For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering.
Parallel translations
- WEB For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering.
- KJV For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
- BSB For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.
- NASB For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offering.
- NLT You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering.
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
David recognizes that God does not delight in mere sacrifice; ritual alone cannot atone for his sin. God looks for something deeper.
Overview
David understands that offering animals could not, by itself, satisfy God or cover his deliberate sin, for sacrifices were never meant to substitute for a repentant heart. This does not abolish the sacrificial system but exposes its limit when the heart is wrong. It points beyond all offerings to the contrite heart God desires and, ultimately, to Christ's perfect sacrifice.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Hos 6:6For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
- Ps 40:6Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.
- Heb 10:5–6Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire, but you prepared a body for me.
- 1 Sam 15:22Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
- Ps 51:6Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
- Isa 1:11–15“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says Yahweh. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed animals. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.
- Prov 21:27The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more, when he brings it with a wicked mind!
- Prov 15:8The sacrifice made by the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
- Jer 7:22–23For I didn’t speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
- Amos 5:21–23I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies.
- Ps 50:8I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.
- Num 15:30–31“‘But the soul who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, the same blasphemes Yahweh. That soul shall be cut off from among his people.
- Exod 21:14If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
- Jer 7:27“You shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you.
- Deut 22:22If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.
- Num 35:31“‘Moreover you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death.
- Num 15:27“‘If one person sins unwittingly, then he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering.
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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 51:16 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
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