Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 1 Oct. 2023
In my last sermon, I introduced Psalm 50 as written by a worship leader named Asaph during King David’s administration, and it is a prophetic warning of the accountability which all mankind has to God as our ultimate Judge.
I noted that there are differences of opinion among Bible scholars on this Psalm, but the interpretation I am using is along the lines of Jesus’ parable of the Sheep and the Goats, in which Jesus appears as the great judge of all, then begins judgment by addressing His people – that is, His church, and concludes with the judgment of the wicked. The part of the psalm on which I am focusing now is the middle section where Jesus addresses His people as their Judge and King.
Bible scholars have applied this passage in two other ways:
Some1 have applied it to address those who persist in sin and rebellion against God and yet participate in the outward forms of worship, thinking they will be OK. That is indeed a problem which the Bible addresses in places like 1 Samuel 15:22 (“to obey is better than sacrifice”), Hosea 6 (“I desire mercy and not sacrifice…”) and Isaiah 1 (“...although you multiply prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood”). Hypocrisy is a real problem, but I don’t think that is the issue addressed in this Psalm2.
Others3 have applied it along the lines of Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament animal sacrifices so that there don’t need to be any more lambs offered on altars. Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10 are key passages in that argument, “Sacrifice and offering you did not require, but a body you prepared for me.” Once again, Jesus’ fulfillment of the sacrificial system is a Biblical teaching, but I don’t think that is what the point of this particular psalm is.
I think that this psalm – or at least this part of the Psalm – is addressed to faithful believers who just need a nudge in the right direction to make sure that their worship is centered, not so much on the outward forms God commanded worship to have, but more importantly on the matters of the heart in which we cry out to Jesus for salvation and He saves us and we glorify Him4.
As such, I would say that this Psalm is more along the lines of the message in Psalm 51:16-17 “For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise.” (NKJV)
In Psalm 51, David is an Old Testament believer who still practices animal sacrifices, but he realizes that having a humble heart before God that is contrite over sin and coming to God for salvation is relatively more important than the ceremonial forms of the animal sacrifices.
This is a heart-check like Paul encouraged the Corinthian church to do, in 1 Corinthians 11:28, during their worship services: “Let a man examine himself…”
Read
passage in my translation, starting at v.7
“Please
listen, my people Israel, and let me speak {to you}, and let me
testify with you. I am God, your God. It’s not over your
sacrifices that I am reproving you – for your
whole-burnt-offerings are before me continuously. I will not take
from your house a bullock {or} goats from your pens, because every
wild animal belong to me, the cattle on the hills {and} the oxen. I
know every bird of the {heavens}; the animal in the field is already
in my company. If I were hungry, I would not tell it to you, because
the world and what fills it belong to me! Do I eat the flesh of
bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice to God a
thanks-offering, and make good on your vows to the Most High. Also,
call out to me during a time of crisis. I will rescue you, then you
glorify me!”
In v.1, “The God of gods spoke…” I think referring to when He gave the 10 Commandments,
but here He commands – and I would say even pleads with – His people to listen some more to Him.
The reason I think that He is pleading and not just commanding is that all the Hebrew verbs in verse 7 have cohortative or paragogic he endings, which are a way of showing politeness or urgency.
The great 19th century Hebrew Bible scholar, Franz Delitzsch commented that these special verb endings “describe God's earnest desire to have Israel for willing hearers…”
Can you comprehend that God is eager to communicate with you? Does that move you to pay attention to the ways He communicates through the Bible, through His people, and through His Spirit to you even now?
And for anyone who is not moved by the God of gods Himself pleading with you, let the authority of this God convince you. God clinches His plea by trotting out His right to be heard because, He says, after all, “I am your God.” (cf. Psalm 48:13-14, 81:8, Jer. 2:4, Zech. 13:9)
You acknowledged my authority over you when you entered into my covenant and became part of my people (Ex. 29:45, Ezek. 20:5). It is my covenant role as your God to look out for your well-being, to protect you, to save you, and, yes, to lay down the law as to what is right and wrong for you, and it is your covenant role to worship me, follow my guidance, and bring others to worship me. What I have to say has direct bearing on your relationship with me and on your well-being, so you’d better pay attention to what I have to say!
