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50. Psalm 50

¹ The Mighty One, God, the LORD,
   speaks and summons the earth
   from the rising of the sun to where it sets.
² From Zion, perfect in beauty,
   God shines forth.
³ Our God comes
   and will not be silent;
a fire devours before him,
   and around him a tempest rages.
⁴ He summons the heavens above,
   and the earth, that he may judge his people:
⁵ “Gather to me this consecrated people,
   who made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
⁶ And the heavens proclaim his righteousness,
   for he is a God of justice. With a different word division of the Hebrew; Masoretic Text for God himself is judge The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here.

    ⁷ “Listen, my people, and I will speak;
   I will testify against you, Israel:
   I am God, your God.
⁸ I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
   or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
⁹ I have no need of a bull from your stall
   or of goats from your pens,
¹⁰ for every animal of the forest is mine,
   and the cattle on a thousand hills.
¹¹ I know every bird in the mountains,
   and the insects in the fields are mine.
¹² If I were hungry I would not tell you,
   for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls
   or drink the blood of goats?

    ¹⁴ “Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
   fulfill your vows to the Most High,
¹⁵ and call on me in the day of trouble;
   I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

¹⁶ But to the wicked person, God says:

   “What right have you to recite my laws
   or take my covenant on your lips?
¹⁷ You hate my instruction
   and cast my words behind you.
¹⁸ When you see a thief, you join with him;
   you throw in your lot with adulterers.
¹⁹ You use your mouth for evil
   and harness your tongue to deceit.
²⁰ You sit and testify against your brother
   and slander your own mother’s son.
²¹ When you did these things and I kept silent,
   you thought I was exactly Or thought the ‘I AM’ was like you.
But I now arraign you
   and set my accusations before you.

    ²² “Consider this, you who forget God,
   or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:
²³ Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me,
   and to the blameless Probable reading of the original Hebrew text; the meaning of the Masoretic Text for this phrase is uncertain. I will show my salvation.”

21 These things hast thou done Hypocrites, until they feel the hand of God against them, are ever ready to surrender themselves to a state of security, and nothing is more difficult than to awaken their apprehensions. By this alarming language the Psalmist aims at convincing them of the certainty of destruction should they longer presume upon the forbearance of God, and thus provoke his anger the more, by imagining that he can favor the practice of sin. The greatest dishonor which any can cast upon his name is that of impeaching his justice. This hypocrites may not venture to do in an open manner, but in their secret and corrupt imagination they figure God to be different from what he is, that they may take occasion from his conceived forbearance to indulge a false peace of mind, and escape the disquietude which they could not fail to feel were they seriously persuaded that God was the avenger of sin. We have a sufficient proof in the supine security which hypocrites display, that they must have formed such false conceptions of God. They not only exclude from their thoughts his judicial character, but think of him as the patron and approver of their sins. The Psalmist reprehends them for abusing the goodness and clemency of God, in the way of cherishing a vain hope that they may transgress with impunity. He warns them, that ere long they will be dragged into the light, and that those sins which they would have hidden from the eyes of God would be set in all their enormity before their view. He will set the whole list of their sins in distinct order, for so I understand the expression, to set in order, before their view, and force them upon their observation.