endeavour, through Jesus Christ, to become altogether like unto Him.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain We have in the text:
Psa 50:15
We have in the text:
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I. A precept for the day of trouble. God saith, "Call upon Me." (1) This calling is a suitable recognition of Himself in His relation to us. Is He not our Father? And as our Father, is He not our Deliverer? (2) This calling is an act of homage to His delivering power. It recognises God’s hand. (3) This calling brings us near to God, face to face with God. (4) This calling is a beneficial religious exercise. It comforts. It lessens pressure. (5) This calling is the best possible preparation for the deliverance. It promises humility, humbleness of mind.
II. God encourages us to obey this precept by the promise and assurance, "I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." Thus does God speak to us now: (1) By verbal revelations of His character He saith, "Call upon Me" (Gen 17:1); (2) by exceeding great and precious promises (Isa 43:2); (3) by various precepts and exhortations (Isa 43:1); (4) by the history of the deliverances He has wrought (Psa 44:1-4); (5) by our experience and observation of deliverances effected (Psa 34:5-6); (6) by the mediation of His Son He saith, "Call upon Me" (Heb 12:24); (7) by the ministry of the Holy Ghost He saith, "Call upon Me" (Rom 8:26).
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 12.
References: Psa 50:15.—T. Kelly, Pulpit Trees, p. 300; Congregationalist, vol. vi., p. 461; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1505, and vol. xxxi., No. 1876; G. S. Barrett, Old Testament Outlines, p. 114.
Psa 50:21
Psa 50:3
I. God’s keeping silence. (1) His keeping silence means that He seems to take no notice of the wickedness of men. He is "strong," and therefore He can punish; "righteous," and therefore He will punish; but He is "patient" also, so patient that, though He is provoked before His face every day, He still waits and waits, and never executes judgment speedily upon an evil work. (2) Another meaning of God’s keeping silence is that He does not nowadays interfere with the course of nature. God has spoken, and now He is giving to mankind a trial, to see whether they will heed what He says. All things continue as they were, and an infidel may deny God if he pleases, and a bad man may defy God if he pleases; no lightning falls from heaven to blast either him who denies or him who defies. (3) Since we know God to be grievously displeased with sin, there is something very awful in His keeping silence while it is committed under His eyes. In countries where earthquakes happen, a dead silence always goes before the earthquake. So it is with God’s silence. It will be followed, when it seems deepest, by the earthquake of His judgments.
II. Consider, next, God’s breaking silence. (1) When our Lord came to found the Christian Church and sent His Apostles into the world with the glad tidings of salvation, there was a bright blaze of miracles. When He comes a second time to earth, a far brighter blaze of miracles will shine round Him than that which ushered in His first appearance. The present system of all things shall be broken up, and exchanged for another and a better system. (2) "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence." He shall come when death comes, or rather He shall come in and by death. The sky crimsons and flushes no less at sundown than at sunrise, and the human heart shall glow at the end of a man’s career as it once glowed in the old forgotten days of the beginning. When the framework of this tabernacle is being unpinned, then shall signs and wonders be shown to the trembling soul. The voice of Christ may be suppressed at present, but, willing or unwilling, we must then give heed to it. "He will not keep silence."
E. M. Goulburn, Penny Pulpit, No. 3059.
Psa 50:21
In what sense are the words true that we think wickedly that God is such a one as ourselves?
I. We are constantly judging of His knowledge by our own.
II. This is true also with reference to His holiness.
III. We have an inadequate estimate of the veracity of God. We infer from the delay of His interposition that, like a mere man, He may threaten and not execute. It needs a very firm faith, and a very patient spirit, and a very tender conscience to keep alive in man’s heart the practical and living conviction that for all these things God will bring him into judgment.
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 321.
Notice:—
I. God keeping silence. By this is intended God’s appearing for a while not to take heed of the course of those who are sinning against Him. There is sufficient of God’s prompt and even swift and startling vindication of His law to show that there is a God who judgeth the earth; and there is not sufficient of it to lead us to suppose that a final day, when the judgment shall be perfect, is not necessary.
II. Look, next, at man misinterpreting and misusing God’s silence. The intention of God is to lead man to repentance, and the effect of it upon too many hearts which thus misinterpret and misuse it is only to lead them to sink more deeply into indifference and to be hardened in sin.