This goes not only for ancient Israel but for all of God’s people in the church today5. Are you listening to God’s word?
In parallel with God “speaking” in v.7 is the verb “I will testify/bear witness.”
The prepositional phrase which follows that is translated “against you” in most English versions, as though God is against His own people, but I question that translation.
If you interpret it to mean that God is “bearing witness against” His people, then you would expect Him to actually accuse them of something, but God doesn’t level any accusations against His people in verses 7-15. (He certainly testifies against “the wicked” in verses 16-22, but not against His people who are addressed in verses 7-15.) Instead, the next words out of His mouth to His people are, “I am not reproving you…”
The Hebrew preposition beth here normally means “in/by/with,” so it is an interpretive stretch to translate it “against;” I think it should be interpreted, “I will bear witness with you.”
And I’m not alone in this opinion. In the 16th century, John Calvin commented, “Some read, ‘I will testify against thee.’ But the reference, as we may gather from the common usage of Scripture, seems rather to be to a discussion of mutual claims.”
And modern Jewish Soncino Bible commentary by Rabbi Cohen also says that it should be interpreted: “I will admonish thee… [as] reformative rather than punitive.”
Now, in the next few verses, instead of levelling accusations, God proceeds to make three denials:
v.8 He is not rebuking them over their sacrifices,
v.9 He’s not taking their animals from them,
and v.12 He’s not going to tell them if He’s hungry.
Why would God start His speech with a bunch of denials? It would stand to reason that these denials are confrontations of lies that people had been telling about Him.
You say I’m punishing you because you’ve messed up my offerings. I’m doing no such thing!
You say I’m always taking your valuable animals for sacrifices and you’re not getting much in return. You’ve got it all backwards. I’m not the one taking your animals; I don’t even eat meat!
And you say I’m always wanting more; your sacrifices are never enough. That’s nonsense! If I ever did want a nice steak, I wouldn’t ask you for it, because I can provide my own; I am not dependent on you for anything.
God has to confront these lies because people so often buy into falsehoods.
We think God is more concerned about crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s of sacramental theology than He is about your heart attitude when you worship, but that’s not true.
We think that Christianity is about giving up our resources for some spiritual benefits, but that’s not it at all.
And we have the audacity to think that God actually needs what we have to offer. But God assures us in Psalm 50 that He has no needs.
Let’s look more deeply into these three denials God makes in verses 8-13: First...
Exodus 29:38 “Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two one year old lambs each day, continuously.” (NASB)
Apparently, there were faithful Israelites obeying God’s command and offering these regular daily sacrifices, exactly as God had said. That was not the problem. They were “ratifying God’s covenant based upon sacrifice;” that’s what God’s people were to do.
The time would come, a thousand years into the future, when the Son of God would come in the flesh and offer up his life as a guilt-offering to pay for our sin, fulfilling the law and sacrificial system, and ending the need for us to offer any further sacrifices, so that now, the only sacrifices God tells us to bring are:
Rom. 12:1 “...that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God...” (NKJV)
Hebrews 13:15-16 “...offer up always to God a thanks-offering which is fruit of lips confessing His name, and never forget good works and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well-pleased.” (NAW, cf. Phil. 4:18)
When we honestly worship God, seeking to honor Him, seeking to follow His instructions, and depending on Jesus to save us and make us right, God will not turn up His nose at us and say, “Not good enough.” He “will not reprove” us because He has already accepted the sacrifice of the Lamb of God!
John 3:17-18 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned...”
Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (NKJV)
Although God affirms His people in Psalm 50 for seeking forgiveness of sins by following the instructions He had given them about sacrifices in the Bible, God leads His people into a deeper understanding of relationship with Him, and one aspect of that is to explain that it’s not ultimately about making sacrifices. In the book of Leviticus, it would appear that sacrifices are what it’s all about, but here in the Psalms, God is opening up the understanding of His people further.
“[T]he sacrifices of the law were symbolical of higher and spiritual things, and were not pleasing to God except under their typical aspect. The believing worshipper looking beyond the outward was accepted… How much more is this clear under the gospel, when it is so much more plainly revealed, that ‘God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth’? ...A spiritual God demands other life than that which is seen in animals; he looks for spiritual sacrifice, for the love, the trust, the praise, the life of your hearts… It is inconceivable that outward things can gratify him, except so far as through them our faith and love express themselves.” ~Charles Spurgeon, 1885 AD
This point is even more clear in God’s second denial in...
