Big Idea: One of the great dissimilarities between humanity and God is that we are needy people, but God needs nothing.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 50 is a perfect example of the kind of liturgical piece that might be recited in the seventh year when the Torah was read at the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 31:9–13).1Yet when the Book of the Covenant was discovered in the temple during Josiah’s reign (622–609 BC), it seems that this practice had not been observed for some time (2 Kings 23:1–3). In form-critical mode, Wilson considers the psalm a covenant lawsuit, in which Yahweh presents a legal indictment against Israel, the kind that one would expect in a court of law (e.g., Hosea 4:1).2As a rule this form is identified by the term “dispute” (rib), which does not appear in this psalm. F…