What Does Isaiah 1:11 Mean in the King James?
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The offerings are called things that rise, yet the LORD says their abundance has left him sated and does not stir desire.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks into the present whenever religious performance is treated as something that can compel divine delight. The LORD names the sacrifices in detail, then says their abundance has reached satiety and their blood is not desired. Their presence alone does not make them welcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that increasing the quantity of religious offerings automatically secures God’s delight.
THE ROOT
שָׂבַעְתִּי
śāvaʿtî
GROWS FROM
שבע
To be sated or satisfied.
“full” in this verse is śāvaʿtî. The LORD’s words carry the sense “I am sated,” making the abundance itself part of the statement: more offerings do not produce more desire. The verse places satiety beside explicit refusal, so fullness here is not the same as welcome.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: sated, satisfied
שָׂבֵעַ
This adjective shares the verse’s root and makes the force of “I am full” concrete: satiety has been reached.
śōvaʿ: satiety, fullness
שֹׂבַע
This noun names the state behind the LORD’s declaration and underscores that the offerings have become too much, not too little.
עֹלוֹת
ʿōlōt
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up or ascend.
The burnt offerings are named with a word from the root for going up: they are, literally, offerings that rise. That upward movement sits against the verse’s blunt answer, the rising offerings do not create desire in the one receiving them.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb is the root’s basic movement and reveals the upward sense held within “burnt offerings.”
maʿălāh: ascent, step, degree
מַעֲלָה
This related noun also carries the idea of upward movement, showing how the root extends from an offering that rises to an ascent or step.
זִבְחֵיכֶם
zivḥêkhem
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter for sacrifice; a sacrificial offering.
“sacrifices” in this verse is zivḥêkhem. The word names actual sacrificial offerings, not religious effort in the abstract. Its branches include both the act of sacrifice and the altar, keeping the verse’s challenge grounded in the ritual it names.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: to slaughter, sacrifice
זָבַח
This verb names the act carried out in each sacrifice and gives the verse’s offerings their concrete force.
mizbēaḥ: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
This related word names the place of sacrifice, connecting the offerings in the verse to the altar where they are presented.
THE PATTERN
The presence and abundance of offerings do not by themselves make them objects of divine desire.
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.THE THREAD
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.The Hebrew terms זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice) and עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, burnt offering) connect this verse to Isaiah’s language. Psalm 51:16 sets those same offerings beside the absence of desire, making Isaiah’s words “I am full” part of a recurring scriptural pattern.
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