Psalms 51:16
For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.
BSB
ASV
For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering.
KJV
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
For thou desirest not sacrifice. This was the subject of the last Psalm. The psalmist was so illuminated as to see far beyond the symbolic ritual; his eye of faith gazed with delight upon the actual atonement. Else would I give it. He would have been glad enough to present tens of thousands of victims if these would have met the case. Indeed, anything which the Lord prescribed he would cheerfully have rendered.
Praise is better than sacrifice (Ps 50:14), and implying faith, penitence, and love, glorifies God. In true penitents the joys of pardon mingle with sorrow for sin.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
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
1 Samuel 15:22But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of…
leads to
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
To do righteousness and justice is more desirable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.
“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
and to love Him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, which is more important than all burnt offerings and…
Through
Hosea 6:6For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
leads to
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of…
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
