Fathers

Psalms 50

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The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out. Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him. He calls to the heavens above, 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.” The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. “Hear, my people, and I will speak. Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.” But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers. “You give your mouth to evil. Your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. 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. “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver. Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 50:14

Eastern Fathers

Clement of Rome

The Master, brothers, has need of nothing at all. He desires not anything of anyone, save to confess to him.

1 Clement 52 ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Say then, Lord our God, what do You enjoin your people, Your Israel? "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise" [Psalm 50:14]. Let us also say to Him, "In me, O God, are your vows, which I will render of prose to You." I had feared lest You might enjoin something which would be out of my power, which I was counting to be in my pen, and but now perchance it had been taken away by a thief. What do You enjoin me? …

Exposition on Psalm 50 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

"Offer to God." Here he shows what that sacrifice is which God accepts. And first he shows what God accepts from man. Second, what he gives in return. The Lord requires two things from man. First, the sacrifice of praise. And praise is called a sacrifice because sacrifice is nothing other than a profession of interior devotion and faith; for through sacrifice we acknowledge God as the creator of all things. 1 Chr. …

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗

Bonaventure

But the sacrifice of praise imposes upon the heart something naturally related to judgment: it is concerned with a command of nature; and in this all true philosophers agree. Hence he says that "whoever doubts whether parents are to be honored and God is to be venerated, is deserving of punishment."

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 5 ↗