I Will Not Rebuke You for Your Sacrifices
1 A Psalm by Asaph. The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. 2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out. 3 Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him. 4 He calls to the heavens above, to the earth, that he may judge his people: 5 “Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” 6 The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah. 7 “Hear, my people, and I will speak. Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. 8 I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. 9 I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. 10 For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. 11 I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. 13 Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. 15 Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” 16 But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, 17 since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you? 18 When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers. 19 “You give your mouth to evil. Your tongue frames deceit. 20 You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. 21 You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes. 22 “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver. 23 Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”
God summons his own people to court and explains that he is not hungry.
A Psalm by Asaph. The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset.
The first of the psalms attributed to Asaph, and it is a courtroom scene. Heaven and earth are called as witnesses Psalms 50:4, which is the formal procedure for a covenant lawsuit Deuteronomy 32:1, and the defendant is Israel.
“Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
The people on trial are the committed ones. This is not a case against pagans.
I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.
The charge is not neglect. Their attendance record is excellent, and God says so before saying anything else. Whatever has gone wrong, it is not that the offerings stopped.
9 I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. 10 For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills.
The reasoning demolishes an assumption the worshipers had evidently absorbed from their neighbors. Across the ancient world sacrifice was understood as feeding the gods, who depended on it. This passage refuses the entire framework: if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine Psalms 50:12. Nothing given to God arrives as a supply. He owns the herd it came from.
Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
The question is close to sarcastic, and it is aimed at a religion that had become a transaction.
14 Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. 15 Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
What is wanted instead: gratitude, kept promises, and dependence. All three are things a poor man can bring.
16 But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, 17 since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?
The second half of the case, and it is against people who quote Scripture accurately while living otherwise. The specific charges are consent to theft, adultery, and slander of a brother Psalms 50:18–20 — and the last is aimed at family: you slander your own mother's son.
You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes.
The most penetrating sentence in the psalm. God's patience was read as agreement, and the inference drawn from the silence was that his standards must be the same as theirs. It is the standard misreading of forbearance, and the psalm names it exactly.
Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”
The verdict returns to what was asked for at the middle: not more animals, but thanks.
settled What this mark means