I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens.
Parallel Translations
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I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens.
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I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.
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I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to Psalms 50:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Micah 6:6-8 How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
- Acts 17:25 He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
- Hebrews 10:4-6 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin.
- Psalms 69:31 It will please Yahweh better than an ox, or a bull that has horns and hoofs.
- Isaiah 43:23-24 You have not brought me any of your sheep for burnt offerings, neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense. You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9 I will take no calf out thy house…
9 I will take no calf out thy house Two reasons are given in this and the succeeding verses to prove that he cannot set any value upon sacrifices. The first is, that supposing him to depend upon these, he needs not to be indebted for them to man, having all the fullness of the earth at his command; and the second, that he requires neither food nor drink as we do for the support of our infirm natures. Upon the first of these he insists in the ninth and three following verses, where he adverts to his own boundless possessions, that he may show his absolute independence of human offerings. He then points at the wide distinction betwixt himself and man, the latter being dependent for a frail subsistence upon meat and drink, while he is the self-existent One, and communicates life to all beside. There may be nothing new in the truths here laid down by the Psalmist; but, considering the strong propensity we have by nature to form our estimate of God from ourselves, and to degenerate into a carnal worship, they convey a lesson by no means unnecessary, and which contains profound wisdom, that man can never benefit God by any of his services, as we have seen in Psalm 16:2, “My goodness extendeth not unto thee.” In the second place, God says that he does not require any thing for his own us but that, as he is sufficient in his own perfection, he has consulted the good of man in all that he has enjoined. We have a passage in Isaiah to a similar effect,
“The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For all these things hath mine hand made.” — (Isaiah 66:1, 2,)
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In these words
God asserts his absolute independence; for while the world had a beginning, he himself was from eternity. From this it follows, that as he subsisted when there was nothing without him which could contribute to his fullness, he must have in himself a glorious all-sufficiency.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 50:9 I will take no bullock out of…
Psa 50:9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, [nor] he goats out of thy folds.
Ver. 9. I will take no bullock out of thy house, &c.] q.d. Keep them to thyself, I need them not; thou settest a high price upon them, and thinkest to ingratiate with me by them; I value them not, nay, I loathe them, Sordet in conspectu Iudicis quod fulget in conspectu operantis. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God," Luk 16:15. Displeasing service is double dishonour.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain But be not so vain and foolish as to…
But be not so vain and foolish as to imagine that thou dost lay any obligations upon me by thy sacrifices; or that I required them because I had need of them, or took any pleasure in them for themselves, or for my own satisfaction by them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain I will take no bullock out of thy house,....…
I will take no bullock out of thy house,.... That is, will accept of none; such sacrifices being no more agreeable to the will of God, Heb 10:5; the "bullock" is mentioned, that being a principal creature used in sacrifice; as also the following,
nor he goats out of thy folds; the reasons follow.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Bullock - Be not so foolish, as to imagine…
Bullock - Be not so foolish, as to imagine that thou dost lay any obligations upon me by thy sacrifices.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain I will take no bullock out of thy house…
I will take no bullock out of thy house - Bullocks were offered regularly in the Hebrew service and sacrifice Exo 29:11, Exo 29:36; Lev 4:4; 1Ki 18:23, 1Ki 18:33; and it is with reference to this that the language is used here. In obedience to the law it was right and proper to offer such sacrifices; and the design here is not to express disapprobation of these offerings in themselves considered. On this subject - on the external compliance with the law in this respect - God says Psa 50:8 that he had no cause to complain against them. It was only with respect to the design and the spirit with which they did this, that the language in this verse and the following verses is used. The idea which it is the purpose of these verses to suggest is, that God did not “need” such offerings; that they were not to be made “as if” he needed them; and that if he needed such he was not “dependent” on them, for all the beasts of the earth and all the fowls of the mountains were his, and could be taken for that purpose; and that if he took what was claimed to be theirs - the bullocks and the goats - he did not wrong them, for all were his, and he claimed only his own.
Nor he-goats out of thy folds - Goats were also offered in sacrifice. Lev 3:12; Lev 4:24; Lev 10:16 : Num 15:27.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9-18) Notice the fine tone of irony that pervades…
(9-18) Notice the fine tone of irony that pervades this rebuke, the best weapon against ritualistic errors.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain I will take no bullock out of thy house,…
I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. The offerings of those who offer amiss will not be accepted. God declines to receive them.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 9. I will take no bullock out of…
Ver. 9. I will take no bullock out of thy house. Foolishly they dreamed that bullocks with horns and hoofs could please the Lord, when indeed he sought for hearts and souls. Impiously they fancied that Jehovah needed these supplies, and that if they fed his altar with their fat beasts, he would be content. What he intended for their instruction, they made their confidence. They remembered not that "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Nor he goats out of thy folds. He mentions these lesser victims as if to rouse their common sense to see that the great Creator could find not satisfaction in mere animal offerings. If he needed these, he would not appeal to their scanty stalls and folds; in fact, he here refuses to take so much as one, if they brought them under the false and dishonouring view, that they were in themselves pleasing to him. This shows that the sacrifices of the law were symbolical of higher and spiritual things, and were not pleasing to God except under their typical aspect. The believing worshipper looking beyond the outward was accepted, the unspiritual who had no respect to their meaning was wasting his substance, and blaspheming the God of heaven.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 areas surrounded by walls in which sheep and goats…
folds
areas surrounded by walls in which sheep and goats are kept
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the cattle on a thousand hills
The phrase "on a thousand hills" does not represent the total number of cattle that God owns. The number is an exaggeration that emphasizes that God owns all of the cattle in the world. The verb may be supplied from the previous phrase. AT: "all the cattle in the world are mine" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization and Ellipsis)
thousand hills
"1,000 hills" (See: Numbers)
I know all the birds
Here the word "know" implies ownership. AT: "I own all the birds" (See: Idiom and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
cow
house
goat
beast
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 50:9 Unlike pagan gods, God does not need food;…
50:9 Unlike pagan gods, God does not need food; instead, he wants his people to serve him with a right heart (50:14-15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.