Psalm 50 (I)

1650 psalter

The principles that shall guide the judgment of the Righteous One at the gathering of the Saints

God has spoken, and He sends forth His light and truth out of Zion, which is the perfection of beauty. And His living Word will come to pass. He will also come according to promise, in judgment, for He is the judge of all the earth, and of the quick and the dead.

His Word exposes formalism in v. 7-15, and then to v. 21, hypocrisy. These twin evils are the bane of the church, and often sully her beauty. Our Lord continually rebuked the Pharisees for their insistent formality, which is emphasised by the keeping of the vain traditions of men. But He also warned His disciples, “Beware of the leaven of hypocrisy.” A little leaven of either will leaven the whole lump.

Rather, His covenant people, His saints are to glorify Him. And they do so by the sincerity and spontaneity of praise, with an accompanying rectitude of life and speech (v. 23). 

Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Psalm 50 – First Version (Short metre)

¹The mighty God, the LORD,
Hath spoken, and did call
The earth, from rising of the sun,
To where he hath his fall.

²From out of Zion hill,
Which of excellency
And beauty the perfection is,
God shined gloriously.

³Our God shall surely come,
Keep silence shall not he:
Before him fire shall waste, great storms
Shall round about him be.

⁴Unto the heavens clear
He from above shall call,
And to the earth likewise, that he
May judge his people all.

⁵Together let my saints
Unto me gather’d be,
Those that by sacrifice have made
A covenant with me.

⁶And then the heavens shall
His righteousness declare:
Because the Lord himself is he
By whom men judged are.

⁷My people Isr’el hear,
Speak will I from on high,
Against thee I will testify;
God, ev’n thy God, am I.

⁸I for thy sacrifice
No blame will on thee lay,
Nor for burnt-off’rings, which to me
Thou offer’dst ev’ry day.

⁹I’ll take no calf nor goats
From house or fold of thine:
¹⁰For beasts of forests, cattle all
On thousand hills, are mine.

¹¹The fowls on mountains high
Are all to me well known;
Wild beasts which in the fields do lie,
Ev’n they are all mine own.

¹²Then, if I hungry were,
I would not tell it thee;
Because the world, and fulness all
Thereof, belongs to me.

¹³Will I eat flesh of bulls?
Or goats’ blood drink will I?
¹⁴Thanks offer thou to God, and pay
Thy vows to the most High.

¹⁵And call upon me when
In trouble thou shalt be;
I will deliver thee, and thou
My name shalt glorify.

¹⁶But to the wicked man
God saith, My laws and truth
Should’st thou declare? how dar’st thou take
My cov’nant in thy mouth?

¹⁷Sith thou instruction hat’st,
Which should thy ways direct;
And sith my words behind thy back
Thou cast’st, and dost reject.

¹⁸When thou a thief didst see,
With him thou didst consent;
And with the vile adulterers
Partaker on thou went.

¹⁹Thou giv’st thy mouth to ill,
Thy tongue deceit doth frame;
²⁰Thou sitt’st, and ‘gainst thy brother speak’st,
Thy mother’s son dost shame.

²¹Because I silence kept,
While thou these things hast wrought;
That I was altogether like
Thyself, hath been thy thought;

Yet I will thee reprove,
And set before thine eyes,
In order ranked, thy misdeeds
And thine iniquities.

²²Now, ye that God forget,
This carefully consider;
Lest I in pieces tear you all,
And none can you deliver.

²³Whoso doth offer praise
Me glorifies; and I
Will show him God’s salvation,
That orders right his way.