John Calvin Commentary Psalms 50:17

"Seeing thou hatest instruction, And castest my words behind thee?" — Psalms 50:17 (ASV)

Also you hate correction. Here hypocrites are challenged with treacherous duplicity in denying, by their life and their works, that godliness which they have professed with their words. He proves their contempt of God from their lack of reverential deference to his Word; subjection to the Word of God, and cordial submission to his precepts and instructions, being the surest test of religious principle.

One way in which hypocrisy usually displays itself is by the ingenious excuses it invents for evading the duty of obedience. The Psalmist points to this as the mainspring of their ungodliness: they had cast the Word of God behind their back. He also insinuates that the principle from which all true worship flows is the obedience of faith.

He also refers to the cause of their perversity, which lies in the unwillingness of their corrupt heart to submit to the yoke of God. They have no hesitation in granting that whatever proceeds from the mouth of God is both true and right. Indeed, they are willing to concede this honor to his Word. However, insofar as it proposes to regulate their conduct and restrain their sinful affections, they dislike and detest it.

Our corruption, making us unwilling to receive correction, exasperates us against the Word of God. Nor can we ever listen to it with true teachableness and meekness of mind, until we have been brought to give ourselves up to be ruled and disciplined by its precepts. The Psalmist next proceeds to specify some of those works of ungodliness, informing us that hypocrites, who were addicted to theft and adultery, mixed up and polluted the holy name of God with their wickedness.

By referring only to some kinds of vices, he intimates, in general, that those who have despised correction and hardened themselves against instruction are prepared to launch into every excess which corrupt desire or evil example may suggest. He makes mention of:

1. thefts;
2. adulteries; and
3. calumnies or false reproaches.

Most interpreters render תרף, tirets, to run, although others derive it from רצה, ratsah, rendering it to consent. Either translation agrees sufficiently with the scope of the Psalmist, and the preference may be left to the reader’s own choice. The charge here brought against hypocrites, that they put forth their mouth to evil, may include not merely slander, but all the different kinds of speaking which injure their neighbors, for it immediately follows, my tongue frameth deceit. It is well known in what a variety of ways the lying and deceitful tongue may inflict injury and pain.

When it is added, You sit, etc., the allusion may be to one who sits for the passing of a formal judgment; as if it had been said, You defame your brethren under pretext of issuing a just sentence. Or there may be a reference to petty calumny; such as men maliciously indulge in, and in which they pass their time as they sit at ease in their houses.

It seems more probable, however, that he refers to the higher crime of accusing the innocent and righteous in open court, and bringing false charges against them. Brethren, and the children of their mother, are mentioned, to express more emphatically the cruelty of their calumnies, when they are represented as violating the ties of nature, and not even sparing the nearest relations.