The bullock in v.9 is the animal God required for a guilt or sin offering in Leviticus 4, 8, and 16. (A two-year-old bull was a pretty expensive animal.)
And goats were one of the animals offered for a peace-offering or fellowship meal by the Israelites in Numbers 7.
In v.10, God claims the wild animals that live in the forests too!
v.11 extends that to the birds, some of which were used for burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and purification-offerings.
All the ancient versions used by Christians describe them as “birds of the heavens,”
but the modern English versions follow the 10th Century Hebrew text, which calls them “birds of the mountains.”
The Jewish Targum bridges the two textual traditions by explaining that they are birds that fly in the heavens, but make their nests in the mountains.
By the way, at the end of v.10, the word for “oxen” and the word for “thousand” is the same in Hebrew, so the ancient versions of the Latin and Greek and Aramaic-speaking Christians all read “and the oxen” instead of “on a thousand hills,” but, as usual, it makes the same point either way, that every domesticated animal and every wild animal belongs to God who created them. If God doesn’t get a sacrifice from you, He has a thousand other places He could go to get it.
There is also some debate on what is meant in v.12 by the Hebrew word ziyz, but we already have the general idea from the context that it is a description of the things God created (and therefore owns). This word seems to emphasize the creature’s power to “live” or “move” or “multiply” – the NIV translated it “insects” in one of the two other passages that this Hebrew word occurs, but it’s really anybody’s guess.
The point is, you are merely a steward of a few animals and things God created, so it’s silly to think He has some personal need for your stuff.
Furthermore, when we give sacrificially to the Lord, we are not subtracting from what is ours to give it to God; we are merely remanding to Him what is already His and what we have been stewarding on His behalf.
Psalm 24:1 “The land and that which fills her belong to Yahweh – the world and her inhabitants." (NAW)
Isaiah 66:1-2 Thus says Yahweh, “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is a stool for my feet. What is this house which y'all will build for me? ... all these my hand has made… But to this one will I look: to the lowly and stricken of spirit, who trembles over my word.” (NAW)
Instead of resenting His command to give generously to those in need, we should be grateful that He allows us to use so much of His stuff!
The last word in v.11 is different in Hebrew from the word “mine” in the middle of v.10.
In verse 10, God is saying that the beasts and cattle “belong to” Him,
but at the end of v.11, God is saying that, not only do they belong to Him, they are already “with” him – already under His control, in His presence, and at His disposal!
God doesn’t have to ask for your permission to use your things; He can use them whenever and however He wants.
The point is for you to realize that, as a worshiper of God, you don’t have anything to offer to God that God doesn’t already have at His disposal. You are not here on earth to supply something God lacks.
In the Old Testament, it meant that the animal sacrifices were therefore not for God’s sake but for the sake of the people who offered them6.
Another application concerns the formalities of worship: although they are binding on us, the outward forms are not ultimately what God wants. The Old Testament prophets understood that the animal sacrifices were not meaningful to God apart from humble hearts that sought God, that sought God’s righteousness, and that loved mercy.
Psalm 69:29-31 “But I am poor and sorrowful; Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull, Which has horns and hooves.” (NKJV)
Amos 5:22-24 “Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.” (NKJV)
Micah 6:6-8 “With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” (NKJV)
The New Testament equivalent of those outward formalities might be things like going to church, praying, tithing, listening to sermons, singing hymns, and so forth. None of these are bad things, unless they are done with a proud heart that isn’t doing these things to glorify God.
The third denial God makes is very similar in...
For thousands of years, pagan priests and witchdoctors have perpetuated the myth that the gods eat the same kinds of things we eat.
Ludwig Feuerbach accurately observed that the gods of the heathen are just “men writ large.”
We have seen that play out in our day with the revival of Marvel comics superhero movies.
But God is not just the smartest or strongest human you can imagine plus a little more. He is altogether different. We simply can’t fathom a God who has no needs, who is completely self-sufficient.
What did God eat in eternity past before He created cows? He doesn’t need to eat; He is a spirit!
