Psalm 50 is a psalm about divine justice. It comes in two parts, after the opening verses about the Mighty One, God the Lord who has spoken and who calls the earth to Him. The first part (verses 4 to 15) is about the Lord’s people who bring their sacrifices and burnt offerings. The Lord shows his frustration with their endeavours to please Him, saying it is futile. ‘Offer thanksgiving to God and call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you and you shall glorify Me.’

The second part is directed to those who are in wickedness and have allowed themselves to take part with thieves and adulterers and who speak evil and deceit and who slander their mother’s son. They believe God is like them, but they are rebuked and will be judged. The last two verses give a warning and an appeal: ‘Lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver; whoever gives praise glorifies Me and to him who orders his conduct right, I will show the salvation of God.’

One remarkable feature of this psalm is that both types of people being judged are imperfect. None seem to follow the actual way of the Lord. While this sounds harsh, it is true; all people in every spiritual state will have a response to the Lord that is tainted, or coming from some deluded or incomplete impression of what God requires, rather than in the way in which this psalm ends, with given praise and the intention of right conduct. We should not see this imperfection as condemning but simply as how it is with us as we strive to regenerate and grow in our understanding of the Lord. (New Jerusalem 194)

In the introduction it says that God ‘will shine forth’, ‘shall come’, and ‘not keep silent’. A fire will devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous all round Him. All this describes the eventual situation for all of us, that our inner state will be manifested and no longer be hidden from view. This takes place mainly in the spiritual world, but the process of it begins here in this life. All that is said of God here is about how the penetrating light of divine truth leaves nothing unseen. This, surely, will be quite tempestuous for all of us. (Heaven and Hell 131)

Verses 4 to 6 describe the gathering together for judgment, of all the ‘saints’, those who have chosen to worship the Lord. Spiritually, ‘saints’ mean those who live what the Word teaches, not that this makes them saints but that the Word, which is holy, is in them. (AR 586.3) ‘Sacrifice’ means to worship. (Arcana Caelestia 923)

The next nine verses (7 to 15) form a divine rebuke on those who come with sacrifices to offer to the Lord, of bulls, goats, birds. They are not rebuked for this, because all these genuinely represent what their worship should be in their hearts and lives, but it is merely external, and for that they are strongly rebuked. ‘Every beast of the forest is mine; I know all the birds of the mountains.’ The whole litany is against nominal religion where there is no repentance and regeneration in the heart. (Arcana Caelestia 10506)

This part ends with the call to offer real worship of the heart to the Lord, to confess to Him and to deeply acknowledge that He is the source of all that is. Then He will be there to deliver us in states of temptation because we have owned Him, and we glorify Him. (Arcana Caelestia 3880.7)

The next part is the judgment of the wicked, who come and talk about God’s laws, but it means nothing to them and is pure hypocrisy. Wickedness specifically means to know what God asks of us and to despise this, and yet to pretend it is everything to you. It is a far worse state for us than unintentionally doing wrong. This is why the examples given in this section – consenting with a thief, joining with adulterers, slandering your mother’s son – are so spiritually expressive of that real intended evil which finally destroys our heart and understanding. (Heaven and Hell 595)

The psalm ends with the very heart of religion in our mind, heart, and life, which is to praise and acknowledge God in all things and to determine that our life, inwardly and outwardly, is based on all that God commands us. This is essential, for otherwise we will tear ourselves in pieces. (Heaven and Hell 575)

6626. Let me recount some marvels. The Lord alone is Man, and it is owing to Him that angels, spirits, and inhabitants of the world are called men. By His own flowing into heaven He causes the whole of heaven to represent and resemble one human being; and through an influx both by way of heaven and directly from Himself into each individual there He causes all to be seen as men, and angels to be seen in a form more beautiful and dazzling than anyone can possibly describe. He does the same for people on earth by flowing into their spirits. Indeed with an angel, spirit, or man who leads a life of charity towards the neighbour and love to the Lord the smallest aspects of all that belong to his thought resemble a human being, for the reason that that charity and that love originate in the Lord, and whatever originates in the Lord resembles a human being. Those qualities are also what constitute a human being. But the contrary applies in hell, because those who are there are fired by the opposites of charity and heavenly love. They do, it is true, look like human beings when seen in their own inferior light, but in the superior light of heaven they look like horrible monsters, in some of whom scarcely anything of the human form is recognizable. The reason for this is that the inflow of the Lord by way of heaven is not accepted but is turned away, or smothered, or perverted, which therefore causes them to be seen as such monsters. And the smallest aspects of their thought, that is, their ideas, similarly possess forms such as these; for what anyone is like as a whole, so he is in part, since the whole and the part are the same in type and nature. The form in which those people are seen is also the form of the hell in which they exist. For every hell has its own form, which in the light of heaven resembles a monster; and when one sees any of those who are from it one recognizes from their form which hell they are from. I have seen them in the gates that lie open into the world of spirits, where they looked like many different kinds of monsters. Regarding the gates of hell, that they lie open into the world of spirits, see 5852.