1An Asaph psalm.
He spoke and called to the earth
from the sun’s rising place to its setting.
2From Zion, the zenith of beauty
3Let our God come and not be silent.
Before Him fire consumes,
and round about Him—great storming.
4Let Him call to the heavens above
and to the earth to judge his people:
5“Gather to Me My faithful,
who with sacrifice seal My pact.”
6And let the heavens tell His justice,
for God, He is judge.
7“Hear, O My people, that I may speak,
Israel, that I witness to you.
God your God I am.
8Not for your sacrifices shall I reprove you,
your burnt offerings always before Me.
9I shall not take from your house a bull,
nor goats from your pens.
10For Mine are all beasts of the forest,
the herds on the thousand mountains.
11I know every bird of the mountains,
creatures of the field are with Me.
12Should I hunger, I would not say to you,
for Mine is the world and its fullness.
13Would I eat the flesh of fat bulls,
would I drink the blood of goats?
14Sacrifice to God a thanksgiving,
and pay to the High One your vows.
15And call Me on the day of distress—
I will free you and you shall revere me.”
16And to the wicked God said:
“Why do you recount My statutes
and bear My pact in your mouth,
17when you have despised chastisement
and flung My words behind you?
18If you see a thief, you run with him,
and with adulterers is your lot.
19You let loose your mouth in evil,
and your tongue clings fast to deceit.
20You sit, against your brother you speak,
your mother’s son you slander.
21These you have done and I was silent.
You imagined I could indeed be like you.
I reprove you, make a case before your eyes.
22Understand this, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, with no one to save you.
23He who sacrifices thanksgiving reveres Me
and sets out on the proper way.
I will show him God’s rescue.”
PSALM 50 NOTES
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1. An Asaph psalm. Asaph was the ancestor of a line of Levites going back to David’s time. The rest of the Asaph psalms are grouped together in the third book of Psalms.
El, the God LORD. The grouping of divine names is odd and may be the result of a problem in textual transmission. ʾEl ʾelohim (“God God”) is an unusual combination, and YHWH, the LORD, ordinarily goes before “God,” ʾelohim.
2. God shone forth. The shining from Zion quickly builds up to a pyrotechnic epiphany as God makes an appearance with consuming fire before Him and storm all around Him.
4. Let Him call to the heavens above / and to the earth. The inviting of the heavens and the earth as witnesses is a hallmark of Prophetic and quasi-Prophetic discourse (compare the beginning of Isaiah 1 and the beginning of the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32). This is clearly a Prophetic psalm, with God actually quoted in direct discourse for much of the poem, as in the Literary Prophets.
5. Gather to Me My faithful. This verse has encouraged some interpreters to see this psalm as the liturgical text for a rite of renewal of the covenant with God by a group designated as His “faithful,” but the existence of such a ritual at any time in the history of ancient Israel is pure conjecture.
6. selah. This notation marks the point before God launches on His long discourse.
8. Not for your sacrifices. The idea that God does not require animal sacrifice is a common one in Prophetic literature (most memorably, in Isaiah and Micah).
10. the herds on the thousand mountains. This mystifying and evocative phrase has encouraged various emendations, but it may be a proverbial or even mythological reference of which we remain ignorant.
12. Should I hunger. The argument against sacrifice differs in emphasis from Isaiah’s. The objection is not to the hypocrisy of trampling the courts of the temple with bloodstained hands but to the pagan idea that the deity actually needs the nurture provided through the animals offered up on the altar.
14. Sacrifice to God a thanksgiving, / and pay to the High One your vows. It is now made clear that God is not calling for a categorical abolition of sacrifices. If a man needs to give thanks to God, or if he has vowed an offering, the sacrifice (whether animal or grain) is an appropriate act. But no one should imagine that God somehow depends on sacrifice.
18. run with him. The Masoretic Text has “show favor with him,” the preposition after the verb being somewhat odd. This translation follows the Septuagint, the Targum, and the Syriac in vocalizing the verb differently (watarots instead of watirets). Running with the wicked and sharing their portion is a better parallelism than favoring and sharing.
22. tear you apart. The “you” is merely implied in the Hebrew and has been added for clarity. The implied image, common in biblical poetry as a representation of fierceness, is of a lion tearing its prey to pieces.
23. and sets out on the proper way. Although a long tradition of interpretation understands the text here in this fashion, the two Hebrew words it renders, wesam derekh—literally, “and he puts the way”—are altogether cryptic.