Psalms 69:31

Psa 69:31 [This] also shall please the LORD better than an ox [or] bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

Ver. 31. This also shall please the Lord better, &c.] True thankfulness is opimum et optimum saerificium, those calves of our lips, Hos 14:3 Heb 12:15. These calves or bullocks (as in the text) must, 1. Have horns and hoofs, be young and tender, the very best, of the best. 2. They must be slain; our thanks must proceed from a mortified mind. 3. They must be sacrificed; where is required, (1.) An altar, our praises must be tendered in the mediation of Christ. (2.) Fire, our hearts must be inflamed with zeal and ardency. (3.) Our hands must be laid on the head of the bullock; that is, we must in all humility confess our unworthiness, &c. This will surely please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

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.

32. (Psa 69:31). And it shall be better to Jehovah, this shall please him more, than ox (or) bullock horned (and) hoofed. The contrast is not between material and spiritual offerings, but between a legitimate offering of both kinds and the mere oblation of a beast, as an opus operation of intrinsic virtue, or as if God could take delight in hoofs and horns, which are therefore contemptuously specified. See above, on Psa 40:6; Psa 50:8; Psa 51:16. The last words are highly idiomatic, and scarcely susceptible of close translation, the original forms being those of active participles, horning, hoofing, i.e. having or producing horns and hoofs.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

69:31 Making a vow often included a sacrifice (20:3; 51:19; cp. 50:13-14; 51:16).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

There is no sacrifice, which God more esteemeth, than thanksgiving for his benefits.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 31. An ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.] Oxen offered in sacrifice had their horns and hoofs gilded; and the psalmist might mention these parts of the victim more particularly, because they were more conspicuous. Others think that full-grown animals are intended, those that had perfect horns, in opposition to calves or steers. I think the first the preferable sense; for the horns, &c., of consecrated animals are thus ornamented in the east to the present day.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

31. And this will please Jehovah more than a young bullock. The more effectually to strengthen himself for this exercise, David affirms that the thanksgiving which he is about to tender, will be to God a sacrifice of a sweet and an acceptable savor. There cannot be a more powerful incitement to thanksgiving than the certain conviction that this religious service is highly pleasing to God; even as the only recompense which he requires for all the benefits which he lavishes upon us is, that we honor and praise his name. This sets in a stronger light the inexcusableness of those who are so sluggish as, by their silence or forgetfulness, to suppress the praises of God. David neither omitted nor despised the outward sacrifices which the law enjoined; but he very justly preferred the spiritual service, which was the end of all the Levitical ceremonies. This subject I have treated at greater length on Psalm 50:14. By the way, the humility of David is worthy of being noticed, who, although he rose so high as to be a heavenly pattern, yet disdained not to humble himself for the common benefit of the Church, as if he had belonged to the common class of the people, that by the figures of the law he might learn the truth which has since been more clearly manifested in the gospel; namely, that the praises of God, in so far as they proceed from our mouths, are impure, until they are sanctified by Christ. But how gross and stupid is the superstition of those who would again bring into use the outward pomp of ceremonies which were abolished by the one sacrifice of Christ’s death, and think that God is truly pacified when they have wearied themselves with doing nothing! What does this amount to, but to obscure or cover, by the intervention of thick veils, this legitimate service of thanksgiving, which David had no hesitation in greatly preferring to the Mosaic ceremonies, although these were of divine appointment? By a young bullock, he means one of the most choice or select and the idea which he intends to convey is, that there was no sacrifice or victim, however valuable or precious, that he could offer, in which God would take so great delight as in thanksgiving.

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.

(31) That hath . . .—Literally, showing horns and dividing the hoofs, marking at once clean animals, and those of fit age for sacrifice.

(31, 32) The pre-eminence of praise above sacrifice is not infrequent in the Psalms. (Comp. Psa_50:14.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

31. And it shall please Jehovah better than an ox,

(Or) a bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

The Massoretic accentuation makes one clause of the verse, reading it better than an ox-bullock: but the division of the clauses adopted by R.V. is preferable. The epithets are not merely ornamental: the horns shew that the animal is of full age; the hoofs allude to the definition of ‘clean’ animals in Lev_11:3 ff. But spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving are more acceptable than the most perfect animal victim. Cp. Psalms 50, 51.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This also shall please the Lord,.... That is, this song of praise and thanksgiving. The Targum has it,

"my prayers;''

as if it retorted to Psa 69:29; but what is expressed in Psa 69:30 seems to be the proper antecedent to this, and which is a sacrifice; see Psa 50:14; and more acceptable to God than any of the legal sacrifices, even when they were in force; and much more, now they are abrogated; and especially as offered up by the Messiah himself, all whose offerings are well pleasing to God; particularly the offering up of himself, which was for a sweet smelling savour to him, and in virtue of which all spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise become acceptable unto God;

better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs; that is, than the best of legal sacrifices; as an ox or bullock was, whose horns and hoofs were grown; one of three years old, as Jarchi and Kimchi observe: the words may be literally rendered, "than an ox, than a bullock, than horns, than hoofs"; not only better than an ox or a bullock, but than any creature that has horns and hoofs; that is, than the lawful sacrifice of any animal whatever, as Junius renders and explains it.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

This also shall please the Lord - This will be more acceptable to the Lord.

Better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs - Better than a burnt sacrifice - horns, and hoofs, and all. The original here is, “horning and hoofing;” that is, an ox whose horns were fully grown, and whose hoofs were compact and solid; a perfect animal in its kind, offered whole on the altar. The psalmist does not say that such an offering would “not” be acceptable to the Lord, but that the offering of the heart - the sacrifice of praise - would be “more” acceptable than any such offering in itself considered. This sentiment accords with the common language of the Old Testament. See the notes at Psa 40:6-8. Compare Psa 51:16-17; 1Sa 15:22.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This sincere and hearty sacrifice of praise is and shall be more grateful to God than the most glorious legal sacrifices, for so such moral services ever were, 1Sa 15:22; Hos 6:6, and such sacrifices shall be accepted when those legal ones shall be abolished.

That hath horns and hoofs: this is added as a description and commendation of the sacrifice, or bullock, which he supposeth to be of the best sort, both tender and mature, as it is when the horns bud forth, and the hoofs grow hard.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 31. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs. No sacrifice is so acceptable to God, who is a Spirit, as that which is spiritual. He accepted bullocks under a dim and symbolical dispensation; but in such offerings, in themselves considered, he had no pleasure. "Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?" Here he puts dishonour upon mere outward offerings by speaking of the horns and hoofs, the offal of the victim. The opus operatum, which our ritualists think so much of, the Lord puffs at. The horning and hoofing are nothing to him, though to Jewish ritualists these were great points, and matters for critical examination; our modern rabbis are just as precise as to the mingling of water with their wine, the baking of their wafers, the cut of their vestments, and the performance of genuflections towards the right quarter of the compass. O fools, and slow of heart to perceive all that the Lord has declared. "Offer unto God thanksgiving" is the everlasting rubric of the true directory of worship. The depths of grief into which the suppliant had been plunged gave him all the richer an experience of divine power and grace in his salvation, and so qualified him to sing more sweetly "the song of loves." Such music is ever most acceptable to the infinite Jehovah.

None.

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs; i.e. that is fit for legal sacrifice of full age, and clean.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This - This hearty sacrifice of praise, is more grateful to God, than the most glorious legal sacrifices. Hath horns - That is both tender and mature, as it is when the horns bud forth, and the hoofs grow hard.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.