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 50:9

Eastern Fathers

Hesychius of Jerusalem

The Jews, hearing these things, did not believe, and they doubted they were able to happen. Now the word is proven. They no longer have the place of their sacrifice, since the temple has been destroyed, the altar collapsed and all their administration carried away, even the city overturned, in which it was necessary to sacrifice according to law.

Large COMMENTARY ON PSALMS 50:8

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

As yet that Israel perchance doth not understand what are the holocausts thereof which He hath in His sight always, and is still thinking of oxen, of sheep, of he-goats: let it not so think: "I will not accept calves of thy house." Holocausts I named; at once in mind and thought to earthly flocks thou wast running, therefrom thou wast selecting for Me some fat thing: "I will not accept calves of thy house." He is foretelling the New Testament, wherein all those sacrifices have ceased. …

Exposition on Psalm 50 ↗

Thomas Aquinas

On the part of God he makes the reason clear when he says, "I will not accept calves from your house." The reason I will not reprove you for sacrifices is that what I do not principally seek, I do not principally reprove. There were two principal sacrifices: the calf and the goat. Lev. 4. And he shows that he does not accept these two, that is, approve them, from the house of carnal men: "From your flocks," namely carnal ones, "I will accept," that is, approve, "goats." Mic. 6: "Can the Lord be appeased with thousands of rams?"

Exposition on the Psalms of David ↗