Psalm 50:4

Psalm 50 is a psalm of Asaph, a Levite whom David set over the singing and thanksgiving before the ark (1 Chronicles 16:4–7), and who is also remembered as a seer. In most psalms a person speaks to God, but here God himself does most of the speaking, and the whole of Psalm 50 is laid out like a case at law. Hebrew calls such a case a rib, a covenant lawsuit, in which the LORD brings a charge against Israel for breaking the covenant and calls heaven and earth as witnesses, as Moses had called them to record against Israel. The prophets bring the same kind of case in Isaiah 1 and Micah 6.

These first six verses gather the court. The Judge speaks and calls the earth (verse 1), appears in light from Zion (verse 2), and comes in fire and storm (verse 3). He calls heaven and earth to the hearing (verse 4), names the people on trial (verse 5), and the heavens announce that the Judge is righteous (verse 6). Then the charge comes. God rebukes his people for resting on their sacrifices while their hearts were far from him, and he calls them to thanksgiving and obedience (Psalm 50:7–15). He rebukes those whose lives contradict the covenant (Psalm 50:16–21), and he closes by setting thanksgiving and an obedient life before them as the way to his salvation (Psalm 50:23). The prophets carry the same warning, that God looks for justice and mercy from those who bring him burnt offerings (Isaiah 1:10–17, Amos 5:21–24).

So this is a reckoning between God and his own people over the way they worship him. It is also a call to come back to him, and the whole psalm moves toward that.

The psalm begins with three names of God set side by side: ʼêl, ʼĕlôhîym and Yᵉhôvâh, “The mighty God, even the LORD”. ʼêl is a word for God, chiefly the true God, and it also carries the sense of strength and might. ʼĕlôhîym is plural in form and, used of the one true God, is a plural of majesty, the name under which he is Creator and Ruler of all. Yᵉhôvâh, printed “the LORD” in the KJV, is his personal covenant name, which Strong’s explains as the self-existent or eternal one, the name by which he bound himself to Israel and redeemed them. Together the three names tell us who has called this court: the God of all power, the Creator, and the LORD who made a covenant with his people. The one who comes to judge Israel is their own God.

“Hath spoken” is dâbar, the ordinary verb for speaking and telling. The weight of this sentence lies in the speaker. God speaks first, so the case is opened by his word, and that same voice carries the rest of the psalm.

He “called the earth”, and the verb qârâʼ means to call out to, to address by name, to summon. Here it is a summons for the earth to assemble. “From the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof” is east to west, the whole world from one horizon to the other, and “the earth” stands for all who live on it. Every person is within reach of this voice. “The earth is the LORD’s”, says Psalm 24:1, and its owner has the right to call it to order. The same worldwide reach is heard in mercy in Isaiah: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22). And Paul says that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God and give account of ourselves to him (Romans 14:10–12).

Verse 1 called the world to listen, and verse 2 shows where the Judge appears. Zion, Tsîyôwn, was the fortified hill of Jerusalem, the City of David, and the name came to take in the temple mount as well. It was the place God chose to dwell among his people. So the Judge shines from the heart of his own dwelling, close to the people he is about to judge.

“Hath shined” is yâphaʻ, to shine forth or appear. Scripture uses it for God showing himself in glory, often to judge or to save, and Moses uses the same picture when he describes the LORD coming from Sinai to his people (Deuteronomy 33:2). An Israelite hearing that God had shined forth would think of the mountain where he came down to give his law (Exodus 19). The name for God in this line is again ʼĕlôhîym, the Creator himself.

“Our God shall come” is spoken by one of God’s own people. The word for God here, ʼĕlōhênû, means “our God”, and so the Judge who comes is the covenant God of the very people he comes to judge. His coming is certain, and he comes with a purpose.

“A fire shall devour before him.” The word is ʼêsh, fire of every kind, burning, flaming and hot. Fire goes ahead of him and consumes, and in Scripture it stands for his holy presence and his judgment against sin. Moses told Israel that the LORD their God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24), Hebrews says the same of our God (Hebrews 12:29), and Isaiah sees the LORD coming with fire (Isaiah 66:15).

