GLEANINGS IN THE PSALMS

(Psalm 50)

Verse 1. “The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun …” The exordium or beginning of this psalm is the most grand and striking that can possibly be imagined. The speaker God, the audience an assembled world! We cannot compare or assimilate the scene here presented to us with any human resemblance; nor do I imagine that earth will ever behold such a day until that hour when the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, and shall gather all the nations of the earth from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. When the dead, small and great, shall stand before the Lord, and sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and hell shall deliver up the dead that are in them.

Barton Boucher

Verse 5. “Gather my saints unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Soldiers used to take an oath to their leaders; this they called, “A military oath.” Such an oath lies upon every Christian – “those that have made a covenant” with God. When we take upon us the profession of Christ's name, we enlist ourselves in His muster-roll, and by this do promise that we will live and die with Him. He will not entertain us until we resign ourselves freely to His disposal, so that there may be no disputing with His commands afterward, but, as one under His authority, go and come at His Word.”

William Gurnall

Verse 15. “Call upon me in the day of trouble …” Who will scrape to the gamekeeper for a piece of venison who may have free access to the Master of the game to ask and to have? Hanker not after other helpers, rely on Him only, fully trusting Him by using such means as He prescribes. God is jealous, and will have no co-rival, nor allow thee two strings to thy bow. He who “worketh all in all” must be unto thee all in all, for “of him, and through him, and to him are all things.”

George Gipps

Verse 16. “Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?” “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly to a fool.” No wonder then that the Lord requires us to put off the old man (as snakes put off their skins) before we take on ourselves that most honourable office of reproving sin. None can feel himself qualified or commissioned to be a reprover of sin “Till he is washed, till he is sanctified, till he is justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of God”.

Daniel Burgess

Verse 17. “Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.” What a monstrosity that men should declare those statutes which with their hearts they do not know, and which in their lives they openly disavow! In these last days there are pickers and choosers of God's words who cannot endure the practical part of Scripture. It is an ill sign when a man dare not look a scripture in the face, and endeavour to prove it to be less sweeping in its demands than it is. How powerful is the argument that such men have no right to take the covenant of God into their mouths, seeing that its spirit does not regulate their lives.

C. H. Spurgeon

Verse 18. “When thou sawest a thief, then thou consented with him.” This was literally true of the Pharisees and Scribes – they consented to the deeds of Barabbas the robber, when they preferred him to Jesus Christ; and they joined with the thieves on the crosses in reviling him.

John Gill

Verse 20. “Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother …” The favourite prey of the critics are the Ministers of the gospel, and on Sundays, when religious people think it right to talk religion, they keep the rule to the letter: – “Dinner is over! Bring the walnuts, and let us also crack the reputations of a minister or two. It is a pious exercise for the Sabbath.”

Eccentric Preachers

Verse 21. “… Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself …” Such is the blindness and corruption of our nature, that we have very deformed and mis-shapen thoughts of our God, till by the eye of faith we see His face in the mirror of His Word. Therefore, Mr Perkins affirms, all men who ever came of Adam, (with the exception of Christ) are by nature atheists, because although they acknowledge God, they deny His power, presence, and justice, and allow Him to be only what pleases themselves.

William Gurnall

Verse 23. “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me …” Praise is a setting forth of God's honour, a lifting up of his name, a displaying of the trophy of his goodness; a spreading of his renown.