Psalm 50 · a question people ask
God commanded sacrifices. Is he turning against them here?
Not in this psalm's words. God says, "I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me" (50:8). What he goes on to say is that he doesn't need them: "I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens" (50:9), "for the world is mine, and all that is in it" (50:12), and "Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" (50:13). Then he says what to offer: "Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High" (50:14). The psalm doesn't tell anyone to stop offering sacrifices. Psalm 40's notes set other verses side by side on God and sacrifice (Psalm 40:6; 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalm 51:16-17; Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13), and these notes don't repeat them.
The verses
“I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High.”
“Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.”
“Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the LORD’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”
“For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart.”