Psalms 50:8-18

8 I don't rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I have no need for a bull from your stall, Nor male goats from your pens.
10 For every animal of the forest is mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, For the world is mine, and all that is in it.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to Ha`Elyon.
15 Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me."
16 But to the wicked God says, "What right do you have to declare my statutes, That you have taken my covenant on your lips,
17 Seeing you hate instruction, And throw my words behind you?
18 When you saw a thief, you consented with him, And have participated with adulterers.

Psalms 50:8-18 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.

The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.