What is the meaning of Psalm 50:12?

If I were hungry,

• This opening phrase is obviously hypothetical; God, being eternal Spirit, never experiences physical hunger (Isaiah 40:28; Psalm 121:4).

• By speaking as though hunger were possible, He draws attention to His utter self-sufficiency.

• Acts 17:24-25 echoes the thought: “He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything.”

• The point is not that God might lack, but that even if He did, the solution would never depend on human provision.

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I would not tell you,

• God does not look to people to meet any imagined need.

• This rebukes a mindset that assumes our sacrifices somehow sustain Him (Psalm 50:8-9, the immediate context).

• Job 35:7 asks, “If you are righteous, what do you give Him?”—highlighting that human worship adds nothing to God’s essence.

• Genesis 22:8, where Abraham tells Isaac “God Himself will provide,” reminds us that the flow of provision is always downward, from Creator to creature.

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for the world is Mine,

• Ownership is the core issue. Everything already belongs to God (Psalm 24:1; Exodus 19:5).

• Because He holds the title deed to creation, He cannot be enriched by any gift we place on the altar.

• Haggai 2:8 drives the point home: “The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine.”

• Recognizing His ownership fosters gratitude rather than presumption.

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and the fullness thereof

• “Fullness” gathers up every resource, every creature, every blessing that fills the globe (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalm 104:24).

• 1 Corinthians 10:26 quotes this Psalm to affirm that every provision on our tables comes from the Lord’s bounty.

• When we give, we merely return what He first placed in our hands (1 Chronicles 29:14).

• The phrase reassures us that God’s capacity to supply far exceeds any sacrifice we might offer.

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summary

Psalm 50:12 dismantles the idea that God depends on human gifts. Even in a hypothetical scenario where He faced lack, He would neither experience need nor look to us, because He already owns the entire world and all it contains. Our offerings, therefore, are not a means of sustaining God but an expression of gratitude to the One who sustains us.