Psalm 50:7

Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) Hear.—The actual judgment now opens, God asserting in impressive tones His right to preside: God, thy God, I . . . the Elohistic form of the more usual “Jehovah, thy God.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 50:7. Hear, O my people, &c. — Having brought in God, as entering into judgment with them, he now gives an account of the process and of the sentence of the judge, whose words are contained in this and the following verses. O Israel, I will testify against thee — I will plead with thee, and declare my charge or endictment against thee. I am God, even thy God — Not only in general, but in a special manner, by that solemn covenant made at Sinai; whereby I avouched thee to be my peculiar people, and thou didst avouch me to be thy God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

50:7-15 To obey is better than sacrifice, and to love God and our neighbour better than all burnt-offerings. We are here warned not to rest in these performances. And let us beware of resting in any form. God demands the heart, and how can human inventions please him, when repentance, faith, and holiness are neglected? In the day of distress we must apply to the Lord by fervent prayer. Our troubles, though we see them coming from God's hand, must drive us to him, not drive us from him. We must acknowledge him in all our ways, depend upon his wisdom, power, and goodness, and refer ourselves wholly to him, and so give him glory. Thus must we keep up communion with God; meeting him with prayers under trials, and with praises in deliverances. A believing supplicant shall not only be graciously answered as to his petition, and so have cause for praising God, but shall also have grace to praise him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hear, O my people, and I will speak - God himself is now introduced as speaking, and as stating the principles on which the judgment will proceed. The previous verses are introductory, or are designed to bring the scene of the judgment before the mind. The solemn scene now opens, and God himself speaks, especially as rebuking the disposition to rely on the mere forms of religion, while its spirituality and its power are denied. The purpose of the whole is, by asking how these things will appear in the judgment, to imply the vanity of "mere" forms of religion now. The particular address is made to the "people" of God, or to "Israel," because the purpose of the psalmist was to rebuke the prevailing tendency to rely on outward forms.

O Israel, and I will testify against thee - In the judgment. In view of those scenes, and as "at" that time, I will "now" bear this solemn testimony against the views which you entertain on the subject of religion, and the practices which prevail in your worship.

I am God, even thy God - I am the true God, and therefore I have a right to speak; I am "thy" God - the God who has been the Protector of thy people - acknowledged as the God of the nation - and therefore I claim the right to declare the great principles which pertain to true worship, and which constitute true religion.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. I will testify—that is, for failure to worship aught.

thy God—and so, by covenant as well as creation, entitled to a pure worship.

The Treasury of David

7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.

9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.

10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

11 I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:

15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

The address which follows is directed to the professed people of God. It is clearly, in the first place, meant for Israel; but is equally applicable to the visible church of God in every age. It declares the futility of external worship when spiritual faith is absent and the mere outward ceremonial is rested in.

Psalm 50:7

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak." Because Jehovah speaks, and they are avowedly his own people, they are bound to give earnest heed. "Let me speak," saith the great I am. The heavens and earth are but listeners, the Lord is about both to testify and to judge. "O Israel, and I will testify against thee." Their covenant name is mentioned to give point to the address; it was a double evil that the chosen nation should become so carnal, so unspiritual, so false, so heartless to their God. God himself, whose eyes sleep not, who is not misled by rumour, but sees for himself, enters on the scene as witness against his favoured nation. Alas! for us when God, even our fathers' God, testifies to the hypocrisy of the visible church. "I am God, even thy God." He had taken them to be his peculiar people above all other nations, and they had in the most solemn manner avowed that he was their God. Hence the special reason for calling them to account. The law began with, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," and now the session of their judgment opens with the same reminder of their singular position, privilege, and responsibility. It is not only that Jehovah is God, but thy God, O Israel; this it is that makes thee so amenable to his searching reproofs.

