Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 50:3
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
3. In the preceding verses the Theophany is described as already visibly beginning. Instead of simply continuing that description, the poet-seer “imagines himself as an eager and interested spectator,” and prays God to come near and declare His will:
Let our God come, and not keep silence!
Fire devoureth before him,
And round about him it is very tempestuous.
See Driver, Hebrew Tenses, 58; and for similar constructions cp. Psa 41:2 (note); Isa 2:9.
Lightnings and storm are the outward symbols which express the awfulness of God’s coming to judgement. He is ‘a consuming fire’ (Deu 4:24; Deu 9:3; Heb 12:29) devouring His enemies; an irresistible whirlwind (Psa 58:9), sweeping them away like chaff (Psa 1:4; Isa 29:5). Cp. Exo 19:16; Exo 19:18; Isa 29:6; Psa 18:7 ff; Psa 97:2 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Our God shall come – That is, he will come to judgment. This language is derived from the supposition that God will judge the world, and it shows that this doctrine was understood and believed by the Hebrews. The New Testament has stated the fact that this will be done by the coming of his Son Jesus Christ to gather the nations before him, and to pronounce tile final sentence on mankind: Mat 25:31; Act 17:31; Act 10:42; Joh 5:22.
And shall not keep silence – That is, the will come forth and express his judgment on the conduct of mankind. See the notes at Psa 28:1. He seems now to be silent. No voice is heard. No sentence is pronounced. But this will not always be the case. The time is coming when he will manifest himself, and will no longer be silent as to the conduct and character of people, but will pronounce a sentence, fixing their destiny according to their character.
A fire shall devour before him – Compare the notes at 2Th 1:8; notes at Heb 10:27. The language here is undoubtedly taken from the representation of God as he manifested himself at Mount Sinai. Thus, in Exo 19:16, Exo 19:18, it is said, And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud; and Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
And it shall be very tempestuous round about him – The word used here – saar – means properly to shudder; to shiver; and then it is employed to denote the commotion and raging of a tempest. The allusion is doubtless to the descent on Mount Sinai Exo 19:16, and to the storm accompanied by thunder and lightning which beat upon the mountain when God descended on it to give his law. The whole is designed to represent God as clothed with appropriate majesty when judgment is to be pronounced upon the world.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 50:3
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence.
Our God shall come
I. The coming of our God. The expression is very striking: Our God shall come! Christ is God as well as man. His first coming was in His birth at Bethlehem. Here the psalmist contemplates His second coming. The cry may soon be heard, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, etc. It is of the utmost importance that we should be ready.
II. The manner of his coming. A fire shall devour, etc. It is impossible to describe the terror of that day!
III. The object of his coming. He shall call, etc. (R. Horsfall.)
The silence of God
I. Consider the marvellous, and, as some may think, mysterious silence of god during the present economy.
1. Rise in the morning, and go forth to look upon the world as the light reveals it to the eye. You see the sun mounting to his throne of glory, dispensing, as he goes, life and warmth and beauty over all the habitable globe. All nature awakes at his approach. But though there is a very orchestra of subtile sounds–the song of birds, the hum of insect life, the sough of the swaying pines, the rustle of the dewy leaves–yet nowhere in field or forest, on the green earth or in the deep blue sky, do you hear the voice of the Deity. God keeps silence!
2. Go climb some lofty mountain, until you have the clouds beneath your feet, and the world spread out in grand panorama before you, river and plain, hill and valley, city and hamlet. You seem to breathe the pure air of heaven, and to stand under its cloudless dome. But neither in that blue arch above you, nor among those vast ranges of billowy mountains which encompass you, nor from those yet loftier snow-clad peaks which tower up to heaven, arrayed in their white robes for ever as the high priests of nature, do you hear any whisper or echo of the voice of the invisible God. The cataract thunders in the gorge, the mountain-brook babbles in the valley, the sad sea-waves chant their dirge along the shore, the hoarse thunder reverberates from peak to peak, but God keeps silence.
3. Picture some of the scenes of shameful revelry nightly enacted in such a city as this, when the licence and impiety of Belshazzars feast are reproduced; when lips that were taught in infancy to lisp the name of God in prayer are made the instruments of ribaldry and blasphemy. Yet no handwriting on the wall rebukes the shameless revellers. God keeps silence!
4. Or, think of the deeds of wickedness daily wrought among men–mans inhumanity to man, the heartless cruelty with which the strong prey upon the weak, the oppressors wrongs, the proud mans contumely, deceit and falsehood, trickery and hypocrisy, wrong and robbery. God keeps silence!
