Psalms 50:9
I have no need for a bull from your stall or goats from your pens,
BSB
ASV
I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goats out of thy folds.
KJV
I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
I will take no bullock out of thy house,.... That is, will accept of none; such sacrifices being no more agreeable to the will of God, Heb 10:5; the "bullock" is mentioned, that being a principal creature used in sacrifice; as also the following, nor he goats out of thy folds; the reasons follow.
He directs to the best sacrifices of prayer and praise as those which, under the law, were preferred before all burn-offerings and sacrifices, and on which then the greatest stress was laid, and which now, under the gospel, come in the room of those carnal ordinances which were imposed until the times of reformation.
The address which follows is directed to the professed people of God. It is clearly, in the first place, meant for Israel; but is equally applicable to the visible church of God in every age. It declares the futility of external worship when spiritual faith is absent, and the mere outward ceremonial is rested in.
I will take no bullock out of thy house. Foolishly they dreamed that bullocks with horns and hoofs could please the Lord, when indeed he sought for hearts and souls. Impiously they fancied that Jehovah needed these supplies, and that if they fed his altar with their fat beasts, he would be content. What he intended for their instruction, they made their confidence. They remembered not that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Nor he goats out of thy folds.
Reproving them for such foolish and blasphemous notions, He teaches them to offer, or literally, "sacrifice," thanksgiving, and pay, or perform, their vows--that is, to bring, with the external symbolical service, the homage of the heart, and faith, penitence, and love. To this is added an invitation to seek, and a promise to afford, all needed help in trouble.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Acts 17:25Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
leads to
I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are ever before Me.
Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
This is what God the LORD says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and life to…
‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
“Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”
Through
Psalms 69:31And this will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with horns and hooves.
leads to
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.