Psalm 50
The full text of Psalm 50 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
A psalm of Asaph.
1 The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
3 Our God comes; he does not keep silence;
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
4 He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 "Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"
6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge! Selah
7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
9 I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."
16 But to the wicked God says:
"What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.
18 If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
19 "You give your mouth free rein for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you
and lay the charge before you.
22 "Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!"
Translation notes (5)
- Psalm 50:3a The fire and tempest recall the theophany at Sinai, where the mountain burned and the Lord descended in storm and cloud (Exodus 19:16-18; Deuteronomy 4:11). Hebrew nis'arah, 'it storms', is a verb from the same root as sa'ar, 'tempest', intensifying the picture of God arriving in judgment as he once arrived to give the law.
- Psalm 50:4a The summons of heaven and earth reflects the covenant lawsuit pattern (Hebrew riv, 'dispute'), in which creation is called as witness against Israel, as in Deuteronomy 32:1, Isaiah 1:2, and Micah 6:1-2. Deuteronomy 4:26 and 30:19 name heaven and earth as witnesses to the covenant itself, so their appearance here signals a formal legal proceeding rather than a poetic flourish.
- Psalm 50:5a The word chasidim (חֲסִידִים), 'faithful ones', denotes those bound to God by chesed, 'steadfast love', the loyalty proper to covenant partners. Making a covenant 'by sacrifice' reflects the rite of Exodus 24:5-8, where the covenant at Sinai was ratified with burnt offerings and blood; a comparable ceremony appears in Genesis 15:9-18.
- Psalm 50:10a The Hebrew behemot beharerei-alef (בְּהֵמוֹת בְּהַרְרֵי־אָלֶף) is literally 'beasts on hills of a thousand'. The round number is idiomatic, expressing totality rather than a count: the claim extends to every hill and its livestock, reinforcing the psalm's argument that sacrifice cannot enrich the God who already owns all.
- Psalm 50:21a The Hebrew is dimmita heyot ehyeh khamokha, literally 'you imagined that I would be like you'. The verb ehyeh, 'I will be', is the same form God uses of himself in Exodus 3:14, so some interpreters hear an ironic echo: the wicked remake the self-existent God in their own image. His silence during their sin was forbearance, not indifference or approval.
About this translation
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