Psalms 50 - Introduction

This Psalm, like the preceding one, is a didactic Psalm. But while the lesson of Psalms 49 is an echo of the teaching of the -Wise Men," that of Psalms 50 is an echo of the teaching of the Prophets: and while, in accordance with the characteristic method of -Wisdom," "all peoples" are addressed in Psalms 49, in accordance with the characteristic method of Prophecy the people of Jehovah is addressed in Psalms 50.

The Psalm is a solemn vision of judgement. It is finely dramatic in form. As in Isaiah 1 and Micah 6, Jehovah puts Israel upon its trial in the presence of all Nature. He is at once Plaintiff and Judge. The two speeches in which He exposes the shortcomings of His people are introduced by a prologue, and summed up in a brief epilogue.

i. In a solemn introduction the Advent of God to judge His people is described. As He came of old from Sinai in the midst of storm and lightning to promulgate the Law, so now He is represented as appearing from Zion surrounded by these symbols of His majesty to enforce it. Heaven and earth are summoned to be witnesses of the trial (Psalms 50:1-6).

ii. God speaks; and first He addresses the mass of the people, who imagine that their duty to Him is fulfilled by the formal offering of material sacrifices. He shews them that He has no need of material sacrifices. What He desires is the sacrifice of the heart, expressed in sincere thankfulness and loyal trust (Psalms 50:7-15).

iii. Then in a sterner tone He addresses the hypocrites who glibly repeat His laws with their lips, but shamelessly break them in act by gross offences against their neighbours (Psalms 50:16-21).

iv. The Psalm concludes with an epilogue of warning and promise (Psalms 50:22-23).

Thus the Ps. deals with man's duty towards God and his duty towards his neighbour; with the nature of acceptable service, and the obligations of social morality. Its two main divisions answer to the two great divisions of the Decalogue. The whole corresponds to the teaching which was constantly being repeated by the prophets, and is briefly summed up in the sentence, "I desire lovingkindness, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." The principle comes down from the first of the prophets (1 Samuel 15:22), and finds its most forcible exposition in Isaiah 1:11 ff., to which the Psalm is intimately related, and Micah 6:6 ff. The same thought is expressed in the Wisdom-literature in Proverbs 21:3, and Sir 35:1-7; and elsewhere in the Psalter, e.g. in Psalms 40:6 ff; Psalms 51:16 ff; Psalms 69:30 f.; Psalms 15; Psalms 24:1 ff. But none of these passages is to be understood as an absolute condemnation of sacrifice. Sacrifice was the recognised bond of the relation between God and men, though it was not, as men were prone to think, the sum and substance of that relation. The primitive institution of sacrifice was continued and developed in the Mosaic legislation. The covenant of Sinai was sanctioned by sacrifice, though it was not based upon it; the Decalogue contained no injunction to offer sacrifice. It is not the sacrificial system in itself, but the sacrificial system emptied of "its moral significance as the recognition of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of the sinner," and made a substitute for the higher duties of devotion and morality, or combined with a glaring defiance of those duties, which is denounced by prophet and psalmist as a thing which God hates. See Oehler's O.T. Theology, § 201.

To what date is the Psalm to be assigned? Clearly it belongs to a time when sacrificial worship was scrupulously maintained, but a low standard of morality was united with punctilious ceremonial observance. We know from the prophets Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, that this was conspicuously the case in the eighth century b.c., and to this period the Psalm may most safely be assigned. Delitzsch indeed regarded it as an original Psalm of David's musician Asaph, but the tendency to formalism does not seem to have been specially characteristic of that time. Some critics place it after the Exile, alleging that Psalms 50:5 implies the dispersion of the nation. But this inference cannot legitimately be drawn from the verse: and on the other hand, would any poet after the Return have ventured to call Zion -the perfection of beauty," in view of the past glories of the city and Temple which were never restored? Moreover Lamentations 2:15, "Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth"? combines Psalms 50:2 and Psalms 48:2: and Psalms 97, which is acknowledged to belong to the time of the Return, is based upon reminiscences of this Psalm together with Psalms 47, 48.

This Psalm may then best be referred to the same period as the preceding Psalms. A somewhat later date, in the reign of Josiah, has been suggested, but the close relation between the Psalm and Isaiah 1 is in favour of the earlier date.

On the title A Psalm of Asaph, and the general characteristics of the Asaph Psalms see Intr. to Book 111, pp. 427ff.