God Calls On The Whole Earth To Witness His Coming To Judge His People (Psalms 50:1-6).
This section can be divided up as follows:
· Who it is Who is coming (Psalms 50:1).
· Where He is coming from and how He is coming (Psalms 50:2).
· The glory in which He is coming (Psalms 50:3).
· The purpose of His coming (Psalms 50:4-6).
Who It Is Who Is Coming (Psalms 50:1).
‘The Mighty One, God, YHWH,
He has spoken and called the earth,
From the rising of the sun,
To its going down.'
The One Who is coming is El Elohim YHWH, the mighty God of Gods, YHWH. This unusual combination of divine names is found nowhere else in this particular formation. But the three names do appear together in Joshua 22:22, which speaks of YHWH El Elohim in a most solemn oath; Deuteronomy 4:31, where His people are told ‘YHWH your Elohim is a merciful El'; Deuteronomy 5:9, where God declares, ‘I YHWH your Elohim am a jealous El', (compare Deuteronomy 6:15); and Deuteronomy 7:9 where His people are told, ‘YHWH your Elohim, He is Elohim, El the faithful.'
The three names bring out three aspects of God. As El He reveals Himself as the Mighty One. As Elohim He reveals Himself as the Creator of Heaven and earth, the One Who is manifest through creation (Psalms 19:1-6; Genesis 1:1). As YHWH He reveals Himself as Israel's covenant God, the Self-revealing One (Exodus 3:14-15; Exodus 6:3; Exodus 20:2). And finally His universality is revealed in that He speaks to the whole known earth, and those who dwell in it, from where the sun rises in the east to where it sets in the west. All are under His sway and are to be interested in His verdict.
Where He Is Coming From And How He Is Coming (Psalms 50:2 a).
‘Out of Zion,
The perfection of beauty,
God has shone forth.
In the ancient days God shone forth from the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34; Exodus 40:38). He also shone forth from Sinai and Mount Paran on behalf of His people (Deuteronomy 33:2). Now He is revealing Himself from Mount Zion. It is an open question whether ‘the perfection of beauty' refers to Zion, or to God. (Do we read as ‘Zion which is the perfection of beauty' (compare Psalms 48:2; Lamentations 2:15) or as ‘As the perfection of beauty God has shone forth' - compare Psalms 29:2). Israel may well have seen Zion, where God dwelt, as the perfection of beauty because of the fact that He dwelt there, something confirmed in Lamentations 2:15, but the fulsome description might be seen as favouring the idea that it refers to God Himself. Lamentations 2:15 may then have arisen from a later application of this description to Zion on the basis of this Psalm. It is not really important. Under either interpretation the perfection of beauty is finally God's.
Israel did not believe that God was limited to Mount Zion, any more than they saw Him as limited to the Tabernacle or to Sinai. The point was rather that these were places where God had been pleased to manifest Himself on behalf of His people. They knew, however, that, in the words of Solomon, ‘even the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built' (1 Kings 8:27).
The Glory In Which He Is Coming (Psalms 50:3 b).
Our God comes,
And does not keep silence,
Fire devours before him,
And it is very tempestuous round about him.
God is not coming in silence. He is coming to speak openly to His people, whether out of the splendour of Zion as indwelt by Him, or out of His own glorious splendour. And His glory is revealed as being like a mighty storm, with lightning devouring before Him, and a raging tempest swirling around Him. Compare Psalms 19:1-6. There also He was to be worshipped in ‘the beauty of holiness'.
The vision of God as coming in a raging and violent storm is a regular one in Scripture. E.g. Psalms 18:7-14; Psalms 19:1-6; Psalms 97:2-5; Exodus 19:16-18; Isaiah 29:6. For God as a consuming fire see Deuteronomy 4:24; Deuteronomy 9:3; Hebrews 12:29.
The Purpose Of His Coming Is To Judge His People (Psalms 50:4-6).
He calls to the heavens above,
And to the earth, that he may judge his people,
Gather my saints together to me,
Those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
And the heavens will declare his righteousness,
For God is judge himself. [Selah
It is stressed that He has come to pass judgment on His people. The call to Heaven and earth concerning His judgment of His people is paralleled in Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 4:32; Deuteronomy 31:28; Deuteronomy 32:1; Isaiah 1:2-3. Compare Micah 1:2; Micah 6:1-2. They, including their inhabitants, are solemn witnesses who have seen all that has happened since creation.
He desires that His people be gathered together, ‘Those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice'. It is they who made a covenant with Him at Sinai through the blood of the sacrifices (Exodus 24), and are sealed by the blood of the covenant, something which they have ratified since then by continuing sacrifices, and it is they who are being called on to fulfil their responsibilities towards Him. Then the Heavens will declare His righteous judgments, because it is God Himself Who is judging.
The call goes out to gather His ‘saints' together. Note the use of ‘saints' (chasid, who are those on whom He has set His covenant love (chesed)), to signify the true people of God. The call may be addressed to the leaders of the people who normally summoned the assembly, or to the angels in Heaven (compare Matthew 24:31), or to Heaven and earth as a whole, or may simply be a general request indicating His desire that they might be gathered together. Whichever is true what matters is that His true people are to be brought together. They were to some extent brought together during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and in the inter-testamental period, when Israel were once again established as a believing people, and it has been most gloriously fulfilled in establishing the believing remnant of Israel who formed the people of the Messiah, who have gradually become known as ‘the church (ekklesia)', having incorporated within them believers in the Messiah from among the Gentiles. They are now the true Israel.
‘And the heavens will declare his righteousness.' This may be stressing that because God is the judge, it is the Heavens and not earth who will declare His righteous judgment, or it may be indicating that the Heavens will confirm the righteousness of the Judge, because the Judge is God Himself. Either way the judgment can be seen as just and righteous.