III. God says at last that He will break silence. The longsuffering of God will not last for ever. Whether we look at the history of the Flood, or at the history of the Cities of the Plain, or at the history of the people of Canaan, or at the history of Nebuchadnezzar, or at the history of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem, we see that at last even the longsuffering of God comes to an end.
J. C. Miller, Penny Pulpit, No. 771.
References: Psa 50:21.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 137; J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 66.
Psa 50:21-22
The disposition of many to misinterpret the moral government of God arises from one remarkable characteristic of it, to which our attention is drawn in this passage. Men misunderstand and misinterpret the majestic silence of God. "I kept silence." This has been the rule in God’s dealings with men, and it is upon this rule that men presume.
I. Why does God keep silence and show Himself patient as well as strong, although He be provoked every day? The answer is, not because He is indifferent to sin, and not because He does not intend to punish it, but because He has ordained certain conditions for our probation here, and He is not so inconsistent as to reverse them. Man was created by God in His own image, in this respect above all others, that he possessed from the first a power of independent volition, a capacity of freewill, by the right and dutiful exercise of which he was to be raised to his proper destiny and fitted to share the glories of the Divine Being. If God broke silence and inflicted penalty every time that we transgressed against Him, it might become our will not to transgress against Him; but surely our will would only be free in a very limited sense of the word.
II. A further explanation of God’s silence lies in His forbearing compassion. "He is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish." This is no sign of weakness; but it is a sign of patient, persevering, though ill-requited love, and it is evident that such an exhibition of forbearance on God’s part makes our sin all the greater when we do sin against it.
III. Besides the occasional warnings which come within the experience of most of us, God has broken silence thrice at least in human history and spoken in a way that must needs appeal to our hearts if we reflect at all. There are three stupendous facts in human history in which we may say God has broken silence. They are (1) the curse which fell upon the world in consequence of a single sin; (2) the Flood; (3) the judgment upon the Sin-bearer at Calvary.
IV. God does even more than this. He has sent His Holy Spirit into the world especially to carry on the work of reproof, and to anticipate that judgment from which there is no escape and no appeal, by setting in order before us the things which we have done. The Holy Spirit is seeking to convict us of sin. Let us listen to His voice, and plead guilty to those charges which He brings against us. We may be sure that His friendly accusations are true.
W. Hay Aitken, Around the Cross, p. 17.
References: Psa 50:23.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1495; S. Cox, Expositions, 3rd series, p. 152. Psa 51:1.—G. Forbes, The Voice of God in the Psalms, p. 173.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain A righteous God requiring righteousness.
A righteous God requiring righteousness.
A psalm of Asaph.
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{Verse 5, ’saints’ Chasidim, "pious ones"; ’made’: literally, "cut."}
In the fiftieth psalm there are two things emphasized: the righteousness of the Judge; and the righteousness required by Him. God Himself, in a world fallen away from Him; has come into question; and no heart amongst mere men; but has more or less admitted the question. In fact the perfect settlement of this on man;s part would be his own perfect restoration to God and complete ability to walk with Him. It would mean absolute faith in God; and faith is that which accomplishes the whole work in man; working by love and purifying the heart. Faith enthrones God on an absolute throne; and yields up to Him all the faculties and powers of the whole being. The fall began with a question of God; and Satan, who first uttered it, knew well its fatal import. Man, entertaining it, lost, with his confidence in Him; his place of dependence, and became necessarily a seeker of his own things, an assentor of his own will, the slave only of his captor who beguiles him by the lusts awakened within him. The disorder produced by the sin which has come in adds to his questions about the government of One who is "far above out of his sight;" and so the mind works with the heart to increase his alienation.
We need not wonder, then, that in the working of God to bring back the soul to Him; a first point should be to make the soul realize the just judgment of its sin; -the righteousness of God who judges it. Only here it must be noticed that already; for those called to do so at this time, deliverance has come in; God’s heart has been already told out in a wonderful salvation which has filled their hearts with joy and their tongues with praise. It is "out of Zion, the perfection of beauty;" God’s glory shines. Yet they still need the full searching out which here they find. They need apparently also as yet the knowledge of atonement; but this we do not find in the present psalm; and we shall examine it in its evident place in connection with the next one.
