Psalms 50:1

PSALM 50 THE ARGUMENT The design of this Psalm is, partly, to reprove and protest against the common miscarriages of many professors of religion, who satisfied their own consciences, and fancied that they pleased God, with their external and ceremonial performances, notwithstanding their gross neglect of those more necessary and fundamental duties of piety, and justice, and charity; partly, to instruct men concerning the nature of the true and acceptable worship of God; and partly, to prepare the Israelites for, and tacitly warn them of, that change which would be made in the outward form and way of God's worship under and by the Messias, and of the abolition of the legal sacrifices, which God did not appoint for his own need, nor for his people's perpetual use. Asaph was not only the chief of the sacred singers, 1Ch 15 1Ch 16 1 Chronicles 25:2, but also a prophet, 1 Chronicles 25:1, and a composer of some Psalms, as it is apparent from 2 Chronicles 29:30, and therefore, as is most probable, of those that go under his name. God cometh with great majesty into his church, Psalms 50:1, and gathereth together his saints, Psalms 50:5,6; testifieth he has no pleasure in ceremonies, Psalms 50:7, but in sincerity of obedience, Psalms 50:14,15; threateneth the wicked for contemning his word, Psalms 50:16, and showeth who it is that glorifieth him, Psalms 50:23. i.e. All the inhabitants of the earth, from one end to the other; whom he here summons to be witnesses of his proceedings in this solemn judgment between him and his people, which is here poetically represented; for here is a tribunal erected, the judge coming to it, the witnesses and delinquents summoned, and at last the sentence given, and cause determined.