The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.
Parallel Translations
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The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.
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And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.
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And the heavens declare His righteousness; for God, He is judge. Selah
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Psalms 50:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 97:6 The heavens declare his righteousness. All the peoples have seen his glory.
- Psalms 75:7 But God is the judge. He puts down one, and lifts up another.
- Psalms 89:5 The heavens will praise your wonders, Yahweh, your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones.
- Revelation 19:2 for his judgments are true and righteous. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.”
- Psalms 9:16 Yahweh has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked is snared by the work of his own hands.
- Romans 14:9-12 For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, “ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘to me every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess to God.’ ” So then each one of us will give account of himself to God.
- Genesis 18:25 May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?”
- Psalms 7:3-5 Yahweh, my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to him who was at peace with me (yes, I have delivered him who without cause was my adversary), let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it; yes, let him tread my life down to the earth, and lay my glory in the dust.
- Revelation 20:11-12 I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.
- John 5:22-23 For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him.
- Romans 2:5 But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
- 2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
- Revelation 16:5-7 I heard the angel of the waters saying, “You are righteous, who are and who were, O Holy One, because you have judged these things. For they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.” I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. The…
6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. The Jews were vain enough to imagine that their idle and fantastic service was the perfection of righteousness; but they are here warned by the prophet, that God, who had seemed to connive at their folly, was about to reveal his own righteousness from heaven, and expose their miserable devices. “Think you,” as if he had said, “that God can take delight in the mockery of your deluded services? Though you send up the smoke of them to heaven, God will make known his righteousness in due time from above, and vindicate it from the dishonors done to it by your wicked inventions. The heavens themselves will attest your perfidy in despising true holiness, and corrupting the pure worship of God. He will no longer suffer your gratuitous aspersions of his character, as if he took no notice of the enmity which lurks under your pretended friendship.” There is thus a cogency in the prophet’s manner of treating his subject. Men are disposed to admit that God is judge, but, at the same time, to fabricate excuses for evading his judgment, and it was therefore necessary that the sentence which God was about to pronounce should be vindicated from the vain cavils which might be brought against it.
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.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 50:6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness:…
Psa 50:6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God [is] judge himself. Selah.
Ver. 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness] Those catholic preachers, whose voice goeth out aloud to the end of the world, Psa 19:4; Psa 50:4.
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For God is Judge himself] And from him is no appeal; every transgression and disobedience from him shall receive a just recompense of reward, Heb 2:2, even those corruptions that are most inward, and lie up in the heart of the country, as it were; those pollutions not of flesh only, i.e. worldly lusts and gross evils, but of spirit also, 2Co 7:1, more spiritual lusts, as pride, presumption, formality, self-flattery, carnal confidence in external legal worships, the sin principally taxed in this Jewish people here in the next verses.
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 The heavens shall declare his righteousness; which they were…
The heavens shall declare his righteousness; which they were called to witness, Psa 50:4. So was the earth also. But here he mentions the heavens only, as I humbly conceive, because they were the most impartial and considerable witness in the case; for men upon earth might be false witnesses, either through ignorance and mistake, or through prejudice, and partiality, and passion: but the angels understand things more thoroughly and certainly, and are so exactly pure and sinless, that they neither can nor will tell a lie for God; and therefore their testimony is more valuable. Or the meaning is, that God would convince the people of his righteousness, and of their own wickedness, by terrible thunders and lightnings, and storms, or other dreadful signs wrought by him in the heaven or the air; by which he did convince his people in two like cases, Deu 5:22,23, &c.; 1Sa 12:17-19.
God is Judge himself; in his own person, or immediately. God will not now reprove them, or contend with them, by his priests or prophets, with whom they may easily strive, as they used to do, but he will do it in an immediate and extraordinary manner from heaven; and therefore they shall be forced to acknowledge his righteousness, and their own unrighteousness; as they must needs do, when the contest is between them and that God who is the great Judge of the world, and cannot possibly do any unrighteous thing, Job 34:13; Rom 3:6, who exactly knows all their hearts and works, and cannot be deceived nor contradicted.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the heavens shall declare his righteousness,.... That is,…
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness,.... That is, either the heavens shall bear witness to his justice and equity in judging his people; or the angels, the ministers of the Gospel, shall declare his justifying righteousness, which is revealed in it, to the saints and covenant ones they shall be a means of gathering in: or rather the justice of Christ in the destruction of the Jews shall be attested and applauded by angels and men, just as the righteousness of God in the destruction of the antichristian powers is celebrated by the angel of the waters, Rev 16:5;
for God is Judge himself. And not another, or by another; and therefore his judgments must be just and righteous, seeing he is just and true, loves righteousness, and is righteous in all his ways and works.
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Selah; on this word; see Gill on Psa 3:2.