“And it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” The verb sâʻar means to storm or rage like a whirlwind, and by extension to shiver with fear. With the word for “very”, mᵉʼôd, it pictures a violent storm encircling him on every side. It was out of the whirlwind that the LORD answered Job (Job 38:1).

Fire and storm together bring Sinai to mind, where God came down in fire, smoke and thunder to make his covenant with Israel and give them his law (Exodus 19:16–19). The God who made the covenant in fire now comes in fire to hold his people to it. His character is the same at both mountains.

In verse 4 God calls again, with the same verb, qârâʼ, that summoned the earth in verse 1. This time he calls to the heavens, shâmayim, the sky and all that is above, and to the earth, ʼerets, the land and the whole world below. “From above” sets the Judge in the highest place. Between them heaven and earth take in the whole creation, and all of it is summoned to watch.

This was a familiar scene in Israel. Moses called heaven and earth to witness against Israel if they turned from the LORD (Deuteronomy 4:26), and opened his song by calling on the heavens and the earth to hear (Deuteronomy 32:1). Isaiah begins his book by calling heaven and earth to hear God’s complaint against his children (Isaiah 1:2), and Micah calls on creation to hear the LORD’s controversy with his people (Micah 6:1–2).

In verse 5 God speaks in his own voice: “Gather my saints together unto me.” He commands that his people be assembled, and “unto me” brings them before him in person. The gathering has a set purpose. They are summoned to hear his case.

Verse 6 completes the scene: “And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself.” The heavens called as witnesses in verse 4 now speak for the Judge. “Righteousness” is tsedeq, rightness and justice, in conduct, in speech and in judgment. Whatever God decides in this court will be right, because he is right.

“Judge” is shâphaṭ, to judge, decide and govern, to pronounce sentence. The word “himself” comes from an emphatic pronoun in the Hebrew. God in person presides, and his knowledge is perfect and his verdict impartial. Abraham pleaded with him on that ground: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). The New Testament shows that this authority to judge has been given to the Son (John 5:27), and John sees the dead, small and great, standing before God’s great white throne to be judged by their works (Revelation 20:11–12).

This truth is a comfort to the faithful, who can rest in God’s justice, and a sober warning to those who disregard his commands, because the Judge sees everything.

The God who speaks in verse 1 has now spoken in his Son: God “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). The shining out of Zion comes to its fullness in Jesus, who is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”, and his disciples beheld his glory (John 1:14). He called himself the light of the world, and those who follow him have the light of life (John 8:12).

The judging God of verse 6 judges through the Son, for “the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), and Jesus is the one appointed by God to judge the living and the dead (Acts 10:42). At his first coming he came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he spoke of coming to send fire on the earth (Luke 12:49). The fire and storm of verse 3 look ahead to his return, when he comes in his glory with his angels and all nations are gathered before him (Matthew 25:31–32), revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). The call that went out from sunrise to sunset goes out again in his command to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20).

The saints of verse 5 made a covenant by sacrifice, and the new covenant is made by the sacrifice of Christ. At the Last Supper he called the cup the new testament in his blood (Luke 22:20), and by his one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10–14). God’s righteousness, which the heavens declare, is shown at the cross, where God is both just and the one who justifies those who believe in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26). Those he gathers come from every nation, tribe, people and tongue (Revelation 7:9), and they offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). Jesus summed up what God asks as love for God and for neighbour (Matthew 22:37–40), and he warned against religion that is beautiful outside and full of uncleanness within (Matthew 23:27–28), the very fault Psalm 50 goes on to expose.

These verses show us a God who speaks. He calls his court to order with his own voice, and he names his people as “my saints” even as he summons them to account. His glory shines from the place where he chose to live among them, and the fire and storm around him tell of a holiness that will deal with sin.

They also show that his judgment rests on his righteousness. The heavens declare it, and the one who judges is God himself, whose knowledge is complete and whose verdict is right. For those who belong to him through the blood of the new covenant, this is good news, because the Judge is the same God who gave his Son as the sacrifice. When he gathers his saints to himself, he looks for hearts that thank him and lives that follow him, and in the rest of this psalm he promises his salvation to those who do.