The End of Sacrifices
For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. Psalm 51:16 NASB
Do not delight – Does David declare the end of sacrifices? Does he state that God is not interested in slaughtered animals on altars? If we read this verse as it is translated, we might think so. But a few corrections are in order.
First, the verb, “to take delight in” (haphets) is in Qal imperfect. The ESV translates this as “you will not take delight” rather than “you do not take delight.” What’s the difference? If we translate as the NASB it appears that God never took delight in the sacrifices. Men were simply confused, believing that sacrifices pleased God, but now David corrects that mistake. God does not take delight in sacrifices. The ESV, however, suggests something else. It suggests that from David’s perspective, God will not take delight in any sacrifice David might bring. Past sacrifices done according to the commands of Torah were a delight to YHVH, but now, in these circumstances, YHVH will not look favorably on a sacrifice that David might bring. The ESV translation does not overturn the sacrificial system. It simply suggests that the sacrificial system will not help David in this case.
The difference is important. David uses the strong negative, lo, in conjunction with this verb. If David meant that God never delighted in sacrifice, then his strong statement would overturn virtually all of Leviticus. The NASB caters to this replacement of the sacrifices but choosing to translate the verb as an absolute statement rather than a conditional and contextual one. The ESV regards David’s statement as a declaration of David’s personal circumstances, not an absolute theological fact. God will not delight in David’s sacrifice but He will delight in sacrifices brought by others. The problem is not sacrifice. The problem is David.
The translation of this verse depends on the context of the next verse and on the author’s personal situation. David is not writing theology. He is composing a poem of personal confession. If we ever lose sight of this, we will draw many mistaken conclusions, just as we could have drawn from that infamous statement, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” Context, context, context: the most important exegetical tool is the situation of the author. In this case, David deserves death. And dead men’s sacrifices don’t mean a thing. A sacrifice is intended to remove guilt, to atone, but atonement for adultery and murder requires the death of the perpetrator. There is no sacrifice for such crimes. Leviticus is of no avail. David knows this. No burnt offering will do the job now. He has been found guilty and the sentence has been passed. It is too late for a sacrifice for unintentional sin! Nothing David says terminates the sacrifices. To think so is to violate all of the history of God and Israel. What David says is that the sacrifices won’t work for him. Something else is needed, as we shall see.
Topical Index: sacrifice, delight, replacement, haphets, Psalm 51:16
If David were alive today, and presumably a believer in Yeshua, would he have penned this verse differently? What might he have expressed? Perhaps I am preempting Skip’s “Something else is needed as we shall see”
Am I right in understanding that the penalty for transgression of any of the Ten was death, not sacrifice? Death was the penalty for idolatry and any slander of YHVH, Sabbath-breaking, parent-disloyalty, deliberate lying under oath, say, murder, adultery, and, well, we always have trouble with #10, but David most certainly had broken that one, too! There were extenuating circumstances for the UNINTENTIONAL transgression of them, but David had clearly broken the majority of them in his little jaunt with Bathsheba. There was no sacrifice for what he did. Under the Law of his land, which was a true theocracy, the penalty WAS death! Even for a king!
I think people often don’t realize that the Ten have to do with fundamental, foundational fractures of relationship; fractures that create breaks in the love bond between God, ourselves and others that RESULT in our death. Not death later; death now! We cannot survive any break of love at all on our own; fracture separates us from the precious present to such a profound degree that our heart refuses to beat, and our lungs freeze and the panic drives us over the cliff. Under the system of the curses, however, the grace that the curses afford us stand in the gap for us, and enable us to continue to live; just not as well, of course. We have skated on grace for so long, and been so ignorant and ungrateful! The true understanding of what those fundamental Ten are trying to keep us in has long been lost on this planet. If we understood that we have to have relationship in those ways, and at that level, to live; to stay in the love that keeps us alive, we would also understand, I think, everything else in that Good Book. We do not recognize Love when we read the Ten, and so we likewise do not recognize the essential nature of our need for that love to take our next breath. Fracture of relationship is a KILLER of the first magnitude! The ONLY reason we do not instantly fall over dead when any fundamental fracture occurs is because of grace already; grace extended to ALL of us, all the time. Grace is not for the privileged few that have bought in: grace makes it possible for the transgressors of the Law, in any degree, to draw their next breath (albeit without love), but I think we have stumbled around in the cursed dark that grace affords us for so long we thumb our nose at that precious light switch that we were personally handed – so that we could make no mistake – at Sinai. We listen to the lies that assure us that the only reason we are dying is BECAUSE we got handed them, and we will quit dying (somehow!) as soon as we can force heaven to take them back! Hurray for Jesus Who got His Daddy to repent for doing such a terrible thing to us! We never needed the Ten in the first place! Oops! Heaven goofed big time! Good thing Jesus did something about that! I think if it weren’t for the grace that we are already drawing breath because of, we would not be in such a position to impugn heaven to such a degree, but it is grace that we grab to excuse our obligation to that Law of Life, Love and Liberty! Are we mad? (Ummm) At least David knew!
David knew that he needed Someone to personally intervene with heaven on his behalf; he needed a heavenly priest to directly take up his case before the real Throne of the land or else he was going to fry. He turned to heaven directly, for he knew that there was no hope for him on earth. If this fracture did not get set in that Emergency Room, he was not going to be able to live with himself or those around him; certainly not with YHVH. David was staring at the end of his life as he knew it. All he held dear, that made his life worth living, was gone. He needed mercy, and not post cross, either! But God! In His presentation of Himself to Moses in the cleft of the rock, He had declared Himself as merciful, and David, as a king in a position to extend mercy to those who were at his, understood what he now needed. If only we would understand, like David, that transgression of the Law is WHY we are fractured from the love we are so desperate for, we would fall on our knees before the Throne, like he did, and cry for that mercy; that deliverance from that fracture, that he did. But, that would also take the understanding that he had of that Law as the vital pre-requisite for that mercy. We cannot obtain mercy that we do not know we need! May I exclaim with David, every day, “Oh! How I love Thy Law!”
How I relate to today’s word study: What David is experiencing and has written about here seems to be at a gut level that is deep, personal, and emotional, and it is occurring as an in-his-head “war.” His sin is more horrible to him than a mere intellectual-level, fanciful thought that “grace and a sacrifice will cover me, now I’d better move on.” He is wrestling with the gritty street-level reality of his personal sin and its impact on his relationship with God, the impacts on his own kingdom, on himself, and on his relationships with others. He is experiencing it. David was a very sensitive, feeling person. At such times, life is unbearable. Thank you for this study, Skip.