Psalm 50 Jan. 28 A Psalm by Asaph.  1The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. 2Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. 3Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before Him, it is very stormy around Him. 4He calls to the heavens above, to the earth, that He may judge His people: 5Gather My saints together to Me, those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice. 6The heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God Himself is judge. Selah. 7Hear, My people, and I will speak; Israel, and I will testify against you. I am God, your God. 8I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before Me. 9I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. 10For every animal of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. 11I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are Mine. 12If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all that is in it. 13Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving, pay your vows to the Most High. 15Call on Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honour Me.  16But to the wicked God says, What right do you have to declare My statutes and to have taken My covenant on your lips, 17since you hate instruction, and throw My words behind you? 18When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers.  19You give your mouth to evil, your tongue frames deceit. 20You sit and speak against your brother, you slander your own mother’s son. 21You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes.  22Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be none to deliver. 23Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies Me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.   

Commentary

50:1 Speaks, and calls the earth- God created the world through the medium of His word, He spoke and it was done. But He hasn’t as it were turned away from His creation; the cycles within the natural creation may appear to be on clockwork, but in a sense God consciously brings them forth again by the medium of His word. That word as manifest to us through the Bible is equally active and powerful in an ongoing and always creative way. The idea of our living in an active universe, in which all things are consciously within God’s awareness and a result of the ongoing activity of His word, means that truly God is never far from us; we simply need to look out at the natural creation to feel again His active involvement in our world. See on 65:6.
50:5 When Christ returns, the faithful will be gathered to judgment (Mt. 24:31); and it is the gathering of the faithful which this Psalm has in view. But this is only part of the wider Biblical picture, which speaks of all those responsible to God being also gathered to judgment.
50:15 Call on Me in the day of trouble- This is the sacrifice which God wants. Rather than us giving things to God, He wants us to trust in Him, to turn to Him before turning to anything else.
50:21 The apparent silence of God can deceive the wicked into thinking they will not give account to Him. But there will be in some sense a going through with the wicked of all their deeds (Mt. 25:43). This will be such an awful experience for them that it will of itself be their punishment; for ultimately, they will return to the dust never to exist again, seeing that the wages for sin is ultimately death (Rom. 6:23).