He can never be punished, because there is nothing you can withhold from Him and nothing you can do to inconvenience or harm Him; He has no weaknesses!
What did God do all day for millennium after millennium before He created our universe? He was perfectly content just being Himself.
So there is nothing you can do for Him that He really needs. Your tithes and your volunteering at church, your ministry outreaches and your mission trips do not meet God’s needs; they merely shine glory on Him, as is only fitting for you as His creature to do.
Luke 17:10 Jesus said, “...when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” (NKJV)
Going to church and raising your hands and saying Amen and being nice to everybody doesn’t obligate God to do anything for you in return. He doesn’t need your worship7.
And yet, He still commands you to glorify Him (1 Cor. 6:20), to bring all your tithe (Mal. 3:10), to assemble together as a church (Heb. 10:25), to visit the orphan and the widow in their distress (James 1:27), and to sing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to Him (Col. 3:16)8.
These things are not the essence of Christianity. They are things Christians do, but they are not what it’s all about. So, what, you may ask, IS it all about? God tells his people in the next two verses:
After saying that He didn’t take their bulls and goats because He owned all the animals and didn’t eat animals anyway, God nevertheless commands that they keep offering their sacrifices to Him, but He gets to the heart of things in v.15 when He says that ultimately it’s all about a personal relationship where He saves us and we glorify Him.
The two good things to keep on doing are to sacrifice thanks-offerings and to make good on vows. Once again, there are differences between how this was done in the Old Testament and the way it is to be done in the New Testament, because Jesus, the Lamb of God has been sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7), putting an end to the need for any more animal sacrifices.
In the Old Testament, thanks-offerings involved bringing extra bread to give to the priest when you offered your animal sacrifice, but in the New Testament, Hebrews 13:15-16 defines a “thanks-offering” instead as “the fruit of lips confessing His name.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18 and Ephesians 5:20 teach Christians to “always give thanks to God” “in everything.9”
It has also been suggested that the Lord’s Supper is a New Testament type of thanks-offering. Many Christians call it by the Greek word for thanksgiving, Eucharist, based on the prayer of thanks offered with it (M. Henry).
Regarding the fulfillment of vows, in the Old Testament, it was common to promise God that if He answered your prayer, you would offer an extra lamb or bull next time you went to the temple – and woe be unto you if you didn’t deliver to God what you had promised10! We don’t do that anymore, but we are still to keep our promises.
James 5:5 “...let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’...” (NAW)
1 Cor. 4:2 “...it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.” (NASB)
But ultimately God wants to have a personal relationship with His people in which He is glorified for being our rescuer.
Many English Bibles translate v.15 with God saying, “I will deliver you.” Now, in our culture, we use the word “deliver” to describe a truck driver in a brown or orange-and-blue suit dropping off a package at your door. And, while there is a sense in which God will safely carry you to your destination, the Hebrew word carries the additional connotation that He will first swoop in and rescue you out of your bad situation.
In our culture of rugged individualism, we don’t like to think of ourselves as the helpless maiden being mauled by a dragon and in desperate need of a knight in shining armor to rescue us. We like to think of ourselves as able to take care of ourselves. When somebody asks us how we are doing, it doesn’t matter how bad we are doing, what do we answer? “Fine.” But God calls us to abandon that attitude of self-sufficiency and self-worship, and to admit to Him that we need Him to rescue us from all that is wrong.
If you don’t call out to Him for help, He has a way of ratcheting up the stresses to get you to the point where you are desperate enough to call out to Him!
And when we do call out to Him, He promises to save us from every stress/every crisis/every trouble! That’s His promise!
Now, His timeline for deliverance can be unpredictable: Sometimes His deliverances are instantaneous the moment you pray; other times they come frustratingly slowly.
God knows what stresses are good for us to have to endure for a while to make us grow, and which are harmful and require a swift airlift. But He will never fail to deliver! God doesn’t make promises He doesn’t keep.
Will you believe and act on His promise?
The final step is that God wants us to praise Him when He does intervene to rescue us in our problems. That’s the story He has for you. Don’t stop before the last chapter. Be sure to take the time to glorify God for bringing deliverance to you every time He answers your prayers.
