Psalm 50:11

God testifies against Israel because he is righteous and faithful to the covenant he made with them, and he takes their response to it with full seriousness. His charge lays out the evidence of their unfaithfulness, and in the same breath it calls them to come back to him. The prophets bring this charge again and again, and Hosea records God’s desire for mercy and the knowledge of himself above sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). Those who are in covenant with God are held to a higher standard of faithfulness, because they have been given so much.

God gave the sacrifices, and they served real purposes in his covenant: atonement for sin, thanksgiving, and fellowship with him. Verse 8 shows Israel keeping them faithfully. What the prophets condemned was offering them as bare outward acts, by people whose hearts were far from God and whose lives were marked by injustice (Isaiah 1:11–17, Amos 5:21–24). Scripture had said it long before: “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). Jesus himself took up Hosea’s words about mercy and sacrifice (Matthew 9:13). God gave the offerings to express a devoted heart, and a devoted heart is what he looks for in them.

The verb lâqach means to take, receive or accept, and it is used in a wide variety of ways. A “bullock” is par, a young bull, a costly animal that the law prescribed for burnt offerings (Leviticus 1:3) and for sin offerings. “He goats” are ʻattûwd, full-grown male goats, a word also used figuratively for leaders. Goats were offered as peace offerings (Leviticus 3:12) and as sin offerings. “Thy house” and “thy folds” name where the animals came from: the worshipper’s own home and his miklâʼâh, the pen where the flocks were kept. Together the bull and the goats stand for the costly animals Israel brought, and the house and the folds for the wealth they were taken from.

God’s refusal to take them answers the idea that offerings supply him or do him a favour. He is full and complete in himself, and the next verses give the reason.

“For” opens the reason: every beast of the forest is his. “Beast” is chay, a living thing, used here of the wild creatures of the woodland. “Cattle” is bᵉhêmâh, a large four-footed animal, here the livestock Israel kept and sacrificed. Wild and tame together take in every animal there is, so even the animals Israel led to the altar were God’s before they were brought. The “thousand hills” use hârâr, a mountain, from a root meaning to loom up. The phrase pictures countless hills with countless herds on them, wealth beyond any count.

Verse 11 adds the birds and the wild creatures of the open country. “I know” is yâdaʻ, the common word for knowing, used in a great variety of senses. God knows every one of the ʻôwph, the winged creatures, even on the mountains where people seldom go. “Wild beasts of the field” translates zîyz, the moving creatures that roam the open land. Strong’s traces the word to a root meaning to be conspicuous. God’s knowing goes with his owning, for every creature lies open to him and every one is his. Jesus speaks of the same care when he says that the Father feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field, and that his people are worth far more (Matthew 6:26–30).

Scripture says this in many places. “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Heaven and earth belong to the LORD (Deuteronomy 10:14), who made them in the beginning (Genesis 1:1). In Job, God asks who has ever given to him first, that he should repay him (Job 41:11). David’s prayer acknowledges that all that is in heaven and earth is the LORD’s (1 Chronicles 29:11–12). Paul says that God “is not worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25).

God speaks of hunger only to show how impossible it is for him. And if he were hungry, the answer would be close at hand, because “the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.” “World” is têbêl, the earth as the home of its inhabitants, and “fulness” is mᵉlôʼ, all that fills it: its creatures, its resources and its people. Paul writes the same words, “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (1 Corinthians 10:26).

The nations around Israel commonly believed that their gods needed food and drink from their worshippers, and that offerings fed them, calmed them or bought their favour. Some in Israel slipped into the same way of thinking about the LORD, as though worship were a trade. Verse 12 answers that thought at its root, since the God who owns the world and all it holds is the one who gives to all.

God asks a question whose answer is plain. “Eat” is ʼākal, to eat, and figuratively to devour or consume. “Flesh” is bâsâr, the meat of the animal. “Bulls” here is ʼabbîyr, a word Strong’s also gives for a mighty or strong one, so it shares the English sense of verse 9’s “bullock” but is a different word from par. “Blood” is dâm. “Goats” is ʻattûwd again, the same word as verse 9’s “he goats”. Flesh and blood were the two parts of every animal sacrifice, and the law forbade Israel to eat blood, because the life of a creature is in its blood (Leviticus 17:10–14). So the thought of God drinking the blood of goats is both foolish and repugnant.

God gave the sacrifices for his people’s sake. They were his appointed means of atonement for sin (Leviticus 4), and the shedding of blood taught how serious sin is and how costly redemption would be. They gave the people a way to give thanks, keep vows and draw near to a holy God, as in the peace offerings (Leviticus 7:11–18). They kept the covenant before Israel’s eyes and set Israel’s worship apart from the feeding of idols around them. And they pointed forward to Christ. Verses 12 and 13 correct a wrong idea about the sacrifices. What God looked for in them was the faith, obedience and thanks of the one who brought them.

The verb “offer” is zâbach, the word for slaughtering an animal in sacrifice. God takes the language of the altar and joins it to thanks. “Thanksgiving” is tôwdâh, which means confession, praise and thanksgiving, and also the thank offering itself. So the command reaches both the thank offering brought with a grateful heart and the thanks that is itself an offering. Hebrews calls this “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name”, and adds doing good and sharing as sacrifices that please God (Hebrews 13:15–16). Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights (James 1:17), so thanks is the fitting answer of people who live on his gifts.

“And pay thy vows unto the most High.” A vow, neder, is a solemn promise made to God, or the thing promised, often in a time of need. “Pay” is shâlam, to complete or make good, and God requires that what was promised be given. Scripture warns against delay in paying a vow (Deuteronomy 23:21–23) and says it is better to make no vow than to vow and fail to pay (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5). The title ʻelyôwn, from a word meaning high or lofty, names God as “the most High” and reminds the worshipper to whom the promise was made. Keeping our word to him is part of honouring him, and it reflects the faithfulness of the God who keeps every promise he makes.

Verse 15 turns the rebuke into an invitation. “Call” is qârâʼ, to call out to someone, and in a day of trouble that call is a cry for help. “The day of trouble” joins yôwm, a day or a span of time, to tsârâh, which means tightness and so distress, the time when a person is hemmed in. God answers with a promise, “I will deliver thee.” The verb châlats means to pull off or draw out, and so to deliver or set free.

“And thou shalt glorify me.” kâbad means to be heavy, and in its good sense to be weighty or honoured, so to glorify God is to give him the weight and honour that belong to him. Deliverance ends in God’s honour, as the one he has rescued thanks him and tells what he has done. That joins verse 15 to verse 14, for the one who called in trouble returns with thanksgiving. The psalm’s last verse says the same, that whoever offers praise glorifies God (Psalm 50:23).

Scripture repeats this promise. Through Jeremiah God says that if we call to him he will answer (Jeremiah 33:3), and in Psalm 91 he promises to answer, deliver and honour the one who calls upon him (Psalm 91:15). Paul tells us to bring everything to God by prayer with thanksgiving and promises the peace of God (Philippians 4:6–7). Psalm 116 is the whole song of one who called, was delivered, and gives thanks (Psalm 116:1–19).

This invitation stands inside a stern rebuke, and it is the gentlest word in it. God has just told his people that everything is already his, and now he invites them to lean on him in their need.

God’s deliverance may take the trouble away, and it may also come as strength to endure it, wisdom through it, or peace in the middle of it. Paul learned in his own weakness that God’s grace was sufficient for him (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). The goal in every case is God’s glory, which shines as clearly in faithful endurance as in a quick rescue.