Psalm 50

Did You Know?

• The phrase A solis ortu usque ad occasum, taken from verse 1 or Psalm 113:3, is part of a Spanish coat of arms.
• The psalm has been variously dated to either the 8th century BC or to a time after the Babylonian captivity.
• Verse 2 describes Zion as 'the perfection of beauty', even though Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC.

Uses

Psalm 50 is read on the fourth day of Sukkot. In the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, it is scheduled for the morning of the tenth day of the month. A 1650 Scottish Psalter turned the psalm into a rhymed English paraphrase beginning “The mighty God, the Lord, Hath spoken, and did call.” Verse 14 inspired Folliott Sandford Pierpoint’s 1863 hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Heinrich Schütz set a rhymed version, “Gott unser Herr, mächtig durchs Wort” (SWV 147), in the Becker Psalter. The final verse appears in German in the opening chorus of Bach’s 1726 cantata Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich (BWV 17). F. Melius Christiansen wrote a well-known choral arrangement of Psalm 50 in 1922, which he dedicated to the St. Olaf Choir for its tenth anniversary.

Text

The psalm divides into an introduction (verses 1-6), two orations by God (verses 7-15 and 16-21), and a conclusion (verses 22-23). The introduction evokes the revelation at Mount Sinai, with God summoning heaven and earth as witnesses in a legal proceeding where God acts as both plaintiff and judge. This divine tribunal metaphor also appears in Isaiah 1 and Micah 6. In the first oration, God declares he is not satisfied with material sacrifices alone, since he needs no food or drink; he desires thanksgiving and sincere prayer.

Verse 13, "Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" may allude to the goddess Anat, who in one fragmentary text eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her brother Baal, sometimes depicted as a bull. The second oration warns against hypocrisy: hypocrites recite God's commandments but inwardly hate them and do not live by them, and God will bring them to judgment. The psalm closes with a warning against iniquity and a promise that God will bless the righteous, making them "drink deeply of the salvation of God", a theme of the Messianic banquet also found in Psalm 23, Psalm 16, and Luke 14.