That’s how God defines His ideal of what He wants His relationship with us to look like! Get into trouble with your sin, call out to Him, get rescued by Him, and praise Him. We’ll see that again at the end of this psalm in v.23, but we also see it throughout the whole Bible:
Psalm 91:15 “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.” (NKJV)
Psalm 20:1-3 “Yahweh will answer you during a day of crisis. The Name of the God of Jacob will set you on high. He will send your help from [His] holy place, and from Zion He will sustain you. He will remember all your grain offerings, and your whole-burnt offering will satisfy Him.” (NAW) cf. Psalm 34:4, 55:16, 86:7, 107:6
Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek Yahweh while He is to be found, call Him while He is to be near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and a man of iniquity his thoughts, and let him turn to Yahweh and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will be great to pardon.” (NAW) cf. Isa. 58:9
Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (NKJV)
James 5:13 “ Is anyone among y'all suffering? Let him keep praying! Is anyone in good cheer? Let him keep making music!” (NAW)
Joel 2:32/Acts 2:21/Romans 10:13 “...whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved…” (NKJV)
In v.7, God commands his people to listen to Him; and He promises that if we listen He will speak to us, so pay attention!11
In vs. 8-13, God corrects three false beliefs about worship. Are there any lies you’ve been tempted to believe that you need to correct with God’s word?
Do you guiltily feel you need to do more for God than just trust Jesus to get God to accept you?
Do you resentfully think He asks for more than He should from you?
Or do you pridefully think that God couldn’t do some things without you?
Or do you carelessly think that you can slide into worship every Sunday without any preparation or examination of your heart?
Challenge those lies with the truth!
Examine your heart.
Why do you go to church? If you aren’t going to church to worship God, you’re wasting your time. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
Why do you praise God? Is it because it gives you an emotional high? It is because you feel obligated by your friends or family? Is it because you feel it will make God treat you better? None of these reasons bring glory to God, so they all lead to vain worship.
And in vs.14-15 we see the heart of true worship is to call upon the name of Jesus to save you and, with integrity, to thank God for saving you.
“‘Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise.’ O sacrifice gratuitous, by grace given! I have not indeed bought this to offer, but Thou hast given: for not even this should I have had. And this is the immolation of the sacrifice of praise, to render thanks to Him from whom thou hast whatever of good thou hast, and by whose mercy is forgiven thee whatsoever of evil of thine thou hast.” ~Augustine, c.400 AD
“No longer look at your sacrifices as in themselves gifts pleasing to me, but present them as the tributes of your gratitude; it is then that I will accept them, but not while your souls have no love and no thankfulness to offer me. ” ~C. Spurgeon, 1885 AD
“If worship begins and ends with the offerings of animals, it is futile. The sacrifice must be accompanied by an acknowledgment that we sincerely appreciate and are most grateful for the love and care that God has shown for us…” ~A. Cohen, 1992 AD
Vulgate (Ps. 49)B |
LXXC
|
Brenton (Vaticanus)D |
KJVE |
NAW |
Masoretic TxtF |
PeshittaG |
7 audi populus meus et loquar [tibi] Israhel et testificabor tibi Deus Deus tuus ego sum |
7 Ἄκουσον, λαός μου, καὶ λαλήσω [σοιH], Ισραηλ, καὶ διαμαρτύρομαί σοι· ὁ θεὸς ὁ θεός σού εἰμι ἐγώ. |
7 Hear, my people, and I will speak [to thee], O Israel: and I will testify to thee: I am God, thy God. |
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. |
7 “Please listen, my people Israel, and let me speak {to you}, and let me testify with you. I am God, your God. |
זשִׁמְעָה עַמִּי וַאֲדַבֵּרָהI יִשְׂרָאֵלJ וְאָעִידָהK בָּךְ אֱלֹהִים אֱלֹהֶיךָ אָנֹכִיL. |
