Psalms 50:1

Psalm 50 ¹ 

A psalm by Asaph.

50:1 El, God, the Lord ²  speaks,

and summons the earth to come from the east and west. ³ 

Psalms 113:3

113:3 From east to west ⁴ 

the Lord’s name is deserving of praise.

Isaiah 45:6

45:6 I do this ⁵  so people ⁶  will recognize from east to west

that there is no God but me;

I am the Lord, I have no peer.

Isaiah 59:19

59:19 In the west, people respect ⁷  the Lord’s reputation; ⁸ 

in the east they recognize his splendor. ⁹ 

For he comes like a rushing ¹⁰  stream

driven on by wind sent from the Lord. ¹¹ 

Zechariah 8:7

8:7 “The Lord who rules over all asserts, ‘I am about to save my people from the lands of the east and the west.

¹ sn Psalm 50. This psalm takes the form of a covenant lawsuit in which the Lord comes to confront his people in a formal manner (as in Isa 1:2-20). The Lord emphasizes that he places priority on obedience and genuine worship, not empty ritual.

² sn Israel’s God is here identified with three names: El (אֵל [’el], or “God”), Elohim (אֱלֹהִים [’elohim], or “God”), and Yahweh (יְהוָה [yÿhvah] or “the Lord”). There is an obvious allusion here to Josh 22:22, the only other passage where these three names appear in succession. In that passage the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh declare, “El, God, the Lord! El, God, the Lord! He knows the truth! Israel must also know! If we have rebelled or disobeyed the Lord, don’t spare us today!” In that context the other tribes had accused the trans-Jordanian tribes of breaking God’s covenant by worshiping idols. The trans-Jordanian tribes appealed to “El, God, the Lord” as their witness that they were innocent of the charges brought against them. Ironically here in Ps 50 “El, God, the Lord” accuses his sinful covenant people of violating the covenant and warns that he will not spare them if they persist in their rebellion.

³ tn Heb “and calls [the] earth from the sunrise to its going.”

⁴ tn Heb “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” The extent is not temporal (“from sunrise to sunset”) but spatial (“from the place where the sun rises [the east] to the place where it sets [the west].” In the phenomenological language of OT cosmology, the sun was described as rising in the east and setting in the west.

⁷ tn The words “I do this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁸ tn Heb “they” (so KJV, ASV); TEV, CEV “everyone”; NLT “all the world.”

¹⁰ tc Heb “fear.” A few medieval Hebrew mss read “see.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and they fear from the west the name of the Lord.”

¹² tn Heb “and from the rising of the sun his splendor.”

¹³ tn Heb “narrow”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “pent-up.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “the wind of the Lord drives it on.” The term רוּחַ (ruakh) could be translated “breath” here (see 30:28).