The complaints, supplications, and imprecations of the lamenting words of the Psalter are recorded, heard, and received by God. God responds based on His character, “the perfections of YHWH,” revealed to Israel through Moses in Exodus 34:5-7:
YHWH is good, upright and blameless, righteous and willing to share His righteousness with His people, just (upholding justice against all wickedness), gracious (giving spiritual and material benefits), faithfully and constantly loving (hesed), and compassionate (caring and understanding, willing to listen to complaints and questions).
Exodus 34:5-7
Many psalms do not share the prophetic sense of Israel’s own failure to keep covenant with YHWH. Exceptions are Psalms 95, 50 and 81, prophetic hymns of praise (oracular psalms), praising YHWH for a reason, like hymns do, but for a different reason than other hymns of praise. Prophetic hymns of praise like Psalms 50, 81, and 95 offer praise because YHWH provides instructions for the community.
God wants true loyalty, not externalism and hypocrisy, and He wants hearts of gratitude. Psalm 50 provides God’s warnings and instructions.
1. First, share any knowledge or thoughts you have about Asaph’s involvement with Psalm 50 (and Psalms 73-83).
Then, noticing and reflecting on the opening images of Psalm 50:1-6, describe the mood and the scene, since only a few other psalms can match its grandeur and solemnity.
What do you learn about God in the opening verses of this Elohistic prophetic hymn? Who is in charge? What do you learn about God’s relationship with the world (heavens and earth) and with Israel?
Psalm 50 begins (vv. 1-6) and ends (vv. 22-23) with information/instruction about the righteous judgment of God. God Himself is Judge.
2. In Psalm 50:7-15, what warnings and instructions does God give people who want to live God-centered lives?
Thank offerings and vows (50:14) refer to voluntary offerings in temple worship, in which the offerers shared by eating from the offering. God desired communion with his people as they presented and ate their offerings. He wanted communion with his people who loved him with grateful hearts.
How will God’s instructions in vv.14-15 about gratitude, obedience, and dependence impact your worship and your participation in Eucharist (thanksgiving) today and going forward?
Take time soon to dialogue with God about your gratitude, obedience and dependence in your life with Him.
“A spirituality of gratitude invites us to see the poverty we experience as creatures, not as a negative void to be lamented, but as a rich vacancy for God, who alone can satisfy our being…the way to heal an envious heart is to replace it with a grateful heart…In prayer we open ourselves to the abundance of God; here our emptiness becomes a gift, rather than a curse, as God fills it with love…”
Au, The Grateful Heart, p. 104
3. This final section of Psalm 50, verses 16-23, is a special harsh word to the wicked,those who do not honor covenant, an implementation of the justicepromised in 50:6.
According to Psalm 50, who and what is causing the disorientation that lies behind this psalm?
What clue does verse 21 tell us about why the warning in vv. 7-15 is so sharp and why the loose conduct of vv. 18-20 could happen?
“How ought we to behave in the presence of very bad people…very bad people who are powerful, prosperous and impenitent?…there were probably [people] who consorted with ‘publicans and sinners’…whose motives were very unlike those of Our LORD…I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful and so forth. Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough…good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive; by our words, looks and laughter, to ‘consent’.”
C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalm, pp. 68-71
4. How does God take our lives seriously? (50:22-23)
Psalm 50 is all about listening to God, living in the hope and danger of God’s judgment and relying on His sovereignty in a fully-oriented life.
Presented September 22, 2019