7 שׁמע עמי ואמר [לך] ואיסריל אסהדך [אנא] אנא אלהא אלהך |
8 non in sacrificiis tuis arguam te holocausta autem tua in conspectu meo sunt semper |
8 οὐκ ἐπὶ ταῖς θυσίαις σου ἐλέγξω σε, τὰ δὲ ὁλοκαυτώματά σου ἐνώπιόν μού ἐστιν διὰ παντός· |
8 I will not reprove thee on account of thy sacrifices; for thy whole-burnt-offerings are before me continually. |
8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. |
8 It’s not over your sacrifices that I am reproving you – for your whole-burnt-offerings are before me continuously. |
ח לֹא עַל זְבָחֶיךָ אוֹכִיחֶךָ וְעוֹלֹתֶיךָ לְנֶגְדִּי תָמִידM. |
8 לא על דבחיך אכסך ועלותך לוקבלי [אנין] בכלזבן |
9 non accipiam de domo tua vitulos [neque] de gregibus tuis hircos |
9
οὐ δέξομαι ἐκ τοῦ οἴκου σου μόσχ |
9
I will take no bullock[s]
out of thine house, [nor]
he-goats out of thy |
9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. |
9 I will not take from your house a bullock {or} goats from your pens, |
ט לֹא אֶקַּח מִבֵּיתְךָ פָר מִמִּכְלְאֹתֶיךָ Oעַתּוּדִים. |
9 לא אסב מן ביתך תורא [אף לא] מן גזרך גדיא |
10
quoniam meae sunt omnes fer |
10
ὅτι ἐμά ἐστιν πάντα τὰ θηρί |
10 For all the wild beast[s] of the thicket are mine, the cattle on the mountains, and oxen. |
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. |
10 because every wild animal belong to me, the cattle on the hills {and} the oxen. |
י כִּי לִי כָל חַיְתוֹ יָעַר בְּהֵמוֹת בְּהַרְרֵי אָלֶף. |
10 מטל דדילי הי כלה חיותא דדברא [ו]בעירא דבטורא [ו]תורא |
11
cognovi omnia volatilia |
11
ἔγνωκα πάντα τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ |
11
I know all the birds of the |
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beast[s] of the field are mine. |
11 I know every bird of the {heavens}; the animal in the field is already in my company. |
11
ידע
אנא כולה פרחתא ד |
|
12 si esuriero non dicam tibi meus est enim orbis terrae et plenitudo eius |
12 ἐὰν πεινάσω, οὐ μή σοι εἴπω· ἐμὴ γάρ ἐστιν ἡ οἰκουμένη καὶ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς. |
12 If I should be hungry, I will not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fullness of it. |
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. |
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell it to you, because the world and what fills it belong to me! |
יב אִם אֶרְעַב לֹא אֹמַר לָךְ כִּי לִי תֵבֵל וּמְלֹאָהּ. |
12
אן
כפן אנא לא אמר לך מטל דדילי הי תביל
|
13 numquid manducabo carnes taurorum aut sanguinem hircorum potabo |
13 μὴ φάγομαι κρέα ταύρων ἢ αἷμα τράγων πίομαι; |
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? |
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? |
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? |
יג הַאוֹכַל בְּשַׂר U אַבִּירִים וְדַם עַתּוּדִיםV אֶשְׁתֶּה. |
13
|
14 immola Deo sacrificium laudis et redde Altissimo vota tua |
14 θῦσον τῷ θεῷ [θυσίαν] αἰνέσεωςW καὶ ἀπόδος τῷ ὑψίστῳ τὰς εὐχάς σου· |
14 Offer to God the [sacrifice of] praise; and pay thy vows to the Most High. |
14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: |
14 Sacrifice to God a thanks-offering, and make good on your vows to the Most High. |
יד זְבַח לֵאלֹהִים תּוֹדָה וְשַׁלֵּםX לְעֶלְיוֹן נְדָרֶיךָ. |
14 דבח לאלהא תודיתא ושׁלם למרימא נדריך |
15 et invoca me in die tribulationis et eruam te et honorificabis me [diapsalma] |
15 καὶ ἐπικάλεσαί με ἐν ἡμέρᾳ θλίψεως, [καὶ] ἐξελοῦμαί σε, καὶ δοξάσεις με. [διάψαλμα.] |
15 And call upon me in the day of affliction; [and] I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. [Pause.] |
15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. |
15 Also, call out to me during a time of crisis. I will rescue you, then you glorify me! |
טו וּקְרָאֵנִי בְּיוֹם צָרָה אֲחַלֶּצְךָ וּתְכַבְּדֵנִי. |
15 וקריני ביומא דאולצנא אעשׁנךY ותשׁבחני |
1J. Calvin, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, John Gill, and to some extent Charles Spurgeon
2In order to force this interpretation, Gill and Henry added words to v.8 (“I do not reprove you for not offering sacrifices”) and changed the meaning of the verb in v.9 to “I will not accept...”