II. Why does god keep silence?
1. A spiritual being cannot be apprehended by the senses. The eye of flesh, the ear of flesh cannot perceive the invisible God. It is the soul which perceives, hears, apprehends Him. Faith in God must remain a moral act; it must be the result of moral considerations, not of the formulas of logic. The stream cannot rise above its source; and belief in God, which should be the result of a logical demonstration, would remain an act of the logical faculties, and would have no moral value. Moreover, if the being and attributes of God were so plainly exhibited in the visible universe as to preclude the possibility of a doubt, a necessary element of mans probation would be wanting.
2. The probationary character of human life. If Gods presence and power and retributive justice were forced upon the attention of men, so that they could not escape the consciousness of it; if Gods voice were ever sounding in their ears in warning; and if punishment followed swiftly upon transgression–men in that case would act as truly under compulsion as if bound hand and foot, and driven by the whip of the taskmaster. There might be obedience to the Divine law; but it would be enforced obedience, and hence its moral value would be gone. (R. H. McKim, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Our God: these words are used here, as they are also Heb 12:29, emphatically. The prophet speaks this in the person of the Israelites and worshippers of God, whereof he was one, and thereby takes off their fond pretence, as if because God was their God, in covenant with them, and nearly related to them by Abraham his friend for ever, he would bear with their miscarriages, and would not deal so severely with them as some fancied; which also was their conceit, Jer 7:4, &c.; Mat 3:9,10. No, saith he, though he be our God, yet he will come to execute judgment upon us.
Shall come; either,
1. From heaven, his dwelling-place, to Zion, to sit in judgment there. Or,
2. Out of Zion to some other place, as was said on Psa 50:2.
And shall not keep silence: so the sense is, he will no longer forbear or connive at the hypocrisy and profaneness of the professors of the true religion, but will now speak to them in his wrath, and will effectually reprove and chastise them. But because the psalmist is not now describing what God did or would say against them, which he doth below, Psa 50:7, &c., but as yet continues in his description of the preparation or coming of the Judge to his throne, it seems more proper to translate the words, as some do, he will not cease, (for this verb signifies not only a cessation from speech, but from motion or action, as it doth 2Sa 19:11; Psa 83:1; Isa 42:14,15) i.e. not neglect or delay to come. So here is the same thing expressed, both affirmatively and negatively, (as is frequent in Scripture, whereof divers instances have been formerly given,) for the greater assurance of the truth of the thing.
It shall be very tempestuous round about him: this is a further description of that terrible majesty wherewith God clothed himself when he came to his tribunal, in token of that just severity which, he would use in his proceedings with them. He alludes to the manner of Gods appearance at Sinai, Exo 19, and intimates to them, that although Zion was a place of grace and blessing to all true Israelites, yet God would be as dreadful there to the hypocrites among them, as ever he was at Sinai. See Isa 33:14.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Our God shall come,…. That is, Christ, who is truly and properly God, and who was promised and expected as a divine Person; and which was necessary on account of the work he came about; and believers claim an interest in him as their God; and he is their God, in whom they trust, and whom they worship: and this coming of his is to be understood, not of his coming in the flesh; for though that was promised, believed, and prayed for, as these words are by some rendered, “may our God come” r; yet at his first coming he was silent, his voice was not heard in the streets, Mt 12:19; nor did any fire or tempest attend that: nor is it to be interpreted of his second coming, or coming to judgment; for though that also is promised, believed, and prayed for; and when he will not be silent, but by his voice will raise the dead, summon all before him, and pronounce the sentence on all; and the world, and all that is therein, will be burnt with fire, and a horrible tempest rained upon the wicked; yet it is better to understand it of his coming to set up his kingdom in the world, and to punish his professing people for their disbelief and rejection of him; see Mt 16:28;
and shall not keep silence; contain himself, bear with the Jews any longer, but come forth in his wrath against them; see Ps 50:21; and it may also denote the great sound of the Gospel, and the very public ministration of it in the Gentile world, at or before this time, for the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom in it;
a fire shall devour before him; meaning either the fire of the divine word making its way among the Gentiles, consuming their idolatry, superstition, c. or rather the fire of divine wrath coming upon the Jews to the uttermost and even it may be literally understood of the fire that consumed their city and temple, as was predicted, Zec 11:1
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him; the time of Jerusalem’s destruction being such a time of trouble as has not been since the world began, Mt 24:21.