It would seem also certain by this psalm that there will be a sessional judgment in Israel, after the appearing of Christ, answering to that among the Gentiles which the Lord pictures in Mat 25:1-46. Here; too; among the people just delivered, there will be "goats" -the wicked -to put upon His left side; and separate from those really His. This the fourth section of the psalm surely intimates; though it be true that there is difficulty in constructing prophetical details out of psalms which are yet clearly prophetical.
This psalm is not one of the Korahite series: that is ended. The singer now is Asaph, "the gatherer," from a word used for the gathering of fruit and also of men (as ver. 5). Twelve psalms are ascribed to Asaph, whether this be the singer of David’s time, or (as most think) his family be included under it. The character of these psalms is plain in a general way by the place occupied by the other eleven, at the commencement of the third or sanctuary-book. They are saturated indeed with the thought of God’s holiness; and the character and position of the present psalms are perfectly similar. Holiness indeed is an absolute necessity for the gathering of God’s people; if it is to be with Him; and that is a principle which this psalm declares.
1. We have in the first section of it the summons of God, who appears in. full majesty. The Mighty One (El), God (Elohim), Jehovah; the Unchangeable, -and this we know to be His covenant-name with Israel, -summons the whole earth to hear His voice. He shines out of Zion; which He has chosen as the place of His rest; and which accordingly is blooming out for Him in bridal attire, "the perfection of beauty." Thus they can claim Him as their own God, who comes out of the sanctuary, and not to maintain silence. The fire of His holiness consumes before Him, and a tempest gathers around Him, -signs that show His holiness can not yet be exhibited in the serenity of complacent love. Nay, it is judgment for which He comes, and heaven and earth are summoned as His witnesses. Let His saints -those that are positionally that, at least, -be gathered unto Him: those who have covenanted by sacrifice to be His own. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness: for God Himself it is who is the Judge.
This gathering of covenanted saints is not, as some have suggested, the saints of the present time. This neither suits the character of the Psalms, nor the connection in this case. The "sacrifice" by which they have made a covenant with Him can hardly be the work of Christ upon the cross; while those spoken of a little later are plainly only the legal ones. Nor is it according to Scripture, and in conformity with the gospel, to speak of our making a covenant with God by the work of Christ. God has covenanted with us by it, if you please to use the expression, at least, the blessings of the new covenant are ours through the "blood of the covenant"; but that is not a covenant which has two parties to it, as its terms prove conclusively (Heb 8:10-12), but one alone. Those gathered here are plainly those He calls His people in the seventh verse, and are Israel; gathered for judgment: that is, not for the execution of wrath upon them, but that He may plead with them as to their sin. And the "covenant by sacrifice" clearly refers to Exo 24:1-18, when they had as a nation taken upon them to keep all the Lord’s words, and the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled upon them. If the heavenly saints come into this psalm, it may be in the next verse, in a much more obscure, but more beautiful way. For "the heavens shall indeed declare His righteousness," when sinners like ourselves shall be seen through the manifestation of this in the cross, in their place in glory, "made the righteousness of God in Him" (2Co 5:21). How the utter failure of man, and the righteousness of God, will be thus declared. together; in grace more marvelous, and yet in principle the same as that shown in the deliverance and blessing of Israel in the day here contemplated!
2. But God’s controversy with them must now be declared: the legal controversy, not yet as to the rejection of Christ, which we find however from another side in the psalm following. First, negatively, He declares what it is not about. It is not about their ritual services -peace-offerings or burnt-offerings. He desires no bullock or goat, no flocks or herds of theirs; -He to whom all that exist belong, and who is well acquainted with all His possessions. Were He, as this implied; limited as they, and hungry, why should the Owner of the world bring His wants to them to be satisfied? But did they really think Him an eater of bulls, flesh; or that He drank the blood. of goats? What were they; in fact, who needed such arguments? But they are not conceptions too gross for men; as abundant testimony declares.
3. He goes on to the positive side: what He really sought was thanksgiving, the sign of conscious dependence, and of their realization of the bounties of His bounteous hand. A vow was of a higher character than an offering of thanksgiving (see Lev 7:11, sq. notes); as the expression of more positive faith in. God under the pressure of circumstances. Here the distinct assertion which has been made of the non-requirement of sacrifice shows that it is the New Testament "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" upon which He insists; with which also must be joined that faith which must underlie this if it be real, which in the day of distress draws nearer to Him instead of wandering off in paths devised by one’s own wisdom; or yielding to the pressure. The most encouraging assurance is connected with this: "call upon Me in the day of strait: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me."
