Tehillim 50 | “Those who bring Me offerings of thanksgiving honor Me”

This psalm is a didactic composition — it is not a prayer directed toward God, but rather a message meant to educate the public and present a worldview. Often, people who sin do not see themselves as wicked. They think of themselves as deeply righteous, or at least basically fine, and misjudge the proper order of priorities in the eyes of God. It seems this psalm was recited during a public moment of sacrificial offerings in the Temple, and it sought to teach the assembled, both the righteous and the sinners, what is true service of God. The psalm opens with God summoning all His devoted ones to gather, in preparation for a moment of judgment, who are truly His devoted ones, and who only appear to be, while their worship is not desired. The reproof begins with a familiar message found often throughout Tanakh — that sacrifices, themselves, are not what matter, and God does not need them: “Were I to hunger, I would not tell you, for Mine is the world and all that fills it” (50:12). Sacrifices only have meaning when they come from deep feeling and from the right intentions: “Offer to God a thanksgiving sacrifice; pay your vows to the Most High. When call upon Me in times of trouble, I will rescue you, and you will honor Me” (50:14–15).

In the next section, God speaks directly to the wicked who speak His laws and His covenant but do not live by them: “But to the wicked God says: 'How dare you recite My laws or bear My covenant on your lips — you who despise discipline and toss My words behind you?” (50:16–17). These evildoers, who commit crimes and associate with the corrupt, project their own mindset onto God: Just as they align themselves with thieves and adulterers, perhaps because they admire their power or hope to benefit from them, they assume God too will align with them: “If all these you do and I hold back, You might imagined I am like you” (50:21). But God reasserts who His true worshipers are: “Those who bring Me offerings of thanksgiving honors Me” (50:23). A gift given out of gratitude is not the same as payment for a deal, or a bribe offered to someone in power. Only when the offering is given to God from a place of deep thanks does one become counted among His faithful, those bound by covenant, and merit: “I will show them the God’s salvation.” (50:23)