r “veniat”, Junius Tremellius so Ainsworth.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
3. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence (243) He repeats that God would come, in order to confirm his doctrine, and more effectually arouse them. He would come, and should not always keep silence, lest they should be encouraged to presume upon his forbearance. Two reasons may be assigned why the prophet calls God our God He may be considered as setting himself, and the comparatively small number of the true fearers of the Lord, in opposition to the hypocrites whom he abhors, claiming God to be his God, and not theirs, as they were disposed to boast; or rather, he speaks as one of the people, and declares that the God who was coming to avenge the corruptions of his worship was the same God whom all the children of Abraham professed to serve. He who shall come, as if he had said, is our God, the same in whom we glory, who established his covenant with Abraham, and gave us his Law by the hand of Moses. He adds, that God would come with fire and tempest, in order to awaken a salutary fear in the secure hearts of the Jews, that they might learn to tremble at the judgments of God, which they had hitherto regarded with indifference and despised, and in allusion to the awful manifestation which God made of himself from Sinai, (Exo 19:16; see also Heb 12:18.) The air upon that occasion resounded with thunders and the noise of trumpets, the heavens were illuminated with lightnings, and the mountain was in flames, it being the design of God to procure a reverential submission to the Law which he announced. And it is here intimated, that God would make a similarly terrific display of his power, in coming to avenge the gross abuses of his holy religion.
(243) This negative form of expression is employed to give greater emphasis.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) Our God shall come . . . shall devour . . . shall be.Better, comes . . . devours . . . is. The drama, the expected scene having been announced, now opens. The vision unfolds itself before the poets eye.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Is an allusion to Lev 10:2; Num 16:26. See Psa 97:3.
Tempestuous Like the terrifying scenes of Sinai, Exo 19:16. Compare Psa 18:8-14
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 50:3. Our God shall come That is Christ. Now there are three comings of Christ expressed in the Scripture; the first in humility, in our flesh and nature; the last in glory, for the judging of the whole world; and an intermediate coming, in which he was to effect mighty works by the power of his Spirit. The psalm seems to belong most signally to this coming of our Saviour, as also Psa 96:10-13. He shall not keep silence, means, according to the original, shall not delay. The figurative expressions in the latter part of the verse represent the terrible manner of his coming, and allude to the giving of the law from mount Sinai.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
In few words, but most striking terms, the vast difference is here pointed out between the righteous and the sinner. But observe how reference is made to the sacrifice. And what is this but Christ the great Sacrifice, the only Sacrifice! Heb_10:10; Heb_10:14 . And the very inanimate bodies shall be witnesses to the righteousness of Jesus, for God himself gives the decision.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 50:3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
Ver. 3. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence ] He doth daily come and sit upon the tribunal in his Church by the ministry of his servants, Mat 18:17 , who must reprove sinners with all authority, and show themselves sons of thunder, that they may save some at least with fear, snatching them out of the fire, Jdg 1:23 , as Peter, Act 2:40 , and Paul, 2Co 5:11 , but especially when, to work upon the Proconsul Paulus Sergius, he set his eyes upon Elymas the sorcerer, as if he would have looked through him; after which lightning followed that terrible thunder crack, “O thou full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the straight ways of the Lord?” Act 13:9-10 .
A fire shall devour before him
And it shall be very tempestuous round about him
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
shall come. The promise of Exo 3:7, Exo 3:8 turned into a prayer. Compare Isa 11:11.
not keep silence. Now He is keeping silence. But He will speak again, and here we are told what He will say.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Our: Psa 48:14, Psa 68:20, Rev 22:20
keep: Psa 50:21, Psa 83:1, Isa 42:13, Isa 42:14, Isa 65:6, Isa 65:7
a fire: Psa 97:3, Exo 19:18, Lev 10:2, Num 16:35, Deu 9:3, 1Ki 19:11, 1Ki 19:12, Dan 7:10, Nah 1:5-7, Hab 3:5, Mal 3:2, Mal 3:3, Mal 4:1, Mat 3:12, 2Th 1:8, 2Th 1:9, Heb 2:3, Heb 10:28, Heb 10:29, Heb 12:18-21, Heb 12:29
it shall: Psa 18:7-15, Psa 97:4, Psa 97:5
Reciprocal: Exo 14:14 – hold Exo 19:16 – thunders 2Ki 19:7 – a blast Job 40:6 – out Psa 9:7 – he hath Psa 83:15 – General Psa 104:32 – he toucheth Isa 10:17 – for a flame Isa 26:21 – Lord Isa 33:14 – Who among us shall dwell with the Isa 35:4 – behold Isa 66:15 – the Lord Eze 1:4 – a great Eze 1:27 – the appearance of fire Eze 22:21 – and blow Joe 2:3 – fire Nah 1:3 – his way Hab 1:13 – holdest Mal 3:5 – I will come Mat 25:6 – Behold Mat 25:32 – he shall separate Joh 5:22 – General Act 24:25 – judgment 2Co 5:10 – we 2Pe 3:7 – the heavens 2Pe 3:12 – the heavens
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE SILENCE OF GOD
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence.