Psalm 50:8

"I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifice or thy burnt offerings, to have been ever before me." Though they had not failed in maintaining his outward worship, or even if they had, he was not about to call them to account for this: a more weighty matter was now under consideration. They thought the daily sacrifices and the abounding burnt offerings to be everything: he counted them nothing if the inner sacrifice of heart devotion had been neglected. What was greatest with them was least with God. It is even so today. Sacraments (so called) and sacred rites are the main concern with unconverted but religious men, but with the Most High the spiritual worship which they forget is the sole matter. Let the external be maintained by all means according to the divine command, but if the secret and spiritual be not in them, they are a vain oblation, a dead ritual, and even an abomination before the Lord.

continued...

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Having brought in God as coming to judgment with them, he now gives an account of the process and of the sentence of the Judge, whose words are contained in this and the following verses.

I will testify against thee; I will plead with thee, and declare my charge or indictment against thee.

Even thy God; not only in general, as thou art my creature, but in a special manner, by many singular favours and obligations, and by that solemn covenant made at Sinai; whereby I avouched thee to be my peculiar people, and thou didst avouch me to be thy God, Deu 26:17,18.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hear, O my people,.... This is an address to the people of the Jews, whom God had chosen to be his people above all others, and who professed themselves to be his people; but now a "loammi", Hosea 1:9, was about to be written upon them, being a people uncircumcised in heart and ears, refusing to hear the great Prophet of the church, him that spake from heaven;

and I will speak: by way of accusation and charge, and in judgment against them for their sins and transgressions;

O Israel, and I will testify against thee; or "to thee" (t); to thy face produce witnesses, and bring sufficient evidence to prove the things laid to thy charge,

I am God, even thy God; which is an aggravation of their sin against him, and is the reason why they should hearken to him; see Psalm 81:10.

(t) "tibi", V. L. Vatablus; so Ainsworth.

Geneva Study Bible

Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. I will testify against thee] Or, I will protest unto thee, of solemn wanting and exhortation. Cp. Psalm 81:8, another Asaphite Psalm.

I am God, even thy God] The words which stand at the head of the Decalogue, with God substituted for Jehovah by the Elohistic editor of the Psalm. Cp. Psalm 81:10, where Jehovah is retained. They express the relation of Jehovah to Israel, upon which was founded His right to give them a law, and now to call them to account for their neglect of it.