The legal sacrifices had not, of course, passed away in the psalmist’s day; nor will those thus addressed in the future time to which this transports us, know how (as for us) the type has yielded to the antitype. This is really also, and necessarily, a looking back over the past time when Israel was fully under the legal covenant, and does not speak of change just initiated. What is insisted on is what always had been really the question, -what had always been in the heart of God for them: what in the sin-offering psalm comes out as to be the fruit of the cross, the Holy One inhabiting the praises of Israel. Could less than this possibly yield Him satisfaction? -the whole heart His, and the whole being filled with the joy of what it has found in Him.
4. The practical life will be as the heart is, and the second table of the law share the fortunes of the first. To this the Lord goes on therefore now. A barren profession may consist, alas, with hatred of correction and contemptuous rejection of the words of God; the heart finding its secret delight in that in which there may be no open indulgence, for there are fences put about men which may hinder this. The tongue will constantly be freer than the steps here, and show whereon the heart is set. Yet with a mouth let loose in evil, the tongue will cover this license with deceit. Nothing appears more like righteousness often, than what is really the voice of slander, -never far off from the ready proclamation of another’s evil, while this is really thus rejoiced in. The slipping of the righteous is used as against righteousness, often to lower the standard of it practically, and favor that which is not this.*
{*This twentieth verse gives us in the plainest way the sin against the fifth commandment (of the second table of the law), and thus vindicates its numerical place as a fifth verse of the fourth section of the psalm. But I cannot characterize it further, and feel that this does not go to the root of the matter. Why is this fifth commandment such? Probably we have to learn more as to the symbolism of the number itself; as we have learned as to other numbers since this study of the Psalms began: their fullness of meaning is not exhausted yet.}
All this going on under the eye of God, and with no interference upon His part; the patience of divine government comes to be misread as if it were indifference -misread; alas; not only on the side of the wicked; but the cause of gravest exercise on the part of the righteous also, sufferers under it. But the wicked readily believe it to be indifference; for it is as natural for wickedness to believe in wickedness; as it is for goodness to believe in goodness. The accusations made against the righteous are not thus always mere malice. The hypocrite comes easily to believe in the hypocrisy of others; the deceiver may make transparent honesty a mirror in which he only sees deceit. The world knew not Christ, and has never known God, -cannot with all its searching find Him out; and yet "He is not far from every one of us."
So here: "These things thou diddest, and I kept silence: thou thoughtest Me just like thyself." But the limit of patience has been reached: "I will reprove thee, and set them in array before thine eyes."
5. The way and the end are clearly put before all in the closing verse. The simple leaving God out of account is fatal to the one who does this. Nothing beside this is necessary to secure the condemnation; which, if it be slow to come, is no less certain to arrive. On the other hand, the best life cannot avail without salvation. We are not to expect in the book of Psalms the full declaration of the gospel, as we know it; nor would this be just the place in which to find it. But the need of salvation by all, is emphasized, and it is made plain by the contrast with what has just preceded it, that this is no mere temporal deliverance. The close here is a finger pointing to the psalm that follows.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The title (A PsALM of Asaph) is discussed in…
The title (A PsALM of Asaph) is discussed in Intro, to Book 3, where the other Pss. of Asaph are found. The present Ps. is one of solemn warning to those who attempt to serve God by formal sacrifices while their lives are full of wickedness. God will come to judge His people (Psa_50:1-6). He tells the formalists that He does not need animal sacrifices (Psa_50:7-13), and asks for praise, obedience, and prayer (Psa_50:14-15). He reproves the hypocrites for their sins (Psa_50:16-20) and ends with a call to repentance (Psa_50:21) and a promise of salvation to true worshippers (Psa_50:22). The teaching of the Ps. is that of the great prophets of the 8th and 7th centuries b.c., and it is probably to be assigned to that period.
1. The mighty God, even the Lord] RV 'God, even God, the Lord.' From the rising, etc.] from the E. to the W., not from morning to evening.
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2. Zion, the perfection of beauty] see Psa_48:2; Lam_2:15. Shined] RV 'shined forth,' from His earthly dwelling-place.
