Psalm 50

[Justin Kissel]

In the Jordanville Prayer book, for the translation of Ps. 50, we see something like this:

"Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mayest be justified in Thy words, and prevail when Thou art judged." - (Ps. 50)

I must admit that I have never understood the last part. This makes judgment day sound like we and God are judging each other, or that it will be some type of contest. What exactly is this talking about? Is it just implying that our works will be compared with the Father's perfection, as that is to be our goal? In what way can we say that the Father "is judged"?

Other translations seem to make things clearer and be saying something different, like the KJV:

"Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest."

Is this because of a difference between the LXX and the Hebrew MSS? This does perhaps seem to be the case from the LXX translation I looked at, but it still wouldn't provide a reason for the change, or what the new language meant theologically.

[George Australia]

What exactly is this talking about? Is it just implying that our works will be compared with the Father's perfection, as that is to be our goal? In what way can we say that the Father "is judged"?

I may be wrong, but I always thought that this verse in the psalm meant that God's judgements are just and true. To paraphrase the verse to explain what I mean, I would say:

"I confess that I have sinned against You Lord, and no one can accuse You of speaking falsely in the judgements You pronounce("that Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings"), and by my confession of sin, I admit that no one may consider You to be an unjust God because of Your judgement against me ("and that Thou mightest prevail when Thou art judged"). My condemnation as a sinner is just, nevertheless, have mercy on me."

[Justin Kissel]

Well that certainly makes sense

[Apologist]

Hmmm... I always thought that it talks about the idiots that try to judge God!

[Mary Kissel]

George, thankyou for explaining this verse to Justin, I've been meaning to ask him what he thought of that same part of that verse. I always found it very confusing too but never knew how to actually ask it or anything like that Your explanation makes sense to me, so thankyou :mrgreen:

[Ephraem]

A few months ago I asked one of my priests about this. The explanation he gave me, as he understood it--and as I remember his answer, was that the expression "when Thou art judged" in some sense does mean exactly what it says.

In the end each one of us will have our eyes opened wide to Truth, and the thing we will see (and know objectively and thereby judge in our understanding--but not, of course, to judge by pronouncing anything regarding God, which is impossible) is that the judgment of Christ is indeed just.

[Ephraem]

Blessed Augustine, in his commentary on the Psalms, discusses the aspect of the Lord "prevailing" or "conquering" when "Thou art judged." The Lord, while upon the Earth was judged by sinners, but His conquering stems from the fact that in Him there was nothing that was worthy of death or condemnation, no sin at all. The unjust judging is turned back on itself by a state of spiritual perfection.

A spiritual ju-jitsu, I suppose.