Psalm 51:16, 17 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
A psalm of penitence Psalm 51 is again For the director of music but, for the first time in this second book, A psalm of David. It was written famously When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. Most of the psalm is taken up with confession and prayers for forgiveness but towards the end David asks God to restore to him the joy of salvation and a willing spirit to sustain him (12) and promises in future to teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you (13). At the end of the psalm (18, 19) he envisages great and widespread blessing now that the King himself is restored. Before that, in verses 16 and 17, come striking words, full of insight. He begins You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. One wonders \t first if this can really be David whose ambition was to build a Temple where thousands upon thousands of sacrifices would be made. However, his point is not that sacrifices are no longer to be made but that they, in and of themselves, count for nothing. David understood what the writer to the Hebrews did when (in 10:14) he wrote that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. No, David saw, even in those days, that (17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Now that there is no more sacrifice because Christ has died, New Testament believers should see even more clearly than David that our concern must be to have broken spirits, broken and contrite hearts. The world may despise such things but not God our Father.
A psalm of penitence Psalm 51 is again For the director of music but, for the first time in this second book, A psalm of David. It was written famously When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. Most of the psalm is taken up with confession and prayers for forgiveness but towards the end David asks God to restore to him the joy of salvation and a willing spirit to sustain him (12) and promises in future to teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you (13). At the end of the psalm (18, 19) he envisages great and widespread blessing now that the King himself is restored. Before that, in verses 16 and 17, come striking words, full of insight. He begins You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. One wonders \t first if this can really be David whose ambition was to build a Temple where thousands upon thousands of sacrifices would be made. However, his point is not that sacrifices are no longer to be made but that they, in and of themselves, count for nothing. David understood what the writer to the Hebrews did when (in 10:14) he wrote that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. No, David saw, even in those days, that (17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Now that there is no more sacrifice because Christ has died, New Testament believers should see even more clearly than David that our concern must be to have broken spirits, broken and contrite hearts. The world may despise such things but not God our Father.
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