4. Heavens from above] RV 'heavens above.'
5. Saints] the true Israel, whose worship is not hypocritical. A covenant.. by sacrifice] The covenant between Jehovah and Israel at Sinai was ratified in every act of sacrifice, as one to which the worshipper bound himself afresh. This shows that the Ps. recognises the true religious value of sacrifice, and only condemns the abuse of it.
7. Against thee] RV 'unto thee.'
8. Will not reprove] because such offerings were not what God most regarded. Or thy burnt offerings, etc.] RV 'and thy burnt offerings are continually before me.'
13. Eat.. drink] The primitive idea of sacrifice was that the god partook of the offerings in a physical sense. This view is rejected here.
14. Thanksgiving] RV 'the sacrifice of thanksgiving.'
21. Kept silence] not in indifference, but in patience.
23. Conversation] RM 'way,' manner of life.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 50
Psalm 50
The Demands of a Righteous God
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1. His coming and His call (Psa 50:1-6)
2. The God of Israel speaks (Psa 50:7-13)
3. The demands of righteousness (Psa 50:16-21)
Psa 50:1-23; Psa 51:1-19 belong together. In the first God is described coming to Israel, proclaiming His righteousness and demanding righteousness from His people and in the second Israel makes confession of sin. Psa 50:1-23 is by Asaph. He describes the Lord shining out of Zion, coming in glory as the righteous judge to judge His people. When the Lord appears His people will be gathered in His presence, for He has a controversy with them; He declares unto them the righteousness which He as their God requires. He does not want their ritual services, sacrifices and offerings, but He requires that which is the fruit of true faith, the sacrifice of thanksgiving and practical righteousness of life. He uncovers their moral condition and warns, “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Of the True Service of God.
Of the True Service of God.
A psalm of Asaph, one of the directors of the Temple-chorus at the time of David, distinguished for musical and poetical ability, 1 Chronicles 26. The hymn shows how the grandeur and solemnity of the divine judgment should instruct men in the true worship and encourage them in true piety.
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v. 1. The mighty God, even the Lord (in the Hebrew: El Elohim Jehovah), the God of gods, Jehovah, the supreme God of earth and heaven, hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, as far as the earth extends, all its inhabitants are included in this mighty summons.
v. 2. Out of Zion, where His Tabernacle and later His Temple stood, where He lived in the midst of His people, the perfection of beauty, the Church and congregation of God being the most beautiful object on earth, Psa 48:2-3, God hath shined, sending out the brilliance of His majesty, more awe-inspiring than the rays of the sun. The psalmist is speaking of the majesty and glory of God’s Word, especially the word of the Gospel, whose power and beauty goes forth to enlighten the earth.
v. 3. Our God shall come, in this revelation of His divine essence, and shall not keep silence, bound to make known His glory before men everywhere; a fire shall devour before Him, especially in the words of the Law, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him, fire and tempest being the heralds of God as the Judge of mankind. The fire threatens to devour the sinners, and the tempest of His wrath will scatter them like chaff before the wind.
v. 4. He shall call to the heavens from above, the heavenly hosts being summoned as His servants, and to the earth, as witness, that He may judge His people. Cf Deu 4:26; Deu 30:19; Isa 1:2.
v. 5. Gather My saints together unto Me, those who, by virtue of the righteousness imputed to them, are holy in His sight; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice, the reference being to the division of the sacrificial animal, the two parties making the covenant passing between the divided portions, Gen 15:10-18.
v. 6. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness, the hosts of the heavens witnessing to the justice of all His sentences;for God is Judge Himself. Selah. Everything is now ready for the great scene of judgment: the court is about to open.
v. 7. Hear, O My people, for He addresses those whom He wanted as His own, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee, namely, for their failure to give Him the proper worship. I am God, even thy God, He bore the rightful title to act as judge over Israel,
v. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, He had no complaint to make that they had not been offered, or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before Me, rather, "and thy burnt offerings are over against Me always," they had omitted none of the sacrifices enjoined by the Law.
v. 9. I will take no bullock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy folds, God felt no interest in the sacrifices as brought by Israel; all outward ceremony of divine worship is futile without the true faith of the heart.
