Psalms 50:8

Psa 50:8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, [to have been] continually before me.

Ver. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices] i.e. For thy neglect of them, but for thy resting in them, sticking in the bark, bringing me the bare shell without the kernel, not referring thy sacrifices to the right end and use; but satisfying thyself in the work done. This was afterwards the sin of the Pharisees, is still of the Papists, and of too many carnal gospellers, who think they have served God, for they have been at church, done their devoir, for they have said their prayers, &c. Yea, many of the better sort among us hold only a certain stint of daily duties, as malt horses their pace, or mill horses their round, that move much, remove little, out of custom or form. Yea, the best find it hard enough to be in duty in respect of performance, and out of duty in respect of dependence; to do all righteousness, and yet to rest in none but Christ’s.

Or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me] Heb. Thy burnt offerings have been continually before me; so that I am sated with the very sight of them, Isa 1:11; there God complained that all his senses were wearied, and his soul vexed, by the abundance of their outward ceremonies, but want of moral service.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa_50:8-13

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings.

Lessons

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; i.e. for thy neglect of them, but for thy resting in them, sticking in the bark, bringing Me the bare shell without the kernel, not referring to the right end and use, but satisfying thyself in the work done. (John Trapp.)

Lifeless duties

Go out into the woods, where the white oak is, and where the beech is. Their leaves died last November, but they all hang on the trees yet. The trees have not strength to slough them. They always make me think of a great many people. Sap does not run in them any more, but their duties hang on them like dead leaves all over. They would not like to drop their duties: they are not quite in that state yet; but those duties are dry, sapless and enforced. (E. P. Thwing.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Psa 50:8-13. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, &c. — This is not the principal matter of my charge against thee, that thou hast neglected sacrifices, which thou shouldest have offered; for, although thou hast often omitted thy duty even in that respect, yet I have greater things than these to charge thee with. I will take no bullock, &c. — Be not so foolish as to imagine that thou dost lay any obligations upon me by thy sacrifices, or that I required them because I had need of them, or took any pleasure or satisfaction in them for their own sakes. Every beast of the forest is mine — I could command or dispose of them at my pleasure, without thy leave or assistance; and the cattle, &c. — Which feed upon innumerable hills, or in valleys and fields. I know all the fowls, &c. — Where they are, and whence I could easily fetch them when I please; and not only tame and domestic fowls, but even such as are wild and fly up and down upon mountains; which, though out of man’s reach, are at my command. If I were hungry — If I wanted or desired any thing, which I do not, being the all-sufficient God; I would not tell thee — That thou mightest supply my wants. For the world is mine, &c. — And all those creatures wherewith it is replenished. Will I eat the flesh of bulls? — If I did want any thing, hast thou such gross and carnal conceptions of me as to suppose that I need or delight in the blood of brute creatures?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. (Psa 50:8) Not for thy sacrifices will I reprove thee, and thy burnt-offerings before me always. The insertion of the words to have been, in the common version, seems to make the clause mean, that although they had neglected this external rite, it was of no importance, whereas the simple meaning of the Hebrew sentence is, that they were not chargeable with this neglect, implying that the observance was obligatory, which is in perfect keeping with the tenor of the psalm. "I do not charge thee with withholding the material offerings to which I am entitled, for in truth they are ever before me." To the generic term sacrifices, animal oblations, he adds the more specific one, burnt-offering, the usual English version of a Hebrew term, denoting the principal and ordinary expiatory offering of the Mosaic ritual. See above, on Psa 20:4 (3), Psa 407 (6).

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For I pass not for sacrifices, except the true use be there, which is to confirm your faith in my promises.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

However scrupulous in external worship, it was offered as if they conferred an obligation in giving God His own, and with a degrading view of Him as needing it [Psa 50:9-13]. Reproving them for such foolish and blasphemous notions, He teaches them to offer, or literally, "sacrifice," thanksgiving, and pay, or perform, their vows--that is, to bring, with the external symbolical service, the homage of the heart, and faith, penitence, and love. To this is added an invitation to seek, and a promise to afford, all needed help in trouble.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. I will not reprove thee] I do not mean to find fault with you for not offering sacrifices; you have offered them, they have been continually before me: but you have not offered them in the proper way.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, etc. God now proceeds to state the charge which he adduced against them. He declares, that he attached no value whatsoever to sacrifices in themselves considered. Not that he asserts this rite of the Jews to have been vain and useless, for in that case it never would have been instituted by God; but there is this difference betwixt religious exercises and others, that they can only meet the approbation of God when performed in their true spirit and meaning. On any other supposition they are deservedly rejected. Similar language we will find employed again and again by the prophets, as I have remarked in other places, and particularly in connection with the fortieth psalm. Mere outward ceremonies being therefore possessed of no value, God repudiates the idea that he had ever insisted upon them as the main thing in religion, or designed that they should be viewed in any other light than as helps to spiritual worship. Thus in Jeremiah 7:22, he denies that he had issued any commandment regarding sacrifices; and the prophet Micah says,

“Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy?” — (Micah 6:7)

“I desire mercy,” he says in another place, (Hosea 6:6,) “and not sacrifice.” The same doctrine is every where declared by the prophets. I might refer especially to the prophecies of Isaiah, chapter 1:12; 58:1, 2; 66:3. The sacrifices of the ungodly are not only represented as worthless and rejected by the Lord, but as peculiarly calculated to provoke his anger. Where a right use has been made of the institution, and they have been observed merely as ceremonies for the confirmation and increase of faith, then they are described as being essentially connected with true religion; but when offered without faith, or, what is still worse, under the impression of their meriting the favor of God for such as continue in their sins, they are reprobated as a mere profanation of divine worship. It is evident, then, what God means when he says, I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; he looked to something beyond these. The last clause of the verse may be understood as asserting that their burnt-offerings were before the eyes of the Lord to the producing even of satiety and disgust, as we find him saying, (Isaiah 1:13,) that they were “an abomination unto him.” There are some, however, who consider the negative in the beginning of the verse as applying to both clauses, and that God here declares that he did not design to reckon with them for any want of regularity in the observance of their sacrifices. It has been well suggested by some, that the relative may be understood, Thy burnt-offerings which are continually before me; as if he had said, According to the Law these are imperative; but I will bring no accusation against you at this time for omitting your sacrifices.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) I will not . . .—Better, Not on account of thy sacrifices do I reprove thee, nor thy burnt offerings, which are always before me. This part of the nation is judged not for neglect of ritual, but for mistaken regard for it. (See Introduction to this psalm.)

As usual in such visions of judgment (comp. Mat_25:32) the arraigned nation is separated into two classes when brought before the bar of the judge, and the better part is first reproved.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. Render with R.V.,

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;

And thy burnt offerings are continually before me.

This rendering is grammatically preferable to that of R.V. marg. Nor for thy burnt offerings, which are &c., which gives substantially the same sense. God’s indictment does not relate to sacrifice: the stated offerings are duly presented. Continually seems to allude to the ‘continual burnt offering,’ which was offered daily, morning and evening. See Num_28:3 ff.

9ff. The owner of the vast herds of animals which roam the forests and range over a thousand mountains is not like some earthly king who comes and takes the choicest of his subjects’ possessions at his will (1Sa_8:16 f.). The phrase rendered upon a thousand hills may mean upon the mountains where thousands are. The construction in either case is peculiar, and it has been conjectured that we should read upon the mountains of God, as in Psa_36:6; but the alteration is hardly necessary.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices,.... For the neglect of them; this they were not chargeable with; and had they omitted them, a charge would not have been brought against them on that account, since these were not what God commanded when he brought them out of Egypt, Jer 7:22; and were now abrogated; and when they were in force, acts of mercy, kindness, and beneficence, were preferred unto them, Hos 6:6;

or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me; or, "for thy burnt offerings are continually before me" (u); so far were they from being reprovable for not bringing their sacrifices, that they were continually offering up before the Lord even multitudes of them, though to no purpose, being offered up without faith, and in hypocrisy; and could not take away sin, and make atonement for it; and besides, ought now to have ceased to be offered, Christ the great sacrifice being now offered up, as he was in the times to which this psalm belongs; see Isa 1:14; wherefore it follows:

(u) So Tigurine version, Vatablus, Piscator, Cocceius, and Ainsworth.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings - On the words “sacrifices” and “burnt-offerings” here used, see the notes at Isa 1:11. The meaning is, “I do not reprove or rebuke you in respect to the withholding of sacrifices. I do not charge you with neglecting the offering of such sacrifices. I do not accuse the nation of indifference in regard to the external rites or duties of religion. It is not on this ground that you are to be blamed or condemned, for that duty is outwardly and publicly performed. I do not say that such offerings are wrong; I do not say that there has been any failure in the external duties of worship. The charge - the reproof - relates to other matters; to the want of a proper spirit, to the withholding of the heart, in connection with such offerings.”

