Psalms 50:16

THE WICKED ARE THEN JUDGED

Just as Peter said, "Judgment began at the House of God; but the sinner and the ungodly came next. The following verses are an account of the judgment of the wicked, not of Israel, but of the wicked.

"But unto the wicked God saith,

What hast thou to do to declare my statutes,

And that thou hast taken thy covenant in thy mouth,

Seeing that thou hatest instruction,

And castest my words behind thee?

When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him.

And thou hast been partakers with adulterers.

Thou givest thy mouth to evil,

And thy tongue frameth deceit.

Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother;

Thou slanderest thine own mother's son.

These things hast thou done, and I kept silence;

Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.

But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes."

"Unto the wicked, God saith" (Psalms 50:16). The first thing to observe here is that God is definitely not judging "his people," but "the wicked." Oh yes, we are aware that many of the writers have a field day here tongue-lashing their favorite whipping-boy, the "hypocrite'; but there's not a word here about `hypocrites.' The "wicked" here is definitely not a designation of hypocritical Israelites; but as DeHoff said, these words, "Refer to people who had no intention of keeping God's word but sought to tread it under foot."[16]

"Declare my statutes ... take my covenant in thy mouth" (Psalms 50:16). Oh yes, these wicked people did a lot of talking about God's word and about his covenant; but there is no indication here that they ever had any such thing "in their hearts." Their `mouth' does not qualify them as citizens of God's kingdom. Did not the Devil himself take God's word in his mouth, etc., when he deceived Eve?

If we may state a purely personal opinion here, it is that the greatest enemies of God on earth today, are precisely those who are doing an incredible amount of writing about God's word, with one and only one design, namely, that of destroying all confidence in it as God's word. Thus, talking (or writing) about the word of God, and declaiming about `his covenant' is the `stock in trade' of the most wicked people of our generation.

We may further identify the "wicked" of this passage.

"Thou hatest instruction ... castest my words behind thee" (Psalms 50:17). These terms have no application to hypocrites but refer to arrogant sinners who hate God's word and belittle and deny it continually, casting it behind them as worthless.

Psalms 50:18-20 enumerate a number of sins including: thievery, adultery, evil speech, deceit and slander - still not a word about hypocrites. Hypocrites these men are not; they are "the wicked" of Psalms 50:16.

The community of critics who love to apply this passage to "hypocrites" are aware that no mention whatever of them is in the passage and that the powerful identification that stands at the head of it, "the wicked," absolutely denies any such limited application. Some have even taken the critic's last resort of claiming that the words do not belong in the Bible. "`To the wicked' is probably a gloss."[17] But the words are not a gloss; they belong in the text as all trustworthy versions demonstrate.

This chapter concludes with a word to both classes who shall be featured in the Judgment of the Last Day, namely the good and the bad, the wheat and the chaff, the wise and the foolish, those on the right and those on the left, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, etc. Thus this view of the Eternal Judgment harmonizes with the view throughout the Bible, namely, that there are two classes, and only two classes, of God's human children, the saved and the lost. Both are addressed in the final two verses.