What Does Psalm 50:9 Mean?
I take no bull from your house, nor male goats from your folds.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.THE KEY
God does not depend on what you keep enclosed; even the animals in your folds already belong to him.
THE MEANING
You do not keep God whole by giving up what you own. The verse presents God as free from dependence on the livestock held within your household and folds. The lines that follow explain why: every creature is already his.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your possessions supply something God lacks or keep divine favor alive.
THE ROOT
מִכְלְאֹתֶיךָ
mikhle'otekha
GROWS FROM
כלא
To confine, shut in, or hold back.
The Hebrew word for “folds” belongs to a family built around enclosing and holding in; that family also includes a word for prison. The verse names animals held within your enclosure and says God will not take them from there, while the next line points to the deeper reason: they are already his.
ALSO GROWS
kālāʾ: To shut in, restrain, or withhold.
כָּלָא
This verb makes the sense of containment in “folds” visible: the livestock is kept within a boundary.
keleʾ: Prison.
כֶּלֶא
This related noun shows the root’s connection to confinement, sharpening the image of animals held inside an enclosure.
אֶקַּח
ʾeqqaḥ from lāqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
To take, receive, or acquire.
The verb rendered “take” shares its root with a Hebrew word for teaching or instruction, something received. That link echoes the Psalm’s opening call, “Hear, O my people, and I will speak” (Psalm 50:7), shifting attention toward instruction received.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take or receive.
לָקַח
This is the verb used here: God says he will not take livestock from your household.
leqaḥ: Teaching or instruction.
לֶקַח
This related word connects the root of taking with something received through hearing.
THE PATTERN
God’s fullness does not depend on offerings drawn from what already belongs to him.
If I hungered, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and what fills it.God, who made the world and all that is within it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not settle in handmade temples. Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all life and breath and all things.For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.THE THREAD
My instruction drips as the rain, and my saying trickles as the dew; as small rain on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass.The Hebrew verb for “take” here and the word translated “doctrine” there share the root לקח (lāqaḥ), which carries the senses of taking and receiving. Deuteronomy pictures teaching arriving like rain, adding the image of instruction received to Psalm 50’s refusal to take livestock from your enclosure.
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