7–15. The trial begins. God is the accuser as well as the judge. Israel’s sacrifices are unexceptionable, but it is not slain beasts which the Lord of all the earth desires, but the devotion of the heart, exhibited in thanksgiving and trust. The people as a whole are addressed. The duty which is enforced is their duty towards God, corresponding to the first Table of the Decalogue.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 7-15. - "The continuance of this dramatic scene," as Professor Cheyne remarks, "scarcely answers to the commencement. The judgment seems to be adjourned, or to be left to the conscience of the defendants." The faithful are summoned, and appear, but not to receive unqualified commendation (see Matthew 25:31-40). Rather they receive a warning. The strong and prolonged depreciation of sacrifice (vers. 8-13) necessarily implies that in the religion of the time too much stress was laid upon it. We know that, in the heathen world, men sought to buy God's favour by their sacrifices, some] believing that, physically, the gods were nourished by the steam of the victims, others regarding them as laid under obligations which they could not disregard (Plato, 'Rep.,' it. § 6; Rawlinson, 'Religions of the Ancient World,' pp. 124, 125). We know, too, that, in the later monarchy, sacrifice to so great an extent superseded true spiritual worship among the Israelites themselves, that it became an offence to God, and was spoken of in terms of reprobation (Isaiah 1:11-13; Isaiah 66:3). Already, it would seem, this tendency was manifesting itself, and a warning from Heaven was needed against it. Verse 7. - Hear, O my people, and I will speak. God will not speak to deaf ears. Unless men are ready to attend to him, he keeps silence. O Israel, and I will testify against thee; or, protest unto thee (Kay, Cheyne). I am God, even thy God. And therefore am entitled to be heard. Psalm 50:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Exposition of the sacrificial Tra for the good of those whose holiness consists in outward works. The forms strengthened by ah, in Psalm 50:7, describe God's earnest desire to have Israel for willing hearers as being quite as strong as His desire to speak and to bear witness. העיד בּ, obtestari aliquem, to come forward as witness, either solemnly assuring, or, as here and in the Psalm of Asaph, Psalm 81:9, earnestly warning and punishing (cf. Arab. šahida with b, to bear witness against any one). On the Dagesh forte conjunctive in בּך, vid., Ges. ֗20, 2, a. He who is speaking has a right thus to stand face to face with Israel, for he is Elohim, the God of Israel - by which designation reference is made to the words אנכי יהוה אלהיך (Exodus 20:2), with which begins the Law as given from Sinai, and which here take the Elohimic form (whereas in Psalm 81:11 they remain unaltered) and are inverted in accordance with the context. As Psalm 50:8 states, it is not the material sacrifices, which Israel continually, without cessation, offers, that are the object of the censuring testimony. ועולתיך, even if it has Mugrash, as in Baer, is not on this account, according to the interpretation given by the accentuation, equivalent to ועל־עולותיך (cf. on the other hand Psalm 38:18); it is a simple assertory substantival clause: thy burnt-offerings are, without intermission, continually before Me. God will not dispute about sacrifices in their outward characteristics; for - so Psalm 50:9 go on to say-He does not need sacrifices for the sake of receiving from Israel what He does not otherwise possess. His is every wild beast (חיתו, as in the Asaph Psalm 79:2) of the forest, His the cattle בּהררי אלף, upon the mountains of a thousand, i.e., upon the thousand (and myriad) mountains (similar to מתי מספּר or מתי מעט), or: where they live by thousands (a similar combination to נבל עשׂור). Both explanations of the genitive are unsupported by any perfectly analogous instance so far as language is concerned; the former, however, is to be preferred on account of the singular, which is better suited to it. He knows every bird that makes its home on the mountains; ידע, as usually, of a knowledge which masters a subject, compasses it and makes it its own. Whatever moves about the fields if with Him, i.e., is within the range of His knowledge (cf. Job 27:11; Psalm 10:13), and therefore of His power; זיז (here and in the Asaph Psalm 80:14) from זאזא equals זעזע, to move to and fro, like טיט from טיטע, to swept out, cf. κινώπετον, κνώδαλον, from κινεῖν. But just as little as God requires sacrifices in order thereby to enrich Himself, is there any need on His part that might be satisfied by sacrifices, Psalm 50:12. If God should hunger, He would not stand in need of man's help in order to satisfy Himself; but He is never hungry, for He is the Being raised above all carnal wants. Just on this account, what God requires is not by any means the outward worship of sacrifice, but a spiritual offering, the worship of the heart, Psalm 50:14. Instead of the שׁלמים, and more particularly זבח תּודה, Leviticus 7:11-15, and שׁלמי נדר, Leviticus 7:16 (under the generic idea of which are also included, strictly speaking, vowed thank-offerings), God desires the thanksgiving of the heart and the performance of that which has been vowed in respect of our moral relationship to Himself and to men; and instead of the עולה in its manifold forms of devotion, the prayer of the heart, which shall not remain unanswered, so that in the round of this λογικὴ λατρεία everything proceeds from and ends in εὐχαριστία. It is not the sacrifices offered in a becoming spirit that are contrasted with those offered without the heart (as, e.g., Sir. 32 [35]:1-9), but the outward sacrifice appears on the whole to be rejected in comparison with the spiritual sacrifice. This entire turning away from the outward form of the legal ceremonial is, in the Old Testament, already a predictive turning towards that worship of God in spirit and in truth which the new covenant makes alone of avail, after the forms of the Law have served as swaddling clothes to the New Testament life which was coming into being in the old covenant. This "becoming" begins even in the Tra itself, especially in Deuteronomy. Our Psalm, like the Chokma (Proverbs 21:3), and prophecy in the succeeding age (cf. Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8; Isaiah 1:11-15, and other passages), stands upon the standpoint of this concluding book of the Tra, which traces back all the requirements of the Law to the fundamental command of love.