Psa 50:3; Psa 50:21
These two sentencesoccurring as they do in the same psalmare startling and suggestive.
I. The silence of Godwhat is it?Look at His commands and threatenings, and at what He is doing, and you will see. His voice was heard on Sinai, saying, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. But is it not true that men daily blaspheme that worthy Name by the which ye are called? that there are many of whom it may be said, He clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment? And while this stream of blasphemy is flowing from human lips, does it not seem as if God took no notice of itas if He had forgotten His threatening, and neither cared nor knew what men are doing? To use their own words, Thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee: when thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker of adulterers: thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit; thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mothers son,these things [besides many others forbidden in the Scriptures] thou hast done, and I kept silence. How striking the thought! How wonderful Jehovahs forbearance! Men have denied His existence, defied Him to execute judgment, and iniquity in every conceivable form has been perpetrated for ages, yet the silence remains unbroken. For centuries there has been no visible manifestation of Gods presenceno utterance of His voice as in Edenon Sinaiin the desertor on Judeas plains. But is God forgetful, or careless, or indifferent, respecting the treatment of His laws and the veracity of His statements? Nay, verily.
II. The silence will be broken.Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. He will yet cause His glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of His arm, with the indignation of His anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones. His voice will be heard calling His people to Himself, and commanding His foes to destruction. His law will be vindicated. His honour maintained. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest as the two shebears destroyed the forty-two children who mocked Elisha, so He tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver (Psa 50:22). The Lion of the tribe of Judah will arise from His lair. He shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. The silence of centuries will be terribly broken when the heavens shall be lighted up with the glory of God, and the despised Nazarene ascends the throne of universal empire. His voice will sound through the ages, and penetrate the deepest grave, and as the ransomed millions put on immortalityand give the royal salutation, O King! live for ever, the hosts of hell will realise that God has broken earths silence, and the import of these two sentences of the fiftieth psalm will be fully understood by saint and sinner.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Psa 50:3-4. Our God shall come, &c. God will undoubtedly come and call us to judgment; though now he seems to take no notice of our conduct. The prophet speaks this in the person of one of Gods worshippers. As if he had said, Though he be our God, yet he will execute judgment upon us. And shall not keep silence He will no longer connive at, or bear with, the hypocrisy and profaneness of the professors of the true religion, but will now speak unto them in his wrath, and will effectually reprove and chastise them. Or, he will not cease, that is, neglect or delay to come, as , al jecheresh, may be interpreted. A fire shall devour before him, &c. He will not come like earthly princes, before whom marches an armed multitude; but in a far more terrible and irresistible manner, which shall make you as sensible of his dreadful presence, as your ancestors were at mount Sinai, when the devouring flames, and thunder, and lightning, which attended him, made the very mountain quake and tremble. He shall call to the heavens, &c. He shall call heaven and earth (angels and men) to be witnesses of the equity of his proceedings, Isa 1:2; and you may as soon move them out of their place, as avoid appearing before his tribunal. Bishop Patrick. This is evidently a prediction of the terrible manner of Gods coming to execute judgment on the apostate Jews and Israelites, partly by the kings of Assyria and Babylon, who laid waste their country, destroyed their cities, and carried multitudes of them into captivity; and more especially in their last destruction by the Romans, when a signal vengeance was taken on them, as for their hypocrisy, abuse of their privileges, and all their other sins, so in particular for crucifying their own Messiah. This most terrible execution of divine wrath upon them was frequently foretold by the prophets: see Mal 3:2; and Mal 4:1; Isa 66:15; Isa 66:17; and is often represented in the Scriptures as the coming of the kingdom of God, of the Son of man, or of Christ, the Father having committed all judgment to him. Now this prediction in this Psalm seems especially to respect this event. And it has accordingly been so interpreted by the best Christian expositors, as Poole has shown in his Synopsis Criticorum; where he likewise tells us that the Jewish rabbis affirm the subject of the Psalm to be, that judgment, which will be executed in the days of the Messiah; ignorant, alas! says Dr. Horne, that they themselves, and their people are now become the unhappy objects of that judgment.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
50:3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a {d} fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
(d) As when God gave his law in mount Sinai he appeared terrible with thunder and tempest, so will he appear terrible to take account for the keeping of it.