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 Declare - God will convince the people of his…
Declare - God will convince the people of his righteousness, and of their own wickedness, by thunders and lightnings, and storms, or other dreadful signs wrought by him in the heavens. Himself - In his own person. God will not now reprove them, by his priests or prophets, but in an extraordinary manner from heaven.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And the heavens shall declare his righteousness - Shall…
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness - Shall make it known, or announce it. That is, the heavens - the heavenly inhabitants - will bear witness to the justness of the sentence, or will approve the sentence. See the notes at Psa 50:4. Compare Psa 97:6.
For God is judge himself - The judgment is not committed to mortal men, or even to angels. Creatures, even the most exalted and pure, might err in such a work as that of judging the world. That judgment, to be correct, must be founded on a perfect knowledge of the heart, and on a clear and complete understanding of all the thoughts, the motives, the words, the deeds of all people. It cannot be supposed that any created being, however exalted, could possess all this knowledge, and it cannot be supposed that any created being, however pure, could be so endowed as to be secure against error in pronouncing a judgment on the countless millions of people. But God combines all these in himself; a perfect knowledge of all that has ever occurred on earth, and of the motives and feelings of every creature - and, at the same time, absolute purity and impartiality; therefore his judgment must be such that the universe will see that it is just. It may be added here that as the New Testament has stated (see the notes at Psa 50:3) that the judgment of the world in the last day will be committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the considerations just suggested prove that he is Divine. The immediate point in the passage before us is, that the fact that “God” will preside in the judgment, demonstrates that the acts of judgment will be “right,” and will be such as the “heavens” - the universe - will approve; such, that all worlds will proclaim them to be right. There is no higher evidence that a thing is right, and that it ought to be done, than the fact that God has done it. Compare Gen 18:25; Psa 39:9.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The inhabitants of heaven, who well know God's character,…
The inhabitants of heaven, who well know God's character, attest His righteousness as a judge.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 6. Better (unless we alter the vocalisation and render,…
6. Better (unless we alter the vocalisation and render, and let the heavens declare),
And the heavens declare his righteousness,
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For God is about to Judge.
While the defendants are being gathered, the Psalmist hears the heavens, which have been summoned to witness the trial, solemnly proclaiming the justice of the Judge, as a guarantee of the impartiality of His judgement. This explanation is supported by the use of the perfect tense in Psa_97:6, a passage which is obviously based upon this Psalm.
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 (6) The heavens.—Here is an exceedingly fine touch. In…
(6) The heavens.—Here is an exceedingly fine touch. In obedience to the Divine summons the heavens are heard acknowledging the right of God to arraign the nations before Him in virtue of His moral sway. Render the verb in the present: And the heavens declare. The verse is adapted to Psa_97:6.
In the language of modern thought, order and law in the physical world are an evidence of an ordered moral government, and the obedience of the unconscious stars to that sway which, as Wordsworth says, “preserves them from wrong,” is a challenge to man to submit himself consciously to the same will.
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 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. The angelic…
And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. The angelic host, which comes to witness the judgment of Israel (ver. 4), shall proclaim it a righteous judgment. For God is Judge himself. And he will certainly "do right". (Gen_18:25)
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 Ver. 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness.…
Ver. 6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness. Celestial intelligences and the spirits of just men made perfect, shall magnify the infallible judgment of the divine tribunal. Now they doubtless wonder at the hypocrisy of men; then they shall equally marvel at the exactness of the severance between the true and the false. For God is judge himself. This is the reason for the correctness of the judgment. Priests of old, and churches of later times, were readily deceived, but not so the all discerning Lord. No deputy judge sits on the great white throne; the injured Lord of all himself weighs the evidence and allots the vengeance or reward. The scene in the Psalm is a grand poetical conception, but it is also an inspired prophecy of that day which shall burn as an oven, when the Lord shall discern between him that feareth and him that feareth him not. Selah. Here we may well pause in reverent prostration, in deep searching of heart, in humble prayer, and in awe struck expectation.
Ver. 6. The heavens shall declare his righteousness. It is the manner of Scripture to commit the teaching of that which it desires should be most noticeable and important to the heavens and the earth: for the heavens are seen by all, and their light discovers all things. Here it speaks of the heavens, not the earth, because these are everlasting, but not the earth. Geier and Muis, in Poole's Synopsis.
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Ver. 6. (last clause). Then slander will not pervert the sentence, undue severity will not embitter it, partiality will not excuse, falsehood will not deceive, justice will surely be done.
Psalms 50:7*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The heavens will declare
The heavens will declare
Possible meanings are 1) the writer uses the word "heavens" to refer to the angels who live there or 2) the writer speaks of "the heavens" as if they are a person who testifies about God's righteousness. (See: Metonymy and Personification)
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translationWords
heaven
declare
righteous
judge
selah
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.