3Augustine, Dr. Hammond (cited by M. Henry), also Gill to some extent.
4A.R. Fausset, F. Delitzsch, A. Cohen, and G. Wilson appeared to support this view in their commentaries, and to some extent Spurgeon too.
5“The address which follows is directed to the professed people of God. It is clearly, in the first place, meant for Israel; but is equally applicable to the visible church of God in every age. It declares the futility of external worship when spiritual faith is absent and the mere outward ceremonial is rested in.” ~Ch. Spurgeon
6“...Israel’s understanding of sacrifice… appears to be defective. In this first section, the problem seems to be that those who sacrifice believe their sacrifices are essential to God… They were never intended as meals presented to him but are a mechanism for human benefit – agreed-upon acts by which humans acknowledge and repent of sin, give thanks for divine deliverance, and celebrate communion with a God who is present with them.” ~ Gerald Wilson, NIV Application Commentary
7Yet, as Augustine pointed out, in Matt. 25:35 &40, Jesus says, “For I was hungry, and y'all gave me [something] to eat… as much as you did it for one of the least of these brothers of mine, it was to me that you did it.”
81 Cor. 6:20 “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.” (NKJV) Malachi 3:10 “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house…” (NKJV) Hebrews 10:24-25 Let us also take cognizance of one another towards the provocation of love and of good works, not leaving out the gathering together of ourselves.…” (NAW) James 1:27 “This is pure and undefiled religion according to our God and Father: to watch over orphans and widows in their distress, [and] to keep oneself unsullied from the world.” (NAW) Col. 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” (NKJV)
91 Thess. 5:18 “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Eph. 5:20 “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (NKJV)
10Num.
30:2 "If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath
to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he
shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth."
(NKJV)
Eccl. 5:4 “When you make a vow to God, do not
delay to pay it; For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have
vowed" (NKJV) cf. Deut. 23:21, Jonah 2:9, Psalm 22:25, 56:12,
61:8, 65:1, 76:11.
11“‘Hear, and I will speak to thee.’ For if thou hearest not, even though I shall speak, it will not be to thee. When then shall I speak to thee? If thou hearest.” ~Augustine
AMy
original chart includes the NASB, NIV, and ESV, but their copyright
restrictions force me to remove them from the publicly-available
edition of this chart. (NAW is my translation.) When a translation
adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done
so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words
in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is
different from all the other translations, I underline it.
When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either
departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs
too far from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. (I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing Psalm 50 are 4Q85 Psalmsc (which
contains parts of verses 13-23) and
11Q9 Psalmse
(containing parts of
vs. 3-7),
both of which date to the early-to-mid first century.
Where the DSS is legible and reads the same as the MT, the Hebrew
text is colored purple. Where the DSS and ancient versions support
each other against the MT in such a way that I suspect they are the
original reading, I have highlighted
them with
yellow.
BJerome's Latin Vulgate w/ Deuterocanon using Gallican Psalter, 405 AD. As published electronically by E-Sword.
CThis Greek New Testament (GNT) is the 1904 "Patriarchal" edition of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine majority text of the GNT and the Textus Receptus are very similar. The Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland, and UBS editions are a slightly-different family of GNTs developed in the modern era as a break from the traditional Greek Bible by compiling just a few of the oldest-known manuscripts, but even so, the practical differences in the text between these two editing philosophies are minimal.
DEnglish translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, 1851, “based upon the text of the Vaticanus” but not identical to the Vaticanus. As published electronically by E-Sword.
E1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published electronically by E-Sword.
FFrom
the Wiki Hebrew Bible
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8_%D7%AA%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D.
DSS text comes from https://downloads.thewaytoyahuweh.com
GThe Leiden Peshitta, Copyright © 2012 by The Peshitta Foundation c/o Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies, as published electronically in BibleWorks.
