Ps. 50. 12 (covenant, hunger and speech)

“If I were hungry / I would not / speak to you – for the world / and its fullness / is mine.” This is the first mention in the psalm of what a possible understanding of the nature of sacrifice is beyond simply an ‘adding to’ of God’s possessions. Here, it understood as a ‘feeding’ of God, of satiating his hunger. This idea of ‘feeding God’ is continued into the next verse. Gods statement appears at first to be rather straightforward—God has no need of man’s small ownership of animals for his hunger because he could choose from his own ‘herd’ – the entire world. But there is a depth to these words beyond this statement of the obvious. First, we notice that the central motif of the opening of the psalm was on God’s speaking; he speaks, summons, ‘is not silent’, summons again, speaks, and then speaks again. For God to claim “he would not speak” if he were hungry is therefore significant precisely because he has been very vocal to this point and is, in fact, currently ‘speaking’. I think what we see here is the fact that God’s speaking itself does not originate from a lack on his part, a ‘hunger’ for something from man that man could somehow fill. This is clearly seen in the act sacrifice: no animal that man provides is not simultaneously owned by God already (and infinitely more). This is the point, God’s instruction and the very act of entering into covenant with his people cannot be understood in the false manner of sacrifice, as an ‘adding’ to God of something he did not already possess. Indeed, in some mysterious manner, God’s act of speaking (and the covenant itself) somehow mirrors or reflects the proper nature of sacrifice itself—not as a providing for God, as originating within a prior deprivation on God’s part that he has come to fulfill. As we said before, God is a flame that needs no fuel. The point bears repeating—that the act of covenant sacrifice and the act of God’s speaking, in the covenantal context, bear a mysterious resemblance by the fact that neither of them originate from a prior lack on God’s part. In covenant sacrifice one is not providing anything to God. When God speaks in covenant, he does not speak because he is ‘searching’ for something.