To have been continually before me - The words “to have been” are inserted by the translators, and weaken the sense. The simple idea is, that their offerings “were” continually before him; that is, they were constantly made. He had no charge of neglect in this respect to bring against them. The insertion of the words “to have been” would seem to imply that though they had neglected this external rite, it was a matter of no consequence; whereas the simple meaning is, that they were “not” chargeable with this neglect, or that there was “no” cause of complaint on this point. It was on other grounds altogether that a charge was brought against them. It was, as the following verses show, because they supposed there was special “merit” in such offerings; because they supposed that they laid God under obligation by so constant and so expensive offerings, as if they did not already belong to him, or as if he needed them; and because, while they did this, they withheld the very offering which he required, and without which all other sacrifices would be vain and worthless - a sincere, humble, thankful heart.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I do not charge thee, or at least this is not the principal matter of my charge, that thou hast neglected sacrifices which thou shouldst have offered; for although thou hast many times omitted thy duty in that kind, yet I have greater things than these to charge thee with.

To have been; or, they have been. I confess thou hast been frequent in that work, and hast laid too great a stress upon it, and satisfied thy conscience with it, as if thereby thou hadst made me amends for the errors of thy life.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been ever before me. Though they had not failed in maintaining his outward worship, or even if they had, he was not about to call them to account for this: a more weighty matter was now under consideration. They thought the daily sacrifices and the abounding burnt offerings to be everything: he counted them nothing if the inner sacrifice of heart devotion had been neglected. What was greatest with them was least with God. It is even so today. Sacraments (so called) and sacred rites are them main concern with unconverted but religious men, but with the Most High the spiritual worship which they forget is the sole matter. Let the external be maintained by all means, according to the divine command, but if the secret and spiritual be not in them, they are a vain oblation, a dead ritual, and even an abomination before the Lord.

Ver. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; i.e., for thy neglect of them, but for thy resting in them, sticking in the bark, bringing me the bare shell without the kernel, not referring to the right end and use, but satisfying thyself in the work done. John Trapp.

Ver. 8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings continually before me. Those words to have been, which our translators supply, may be left out, and the sense remain perfect: or if those words be continued, then the negative particle not, is to be reassumed out of the first part of the verse, and the whole read thus, I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, or thy burnt offerings not to have been continually before me. That is, I will not charge thee with a neglect of outward duty or worship, the inward or spiritual (of which he speaks, Ps 50:14), being that which is most pleasing unto me. Joseph Caryl.

Ver. 8-9. It is the very remonstrance which our Lord himself makes against the Pharisees of his days, for laying so much stress on the outward observance of their own traditions, the washing of pots and cups and other such like things; the paying of tithes of anise and mint and cummin; the ostentatious fulfilment of all ceremonious observances in the eyes of men, the exalting the shadow to the exclusion of the substance. And have we not seen the like in our own days, even to the very vestment of the minister, the obeisance of the knee, and the posture of the body? as if the material church were all in all, and God were not Spirit, that demanded of those that worshipped him that they should worship him in spirit and in truth; as if the gold and ornaments of the temple were far beyond the hidden man of the heart in that which is incorruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. Barton Bouchier.

None.

Psalms 50:9*

Ver. 8-9. It is the very remonstrance which our Lord himself makes against the Pharisees of his days, for laying so much stress on the outward observance of their own traditions, the washing of pots and cups and other such like things; the paying of tithes of anise and mint and cummin; the ostentatious fulfilment of all ceremonious observances in the eyes of men, the exalting the shadow to the exclusion of the substance. And have we not seen the like in our own days, even to the very vestment of the minister, the obeisance of the knee, and the posture of the body? as if the material church were all in all, and God were not Spirit, that demanded of those that worshipped him that they should worship him in spirit and in truth; as if the gold and ornaments of the temple were far beyond the hidden man of the heart in that which is incorruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. Barton Bouchier.

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings. It is for no neglect of the outward ritual of religion of sacrifice and offering that I have to reprove thee. To have been continually before me; rather, they have been continually before me. I have had enough of them, and to spare. Not only have the daily morning and evening sacrifices been regularly offered, and the national worship thus kept up without a break; but the private offerings of individuals (see vers. 9, 13) have been continuous and ample in number. But they have not been acceptable.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will not - This is not the principal matter of my charge, that thou hast neglected sacrifices which thou shouldst have offered.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

I will not reprove you concerning your sacrifices If you do not bring Me sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are not before Me constantly. I do not set My eyes and My heart on that.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.