Psalms 50:12-22

12 If I am hungry I tell not to thee, For Mine [is] the world and its fulness.

13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, And drink the blood of he-goats?

14 Sacrifice to God confession, And complete to the Most High thy vows.

15 And call Me in a day of adversity, I deliver thee, and thou honourest Me.

16 And to the wicked hath God said: What to thee -- to recount My statutes? That thou liftest up My covenant on thy mouth?

17 Yea, thou hast hated instruction, And dost cast My words behind thee.

18 If thou hast seen a thief, Then thou art pleased with him, And with adulterers [is] thy portion.

19 Thy mouth thou hast sent forth with evil, And thy tongue joineth deceit together,

20 Thou sittest, against thy brother thou speakest, Against a son of thy mother givest slander.

21 These thou didst, and I kept silent, Thou hast thought that I am like thee, I reprove thee, and set in array before thine eyes.

22 Understand this, I pray you, Ye who are forgetting God, Lest I tear, and there is no deliverer.

Psalms 50:12-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 50

\\<>\\. This psalm is called a psalm of Asaph; either because it was composed by him under divine inspiration, since he was a prophet and a seer, 1Ch 25:2, 2Ch 29:30; or because it was delivered to him to be sung in public service, he being a chief musician; see 1Ch 16:7; and so it may be rendered, "a psalm for Asaph"; or "unto Asaph" {o}; which was directed, sent, and delivered to him, and might be written by David; and, as Junius thinks, after the angel had appeared to him, and he was directed where he should build an altar to the Lord, 1Ch 21:18. The Targum, Kimchi, and R. Obadiah Gaon, interpret this psalm of the day of judgment; and Jarchi takes it to be a prophecy of the future redemption by their expected Messiah; and indeed it does refer to the times of the Gospel dispensation; for it treats of the calling of the Gentiles, of the abrogation of legal sacrifices, and of the controversy the Lord would have with the Jews for retaining them, and rejecting pure, spiritual, and evangelical worship. {o} Poal "ipsi Asaph", Tigurine version, Vatablus; "Asapho", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; so Ainsworth.