What Does Psalm 50:13 Mean in the King James?

Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?

Psalm 50:13 · KJV

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 offering cannot feed the One who already owns every animal.

THE MEANING

This verse presents God as lacking nothing a sacrifice could supply. The bulls and goats, including their flesh and blood, already belong to him; the offering cannot feed its maker.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse undoes the belief that God depends on your sacrifice to supply what he lacks.

THE ROOT

הַאֹכַל

haʾokhal

GROWS FROM

אכל

ʾ-k-l

eat, consume

English makes “eat” sound like ordinary appetite, but this root also names consuming. The question asks whether what already belongs to God can become food he lacks; the root opens the image without making God dependent on an offering.

ALSO GROWS

maʾakhal: food, something eaten

מַאֲכָל

This branch names what is consumed, sharpening the question of whether sacrifice supplies God with food.

ʾokhlah: consuming, as in “a consuming fire”

אֹכְלָה

The same root can describe consuming action, so “eat” reaches beyond appetite while the verse denies that God needs a meal.

THE PATTERN

Worship responds to God’s sufficiency; it does not supply a need in God.

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

1 Samuel 15:22 · KJVThe verse places responsive hearing above offerings, showing that sacrifice does not substitute for living alignment.

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6 · KJVThe verse shows that what God seeks is faithful relationship, not a supply of offerings.

Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;

Acts 17:25 · KJVThe verse states directly that God needs nothing from human hands because life and all things come from him.

THE THREAD

If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

Psalm 50:12 · KJV

The line before this question answers it: even if God were hungry, he would not depend on you, because the whole world belongs to him. The animals offered as food are already his.

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