v. 10. For every beast of the forest is Mine, all creatures being His, men could not offer Him anything which He did not already possess, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
v. 11. I know all the fowls of the mountains, all the birds that prefer to nest there; and the wild beasts of the field are Mine, all the animals that played in the valleys and lowlands.
v. 12. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, to plead for a sacrifice as food for Himself; for the world is Mine and the fulness thereof, and there is no desire on His part which might be satisfied through sacrifice.
v. 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Any believer bringing his offering should not do so under the delusion that he was doing something good to God personally, that he was obligating the Lord toward himself. The manner of true worship is now described.
v. 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving, for true communion with Jehovah, and pay thy vows unto the Most High, Lev 7:38, namely, by bringing the homage of the heart, faith, penitence, and love,
v. 15. and call upon Me in the day of trouble, after the right relation has thus been established by the proper worship. I will deliver thee, helping the worshiper out of all his difficulties, and thou shalt glorify Me, giving all praises to God alone for His every deliverance. That is the right relation which should obtain between the faithful here on earth and their heavenly Father.
v. 16. But unto the wicked God saith, in a severe rebuke of hypocritical worship, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, by imitating the behavior of the true believers, or that thou shouldest take My covenant in thy mouth, joining with the congregation in confessing the Word of God,
v. 17. seeing thou hatest instruction, namely, the rebuke of hypocrisy and sin as contained in the Word, and castest my words behind thee, turning his back upon the divine instructions with a gesture of utter contempt?
v. 18. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, taking pleasure in the form of wickedness practised against the Seventh Commandment and thus becoming guilty of the same crime, and hast been partaker with adulterers, in transgressing also the Sixth Commandment.
v. 19. Thou givest thy mouth to evil, to slanderous talk of every kind, and thy tongue frameth deceit, deliberate falsehoods in order to take away the neighbor’s good fame.
v. 20. Thou sit test and speakest against thy brother, the nearest relative by blood not being safe against the tongue of the slanderer and reviler; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son, the lowest and meanest form of betrayal. Throughout this passage the idea is brought out that God was amazed at the daring displayed by the hypocrite in being guilty of such transgressions and yet holding membership in the congregation of Jehovah.
v. 21. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence, Cf Rom 2:21-23; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, conniving at such wicked behavior, because He did not punish the wickedness outright; but I will reprove thee, as soon as His patience which intended the sinner’s salvation is exhausted, and set them in order before thine eyes, showing Himself in His awful majesty and in His revenging justice.
v. 22. Now consider this, ye that forget God, those who depend upon an external righteousness of works and forget the need of true piety of the heart, lest I tear you in pieces, in a punishment of utter destruction, and there be none to deliver, for when God once begins to strike, it is impossible to escape. And so the conclusion is offered:
v. 23. Whoso offereth, praise, the true thanksgiving of a believing heart, glorifieth Me, the external worship in this case being an expression of the faith of the heart; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, making his whole life conform with the rule of God’s divine will, will I show the salvation of God, His presence and favor attending him at all times. All Christians will shun and abhor hypocrisy in every form and continually watch over their hearts, in order that all their worshiping of God may be the outflow of a heart grateful for His favor and love in Jesus Christ.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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General Information:
This psalm is a song that teaches people.
A psalm of Asaph
"This is a psalm that Asaph wrote."
The Mighty One, God, Yahweh
The author uses three different names to speak of God.
called the earth
Here the word "earth" refers to the people who live on the earth. AT: "called all people" (See: Metonymy)
from the rising of the sun to its setting
This phrase refers to the directions east, where the sun rises, and west, where the sun sets. The writer uses these two extremes to represent everywhere on earth. AT: "everywhere on earth" (See: Merism)
Zion, the perfection of beauty
Possible meanings are 1) "Zion, whose beauty is perfect" or 2) "Zion, the most beautiful city."
God has shone
The writer speaks of God as if he were a light that shines. This refers to God causing people to know about his glory. AT: "God's glory shines like a light" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
psalm
Asaph
might
God
Yahweh
call
earth
Zion
perfect
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ps 50 God appears as judge to remind the…
Ps 50 God appears as judge to remind the godly and the ungodly in turn that outward performance of sacrificial rituals and recitation of the law are worthless without thankfulness, repentance, and justice.
50:1-3 The whole universe must pay attention when God approaches to bring justice into the world.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.