HAlthough Fields notes a variant from Symmachus later in this verse, he notes no variant here, which leaves the reader to wonder if Aquila and Symmachus supported the LXX over the MT here by inserting “to you.”
Icf. v.1 “Yahweh, the God of gods spoke…” All the verbs in this verse have cohortative or paragogic he endings. They give the sense of God urging and begging His people to respond well to Him. (cf. Delitzsch: “The forms strengthened by ah, in v.7, describe God's earnest desire to have Israel for willing hearers as being quite as strong as His desire to speak and to bear witness.”) The end of the verse gives compelling reason why: He is their God, after all!
J“People” and “Israel” are in parallel to each other as vocatives.
KThe beth preposition normally means “in/by/with,” so it is an interpretive stretch to translate it “against.” It doesn’t seem that God is testifying against His people; He doesn’t level accusations against them like He does against “the wicked.” Calvin reached a similar conclusion, although he didn’t see as friendly a relationship between God and His people here as I did: “Some read, ‘I will testify against thee.’ But the reference, as we may gather from the common usage of Scripture, seems rather to be to a discussion of mutual claims.” So did Cohen: “I will admonish thee… reformative rather than punitive.” Gill: “or ‘to thee’” (citing Vatablus and Ainsworth in support).
Lcf. Exodus 22:2, the authoritative basis upon which God issued law to His people is the same authoritative basis upon which He has the right to judge them.
MAlthough Henry and Gill edit this verse to say “I do not reprove you for failing to offer sacrifices…” Delitzsch explains: “It is not the sacrifices offered in a becoming spirit that are contrasted with those offered without the heart (as, e.g., Sir. 32 [35]:1-9), but the outward sacrifice appears on the whole to be rejected in comparison with the spiritual sacrifice. This entire turning away from the outward form of the legal ceremonial is, in the Old Testament, already a predictive turning towards that worship of God in spirit and in truth which the new covenant makes alone of avail, after the forms of the Law have served as swaddling clothes to the New Testament life which was coming into being in the old covenant.”
NAccording to Fields, Aquila, Symmachus, and “E” all read κερεινους (“horns”? “ceramics”?). Perhaps they were trying to steer away from the LXX “flocks” toward the MT meaning of “pens.”
OThis word for “pen/fold/fence” only occurs two other places in the Hebrew O.T., Ps. 78:70 and Hab. 3:17. LXX & Latin translate it “flocks,” but Peshitta supports the MT. Targum uses a root defined by Holladay as “flock together.”
PAquila followed the MT here with εν ‘ορεσι χιλιων (“on a thousand mountains”).
QLXX = “ripened thing,” Aquila = παντοδαπα (“all kinds”), Symmachus = πληθος (“fullness”), “E” = οναγρος (“wild donkey”) All translations from Liddell-Scott’s Lexicon.
RPeshita, Targum, Septuagint, and Vulgate all read “heavens” instead of “mountains.” The spelling of the two words is significantly different in Hebrew, so this isn’t merely a mis-read or mis-heard word by the copyists, but a variant tradition.
SThis word is only found 2 other places in the Hebrew O.T., Ps. 80:14 (where it is translated “movingNAS/insectsNIV/wildKJV”) and Isa. 66:11 (where it is translated “abundance/bountifulNAS”) Here, the Vulgate renders “beautiful,” the LXX = “ripe,” and the Peshitta = “animal.” BDB defines the root meaning as “conspicuous.” The idea of animal life is supported by the previous verse with behemot and chaiyto, and the idea of “fullness/abundance” is supported by meloach in the next verse.
TBauscher = “fullness,” Lamsa = “wild beasts,” but this verb appears to be the root for “living.”
UThis is a mature bull. Isa. 34:7 The previous occurrence in the Psalms is in 22:12 (“Bulls of Bashan”).
Vcf. v.9
WAquila translated ευχαριστιαν (“thanksgiving”) - which is closer to the MT.
XThis Piel form is only found 5 other places in the Hebrew O.T. (2 Ki. 4:7; Ps. 76:12; Eccl. 5:3; Jer. 50:29; Nah. 2:1), always with the meaning of fulfilling the terms of a vow, thus bringing it to completion and retirement.
YBauscher and Lamsa both translate this verb “strengthen.”