Thou sellest thy people for nought, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
Parallel translations
- WEB You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale.
- BSB You sell Your people for nothing; no profit do You gain from their sale.
- NKJV You sell Your people for next to nothing, And are not enriched by selling them.
- NASB You sell Your people cheaply, And have not profited by their sale.
- NLT You sold your precious people for a pittance, making nothing on the sale.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God has, as it were, sold His people for nothing, gaining no profit from the sale. It matters because it laments how cheaply God's people seem to have been given over to suffering.
Overview
The vivid image of selling at no price expresses the people's sense of being abandoned without cause or benefit. The complaint is bold yet reverent, addressed to the God who owns them. It heightens the longing for redemption, the very thing God will accomplish at infinite cost through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Jer 15:13Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.
- Deut 32:30How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?
- Isa 52:3–4For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
- Judg 3:8Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushanrishathaim king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chushanrishathaim eight years.
- Judg 2:14And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.
- Isa 50:1Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
- Rev 18:13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
- Neh 5:8–12And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 44:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.