What Does Psalm 51:16 Mean?
For you do not delight in the slaughtered offering, else I would give it; the rising offering you do not receive.
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
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.THE KEY
The offering that rises from the altar cannot rise in place of the truth the heart has to bring.
THE MEANING
An outward offering cannot stand in for an honest, broken heart. This verse says God takes no delight in the offering itself; the next line names a broken spirit and a contrite heart as what God does not despise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a costly religious act can buy God’s delight or cover what the heart has not faced.
THE ROOT
זֶבַח
zevaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter, especially as a sacrifice.
“slaughtered offering” in this verse is zevaḥ. “Sacrifice” can sound like a religious gift; the Hebrew keeps the act of slaughter visible. The verse names that costly act plainly, then says it does not by itself give God delight.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
This verb makes clear that the sacrifice is an act of killing, not merely a gift being handed over.
zōvēaḥ: One who slaughters or offers a sacrifice.
זֹבֵחַ
The same root names both the act and the person carrying it out, keeping the human action in view.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up or ascend.
“rising offering” in this verse is ʿōlāh. The Hebrew name for a burnt offering carries the sense of “that which goes up.” Even the offering that rises on the altar is not, by itself, what God desires.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb shares the root and makes the offering’s upward movement audible in its name.
ʿaliyyāh: An ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This noun carries the same upward motion, showing that the offering’s name belongs to a wider family of ascent.
THE PATTERN
An outward offering cannot substitute for the inward response God desires.
You do not delight in slaughtered offering or gift. You bore through my ears. The rising offering and the offering for falling short you do not ask.For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Saying above, Slain offerings and offering, whole burnings and offerings for falling short, you did not desire, nor did you delight in them, which are brought near according to the instruction.THE THREAD
The slaughtered offerings of God are a broken breath; a broken and crushed heart, O God, you do not despise.“Sacrifices” here comes from the same Hebrew root as “sacrifice” in the verse above. The next line turns the focus from the slaughtered offering to the broken spirit and contrite heart God does not despise.
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