Psalms 50 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
The period of the Jerusalem temple, roughly 1000 to 600 BC, in the tradition of the prophets who challenged empty ritual
Location
Zion in Jerusalem, staged as a courtroom with heaven and earth called in as witnesses
Audience
Israelites who kept up sacrifices faithfully while ignoring how they treated each other
Situation
God arrives in fire and storm and puts his own covenant people on trial. The charge is not that they neglected sacrifice but that they misunderstood it, imagining God needed feeding, while the same worshippers were stealing, lying and slandering their own families.
Key Background
This is written as a covenant lawsuit, a legal form used by the prophets in which God plays plaintiff, judge and witness at once, and summoning heaven and earth as witnesses copies the witness clauses in ancient treaty documents. Surrounding religions genuinely did understand sacrifice as feeding the gods, with temple meals set before the statue daily, so God asking whether he eats the flesh of bulls is a direct rejection of that whole theory. Asaph, named in the heading, led one of the three temple music guilds, and eleven more psalms attributed to his family open the next section of the collection.
The — himself, — has spoken and the whole earth, from where the sun rises to where it sets.
From the of beauty, God out.
Our God comes — and he will not silent. A goes ahead of him, a swirls around him.
He out to the and to the below to witness the of his people:
"Gather my to me — those who a with me through
And the skies declare that he is just, because God himself is the
"Listen, my people — me speak. Israel, me out my you. I am — your
I'm not accusing you because of your — your are always before me.
I don't need a from your barn or goats from your pens.
Every animal in the forest is already mine, the on a belong to me.
I every bird in the mountains. Everything that moves in the fields is mine.
If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you — because the and in it is mine.
Do you think I the of bulls? Do you think I drink the blood of goats?
Offer as to God, and on what you the Most
Then on me when you're in trouble — I will you, and you will me."
But to the God says: "Who gave you the right to my laws or talk about my covenant?
You hate my correction and my
When you see a thief, you up with him. You keep company with those who their
You with evil, and tongue is always
You sit around and own brother. You slander own
You did all this, and I quiet. You I was just you. But now I'm confronting you — laying out the to
about this, you who — before I you with no to you.
The one who offers as a — that person me. And to the one who on the path, I will show the that only can